March 701

March Engineering was set up in September 1969 by amateur racing drivers Max Mosley, Alan Rees and Graham Coaker, with engineer and former McLaren and Cosworth racing car designer Robin Herd. After producing their first prototype, the 693P, in Coaker's garage Max Mosley announced that March would enter a car for the first Grand Prix of the 1970 Formula One season. Designer Robin Herd started work on the car in November 1969, and by the 701's official press launch on 6 February 1970 two cars had been finished and were ready to run. In order to complete the car in the short time available Herd had been forced to take a "British Standard" conservative approach and held over more advanced features for the 701's 1971 successor, the March 711. Interviewed in 2010, Herd stated that at the time he was "disillusioned by the 701, because it was nothing like the car I wanted to build." The stress and workload involved with getting the car finished to Mosley's ambitious deadline meant that Herd lost over a stone and half in weight. Following the conventions laid down with March's first design, the car's name encoded both its year of design (70x for 1970) and the intended class of competition (xx1 for Formula One). Mosley calculated that each car cost £2500–3000 to build, and had initially planned to sell them to customers for £6000 apiece. Chassis and bodywork The 701 was built around a "boxy and workmanlike" sheet with cast magnesium bulkheads – that carried the engine as a stressed member. Most of the 701 chassis produced were manufactured in 18 swg sheet, although a special lightweight car, chassis 701/6, was built for the works team during the 1970 season using lighter 20 swg aluminium, although they never raced that car. Ahead of the car's forward bulkhead the brake cylinders, fire extinguisher system, battery and radiator were carried on a tray-like extension to the cockpit floor pan, constructed in lighter 20 gauge aluminium sheet. again with the spring and damper units mounted outboard. Herd attributed his choice of the double wishbone system to a desire to overcome the suspension geometry compromises necessary to accommodate the increasingly wide front tyres of contemporary Formula One, while outboard shock absorbers – despite aerodynamic disadvantages – provided advantages in simplicity, cooling and stress management. that Herd estimated reduced the car's unsprung mass by approximately 25%. Once the cars' brakes had been modified to the inboard design 13 in rims could also be employed at the rear. The oil radiator itself was mounted atop the gearbox, to avoid the surge and starvation problems associated with the lengthy pipes needed to mount the radiator in the nose, alongside the water radiator. Following the first race in South Africa the Tyrrell team also made adjustments to the design of the front wings. They removed the fixed, fibreglass items integrated into the nose cone that had been supplied by March and replaced them with adjustable aluminium aerofoils. These could pivot about a horizontal axis to alter the whole plane's angle of attack. An additional benefit was that they were removable, to reduce drag, and Stewart's car made use of this for the Italian Grand Prix at the high-speed Monza circuit. During the 1970 season Ken Tyrrell became increasingly critical of the 701's shortcomings, in particular targeting the fact that the car was over the mandated minimum weight limit. However, Herd had deliberately prioritized reliability and safety in the car's design, in large part due to influence applied by Tyrrell and Stewart. ==Performance characteristics==

Jackie Stewart has described the car as "the most difficult F1 car I drove." Herd's design compromises meant that he had balanced the weight of the heavy front-mounted radiator by placing the oil tank and filter as far rearward as possible. Having two significant masses at the outermost positions relative to the 701's centre of gravity imparted a high polar moment of inertia on the car. This made the 701 "unpleasant to drive" and severely affected its performance in slow corners. Owing to the high polar moment, the car was reluctant to start turning into a corner – resulting in significant initial understeer – but once the car was rotating through the corner it was then slow to straighten – resulting in significant oversteer at the corner exit. Stewart ascribed the speed that he and Chris Amon were able to extract from their 701s early in the season to their driving styles, both being notably smooth in comparison with their competition. ==Race history==

1970 season 's Tyrrell Racing March 701 leads Pedro Rodríguez's BRM at the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix March introduced the 701 to press and public at a large event hosted at Silverstone circuit on Friday 6 February 1970. Chris Amon demonstrated his works chassis, 701/1, while Jackie Stewart drove the first of the Tyrrell customer cars, chassis 701/2. Speculation regarding March's source of funding had been rife since the announcement of the March Formula One car, and also in attendance was newly unveiled team sponsor Andy Granatelli, of the STP Corporation. In addition to the two lead drivers, Granatelli's nominated driver, Mario Andretti, also appeared, although he did not try the new car. Amon's new works team mate, Jo Siffert, did though, as did March Formula Two driver Ronnie Peterson. Race debut Although designed and built in only 12 weeks, no fewer than five March 701 cars were present at the first race of the 1970 World Championship season: the 1970 South African Grand Prix in early March. Stewart and Amon qualified their cars in first and second place on the grid, respectively. Andretti had damaged the rear of his car during a private test session the day before the first official session and the process of repairing it and sourcing a spare engine meant that he missed the first two timed practices. He started from 11th. Just ahead of him on the grid was Siffert in ninth position, while Servoz-Gavin was two rows behind the American, starting from 17th position. In the early portion of the race Stewart's car led for many laps, Once Jack Brabham's Brabham and Denny Hulme in a McLaren had cleared the confusion they began to whittle down Stewart's lead. Brabham passed Stewart on the 20th lap of the race, as did Hulme on lap 38, and the reigning World Champion eventually finished in third place. Amon and Andretti both suffered from severe overheating following failures of their cars' cooling system header tanks, and they retired after two and 11 laps, respectively. Siffert was running in the top ten in the early portion of the race, but while dicing with Jacky Ickx and Jean-Pierre Beltoise for fifth position he spun and crushed his car's right exhaust pipe. From Belgium the World Championship season moved on to the neighbouring Netherlands two weeks later, for the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort. Again Stewart qualified on the front row of the grid, taking second place to Jochen Rindt's Lotus 72 in Servoz-Gavin's South Africa chassis, 701/4. His new team mate, Frenchman François Cevert, qualified chassis 701/7 in 15th place on his Formula One debut. Amon took fourth and Siffert 17th places for the start in the works cars, while Peterson's yellow 701/8 went one better than Siffert, and he qualified in 16th place. In contrast to the Belgian race, this time it was Stewart's turn to chase hard and finish second, crossing the line 30 seconds behind race winner Rindt. Peterson was two laps down in ninth position, while Siffert and Cevert both failed to finish due to engine failures. Amon's clutch failed on the very first lap. Amon's season took a turn to the better at the 1970 French Grand Prix. He qualified alongside Stewart on the second row of the grid – the works and Tyrrell drivers in third and fourth places, respectively – and by the chequered flag had risen to second place, beaten by Rindt's Lotus 72 by less than eight seconds. Stewart crossed the line over three minutes later in ninth place after. Cevert was a further lap behind, in 11th place, and Siffert and Peterson both failed to finish. After crossing the English Channel for the 1970 British Grand Prix a fortnight later, Amon and Stewart could not repeat their qualifying performances from the French race, and the team leaders lined up for the start in 17th and eighth places. One place behind Stewart, starting from ninth, was Mario Andretti, returning to Formula One competition during a break in his North American schedule, again driving Granatelli's bright red chassis 701/3. In the race Amon rose through the field to finish fifth, with Cevert a lap down in seventh, and Peterson eight laps in arrears in ninth. Siffert's suspension failed on lap 19, Andretti's did likewise two laps later, and Stewart's clutch collapsed on lap 52. The next race, the 1970 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, saw the entry into the fray of another new March 701 chassis. Touring car driver Hubert Hahne, with financial backing from Axel Springer, but half a lap down on the winning Ferrari pair. This was to be the March 701's last podium placed finish in the World Championship. Lesser points-scoring finishes for Amon followed in the 1970 United States Grand Prix and 1970 Mexican Grand Prix races, with his well-used chassis 701/1 finishing in fifth and then fourth place, but none of the remaining 701s scored points. In the final tally, between the works and Tyrrell March 701 cars they had scored a total of 48 World Championship points. This took March to third place in the World Constructors' Championship in the constructor's debut season. In the Drivers' Championship Stewart finished fifth, with all of his 25 points having been scored with a March. Amon finished in eighth on 23 points. Andretti was 16th, with his four points all having been taken from his third-place finish in Spain. Despite having only driven in two races Servoz-Gavin finished ahead of Cevert, his two points for fifth in Spain just pipping Cevert's one point in Italy, with the pair finishing the year in 22nd and 23rd places in the Championship. As neither Siffert nor Peterson had scored Championship points, neither were classified. At the season's close the works cars were sold off; 701/1 went to Tom Wheatcroft, Siffert was allowed to purchase his chassis, 701/5, Love's 1971 South African season followed much the same pattern as the latter half of 1970. With the Team Gunston March 701 he took second place in the Highvelt 100 at Kyalami in March and victory in the Goldfields Autumn Trophy in May. However, reliability once again proved to be the March's Achilles heel, failures were numerous, and he attempted to replace the March with an ex-Mike Hailwood Surtees TS9 bought from Surtees directly. However, this car was delivered in extremely poor condition and, although faster than the March, was no more reliable. for his third place at the season opening race at Levin, and fifth in the Wigram race. Between the two, Amon and the STP team had decided to replace their uncompetitive March 701 with a Lotus 70 Formula 5000 machine and Amon drove this in the New Zealand Grand Prix at Pukekohe. For the Grand Prix, with Amon driving the Lotus, local driver David Oxton took over 701/3. Unfortunately for him, one of the car's half shafts broke and he failed to finish. Oxton again drove 701/3 in the final New Zealand round of the series, at Teretonga, where he finished in seventh place. Following the series' move to its Australian rounds the car was returned to Formula One specifications, sold to Skip Barber, and shipped to the USA. Formula One Only three races of the 1971 World Championship season saw 701 entries; the works and STP March teams had moved on to the March 711, Ronnie Peterson was driving for the factory squad, and Tyrrell had constructed a second in-house car for Cevert. Frank Williams entered Henri Pescarolo for the 1971 South African Grand Prix, where he was joined by local John Love in his Team Gunston car. Pescarolo finished two laps down, out of the points, but the gearbox on Love's car failed on lap 30. Williams upgraded Pescarolo to a 711 shortly after, but kept the 701 for second-string pay drivers. It was one of these, Max Jean, that Williams entered for the 1971 French Grand Prix. On leaving March Siffert had taken his 1970 car, chassis 701/5, with him, and he entered François Mazet for the French race. Both 701 drivers reached the end of the event, but Mazet was five laps behind the winner, in 16th position, while Jean was unclassified and crossed the finish line nine laps in arrears. The last appearance of a March 701 in a Championship race was when Jean-Pierre Jarier took the wheel of Hahne's former lackluster mount for the 1971 Italian Grand Prix. He finished eight laps behind the leaders, unclassified and last. There were a greater number of 701 entries for non-Championship races in 1971. Tom Wheatcroft had bought Chris Amon's regular 1970 car, chassis 701/1, direct from the factory, and entered Derek Bell for January's Argentine Grand Prix. He was joined by two other 701s: Jo Siffert in his own car and Pescarolo in the Williams entry. Siffert and Pescarolo finished second and third, respectively, in the event's first heat, with Bell a lap down in seventh. However, in the second heat both Siffert and Bell suffered mechanical failures, but Pescarolo again finished second. This gave Pescarolo second place on aggregate, beaten by Amon's Matra that had won the second heat by over 22 seconds. No other 701 entries in 1971 resulted in a podium finish. Historic racing All of the March 701 cars built in 1970 survived their contemporary front-line racing career intact (to a greater or lesser degree) and eventually became valuable collector's pieces. For some years the first car, Chris Amon's works chassis 701/1, was on display in the Donington Grand Prix Collection, mounted on a wall. Following Tyrrell's decision to become a constructor in their own right, their 701 cars were handed to Ford, who had provided finance for their initial purchase. One of the two original Team Tyrrell cars, 701/4, was restored to its original condition and is on display in the British Motor Museum. ==Race results==

World Championship results (key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap) Points within parentheses are total points scored, while those without are those that counted toward Championship results. All points were scored by March 711 entries. Non-Championship results (key) (results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap) ==References==