RAM Racing

[Dan Rear]

Anyone have any knowledge, inside or otherwise, of this long-running team. They raced in UK F5000/Group 8/Aurora/F2, then F1 from about 1974-1983 as I recall. I gather John MacDonald could be a bit of a 'fiery' chap, his partner Mick Ralph tended to stay more in the background. Very successful at times in Britain, less so internationally I think.

Surely some of our experts have some memories of RAM in their heydays?

[Redlake27]

I believe RAM ran Brabham BT44 in F1 in 1976, then switched to the Aurora British F1 championship.

Emilio de Villota and Eliseo Salazar drove a pair of beautifully presented Williams FW07s for RAM in British F1 in 1980, and RAM also entered these cars for Villota at the Spanish GP (where he was blamed for punting Laffite out of the lead I think!) and for Rupert Keegan and Desire Wilson at the British GP. If my memory serves me right,Keegan crashed his car and used the non qualifying Wilson's car for the race.

Keegan then did the rest of the 1980 season in a black and gold Penthouse backed FW07,joined by Indycar ace Kevin Cogan in a Rainbow Jeans sponsored car for the USA and Canadian rounds (where he did not qualify).

For 1981 RAM entered a pair of March 811s for Derek Daly and Salazar. They were dreadful cars, until a mid season revamp saw Daly become a regular qualifier. However, Salazar had taken his money to Ensign by then.

In 1982 they tried to run an ambitious three car team, with Jochen Mass,Raul Boesel in Rothmans backed March 821s and De Villota doing selected races in an Onyx run black March. After Mass's huge accident at Ricard, Keegan returned to the team, but it was a disasterous year...and Rothmans were to stay clear of F1 for over a decade.

In 1983, the team built their first car.....a neat March based creation that flexed rather a lot. Salazar, Jacques Villeneuve Senior and Kenny Acheson all had a go at driving the thing - but few succeeded. Even Nelson Piquet had a go in the car for some obscure reason at a test session, to help his mate Salazar (the same guy he kicked at Hockenheim in 82!)

In 1984 the team had Skoal Bandit backing,Hart power, and a strong driver pairing in Alliot and Palmer. The team built a carbon fibre 02 car, but also converted the 1983 01 to turbo power until Palmers 02 was ready at the third race.

This car was another dog. Mike Thackwell drove it in Canada, although Alliot managed to pip Rosberg's Williams to a top 20 grid slot in Detroit in the only highlight of the year.

In 1985 the team promised great things. A very neat new car, the Ram 03 looked like one of the best packaged cars on the grid, designed by Gustav Brunner. Manfred Winkelhock replaced Palmer and qualified 14th in Canada,but was killed in his Porsche Group C shortly after. Kenny Acheson returned for a couple of races.

In 1986 a RAM 04, basically a DFV powered 03 was entered in F3000 but James Weaver, and Salazar (returning to RAM for the umpteenth time!) found this to be even less successful than the F1 cars........

[Dan Rear]

Redlake

Thanks for the above, most of which I was vaguely aware of, though not Piquet testing the RAM 01, presumably the same year he was going for the championship. I bet you wouldn't get TGF trying a Minardi these days...

On a broader note, and not wishing to go into any personal or gory details, anyone any ideas as to why the team didn't succeed at all in F1. At British level the cars were always beautifully turned out, from the 5000 Chevrons and Thursdays March, to the Williams in Aurora. In between they ran that March in Group 8, then the March 781s and Fittipaldi F5As in Aurora.

Is John Mac still around, I bet there are some good stories about him and the team out there !!

[ghinzani]

IIRC they wemt on to found Middlebridge racing with Japanese money and later John MacDonald became the represntative of the WSC for a while. He may also have had something to do with British F3000. He started off racing his own saloons, Anglias I think. His F1 team in 76 with ex workds Brabhams looked promising until Loris Kessel left the team and took them to court resulting in the impounding of the cars. He seemed a good guy, running Damien Magee for instance in the spare old BT42 when he could, and also helping Derek Bell. At this time they also had ties with Hexagon of Highgate, having sold them their ex Alan Jones F5000 car. Middlebridge then ebcame Superpower who ran F3 and F3000 teams , and also had a pretty good fabrication business going - if they are still about it would be thru this endeavour.

[JohnMiller]

Originally posted by Dan Rear
I bet you wouldn't get TGF trying a Minardi these days...

Didn't he drive a two-seater Minardi (all done up in Ferrari colours) at Fiorano last year, with Paul Stoddart in the back??

[spearce]

..... and he's driven a Sauber at Fiorano too.

[MikeM]

I thought it was his wife in the back of the Minardi - to show her what it's like!

[davemorganfan]

No-one coud deny that the RAM cars were always beautifully turned out, but I think the team were better at polishing cars than developing them. This must have been due to lack of engineering expertise within the team. The book about the history of March (called "5 Guys and a Telephone", I think) gave an inclination of this when Robin Herd described how Mick Ralph discarded the information he had given them about how to do basic setting up of the cars, believing he (Ralph, that is) knew better himself. Such basic lack of communication can't have helped.

[ensign14]

They had problems at Germany 1976 with Loris Kessel, the Swiss driver they had used earlier in the season, who impounded their cars.

Rolf Stommelen, who was due to drive the RAM, was promptly placed in a 3rd works Brabham (given the number 77 - presumably only 7 and 8 were available as decals!) and came a pretty sound 6th. A favour from Bernie to RS?

I think Kessel later ended up impounding Cheetahs from Group C, so he had a taste for litigation/standing up for his rights.

[Teretonga]

Schumacher took both Corrina and Stoddy on drives that weekend at Fiorano. Said something complementary about the car to Stoddy too..