Burning question

Sir,

While always enjoying reading in Motor Sport about the ‘good old days’, I was a little confused after reading Mike Doodson’s otherwise excellent piece on the trials and tribulations of the early BMW/Brabham partnership. As a true anorak I have to point out an error that will not detract from the content of the article, but for the true enthusiast it is naturally a thing that can’t be overlooked.

In 1982 Piquet won the Canadian GP after not qualifying at the Detroit GP the week before. That is true. But he would not have been able to burn his feet at that race. Why? Simply because there was no room for a cooler in the nose of the BT50! The situation with the burning came at the Canadian GP in 1984 which Piquet won in the BT53, which at that race had a cooler stuck inside the nose. Look at page 147 in Autocourse from that year and you’ll see Piquet displaying a naked right foot with Lauda and Prost watching.

Flemming Hansen, Værløse, Denmark