Been there, executed that. Ray Mallock had received the Method Atlantic championship in Britain in 1979 when the class was reintroduced to the nation after a two-year hiatus. He’d then competed within the Aurora British Method 1 Championship in 1980 on the wheel of Surtees – earlier than an enormous shunt at Thruxton attributable to a automotive failure – and Wolf equipment. However for 1981, there was good purpose to return to Atlantic to try to win a second crown.
“There was this factor that Bernie Ecclestone [then the owner of the Brabham F1 team and head of the FOCA teams group] was supporting,” remembers Mallock. “The prize for that was an F1 check drive…”
On the wheel of the Ralt RT4, the brand new ground-effect model of the all-conquering Method 3 RT3, Mallock dominated the championship towards variable opposition. Little marvel, as a result of he’d already proved himself on the worldwide stage – together with a giantkilling second place within the 1977 Silverstone spherical of the European Method 2 Championship behind Rene Arnoux.
“I received the championship and known as Bernie on the finish of the 12 months,” continues Mallock, “and he mentioned, ‘Yeah, we’ve obtained fairly a number of exams arising, and we’ll get you within the automotive’. I mentioned, ‘Properly, subsequent week I’m because of go off to do the Asia-Pacific championship – three rounds in Australia, Macau and Malaysia – however I can come again in between and check. And Bernie mentioned, ‘No, you don’t want to return again, simply get your races out of the way in which and provides me a name as quickly as you’re again.’”
Because the British champion, Mallock had been invited out to these flyaway races. He claimed a brake-troubled seventh within the Australian GP at Calder, through which Alan Jones drove his final single-seater race earlier than his first retirement from the cockpit however exited late on when his engine misplaced energy. Jacques Laffite additionally took half, naturally with a Gitanes-liveried RT4.
Mallock then went on to assert third in a extremely attritional Macau GP, maintaining issues constant however struggling for tempo towards these on faster tyres. And the journey completed with retirement from the Selangor GP with a blown engine. It was all a far cry from cruising to victory by 20 seconds at Mallory Park. After he obtained house, he obtained again on the blower to Bernie…
Mallock believed he would get his maiden F1 check shot after coming back from the Asia-Pacific championship, but it surely by no means occurred
Picture by: Jeff Bloxham
Mallock remembers: “And the reply was, ‘Oh, it’s a disgrace, there was a check at Paul Ricard final week which might have been excellent. Give me a name in a few weeks and this can work out.’ So I did that, and there was nothing then happening. By the point it obtained to Christmas, I known as Bernie and he mentioned, ‘Properly, you made your determination that you simply needed to go and do your Method Atlantic races, so that you’ve misplaced your likelihood to do your F1 check drive.’
“In precise truth it most likely did me a favour, as a result of that timescale coincided with the approaching of Group C, and Aston Martin introduced that they had been coming in with the Nimrod. I knew lots of people nonetheless at Astons, so I used to be capable of get myself concerned with the Nimrod programme.
“I used to be at all times too tall for F1. I used to be driving fairly effectively I feel, by my reckoning, I had that driving ambition to be in F1, however Group C ended up being an excellent path for me. I cherished Le Mans, I cherished these automobiles, and it actually opened up the chance for RML.”
“Thank heavens we didn’t get drawn into it, as a result of it will haven’t ended effectively I don’t assume. It was an actual curiosity, and it may have occurred if the fee cap had come about” Ray Mallock
Mallock’s RML firm went – and continues to go – from power to power, profitable a world Group C2 title and a number of touring automotive crowns.
One of many producers with which RML loved enormous success in tin-tops was Chevrolet, with which it claimed World Touring Automobile Championship crowns with Yvan Muller and Rob Huff, and it’s this marque that might have taken Mallock into F1 as a workforce proprietor in 2010 below the projected new cost-cap guidelines, three a long time after his Brabham run fell by. FIA president Max Mosley was pushing the fee cap proposal, and he was a former buyer of Mallock’s father Arthur in his personal racing days.
“That happened due to one among my many discussions with Nick Reilly [Chevrolet Europe boss] about Chevrolet in motorsport,” remembers Mallock. “When Max introduced this concept of the worth cap, inside attain of Chevrolet, I talked to Nick about it and he mentioned, ‘Properly yeah, that sounds attention-grabbing if we are able to discover a method of coming into at that degree, with out having to spend 200 million or no matter, and it may be an objectively managed course of, let’s throw our hat within the ring.’
“In order that’s what I did. However fairly shortly the goalposts moved – there was no method it was ever going to remain at £40m. It shortly fizzled out and thank heavens we didn’t get drawn into it, as a result of it will haven’t ended effectively I don’t assume. It was an actual curiosity, and it may have occurred if the fee cap had come about.”
However the ironic twist of Ray Mallock in F1? Second in that 1981 Australian GP, behind his pal Roberto Moreno, was Ecclestone’s newly topped world champion Nelson Piquet…
Mallock shortly discovered his ft in sportscars after his F1 disappointment and believes Group C suited him
Picture by: LAT Photographic
