ing how he would feel about taking the seat of Gilles Villeneuve who had suffered a fatal accident at that weekend’s Belgian GP. The decision was one taken with mixed emotions; Patrick had been friends with the French-Canadian from their days racing in lower formulae in Italy and he had followed the acrimonious race at Imola where Pironi had seemed to cheat Villeneuve of victory.


Danger was never far away in those days,


Tambay revealing that he left home on a Thursday wondering if he would come back. Three months later at Hockenheim his team-mate suffered a huge accident in practice that would end his Formula One career. Having been told that he was now Ferrari’s number one, Tambay began to explain to the Brooklands Trust Members audience how the race unfolded the following day. The thirsty BMW turbo Brabhams started light aiming for two fuel stops whilst Ferrari were on full tanks. Late in the race Piquet, chasing down the leader, stumbled (literally) upon Eliseo Salazzar, taking them both out and “a boxing match” ensued. “Which is a modest way of saying that Patrick won the race” interspersed Simon Taylor.


The second Ferrari F1 victory for Patrick


Tambay came at Imola in 1983, again an emotional victory bearing in mind the previous year and its consequences. Tambay went on to describe what it was like to drive for the home team at Monza and that he gave a wave to the crowd on the first lap of the practice day. He was rewarded with second place in the 1982 Italian GP. Other highlights in this period included the 1982 British GP in which he started mid-grid but finished third. Asked about Ferrari politics Tambay said that this wasn’t an issue in his time there, although it had a part in his departure. He tried to speak to Enzo Ferrari in French but il


he Model Engineer Exhibition was estab- lished well over 100 years ago and has been staged at a handful of London venues over the decades. The format had remained largely unchanged, tradition taking preference over mod- ernisation. This year, however, the organisers took a fresh look at ways of displaying the huge number of high quality models that this show consistently attracts and the backdrop chosen for


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Commendatore pretended he didn’t understand. The team leader would often appear at testing to find out what was going on.


Tambay briefly covered the other part of his


career. His F1 experience started at Theodore in 1977 for which he brought $80,000 from a sponsor to secure the drive. The following year he joined McLaren as James Hunt’s team mate despite a possibility of joining Ferrari (Enzo Ferrari was later to tell him he would have been World Champion had he moved to Maranello). Post his 1982-83 hiatus Patrick went to Renault as team- mate to Derek Warwick and he got on well with the Englishman who he described as “straightforward and honest”. Relationships with the French press at this time however were somewhat less straightfor- ward! His final season was with Beatrice Haas which didn’t fulfil its potential.


In a question and answer session with the audience Patrick talked about some of the changes that came about during his period in F1; not only ground effects, composite chassis and turbos (his opinion of the latter not suitable for a family publication) but also safety improvements such as moving drivers’ feet behind the front wheels and cameras on cars. He didn’t consider that there was a super-talent in his time although Ayrton Senna was emerging as he left. He would have loved to race in the time of V10s with 20,000 revs but today’s cars have too much aerodynamics.


Patrick Tambay’s F1 career lasted nine seasons with those two Ferrari wins being the highlight of 114 races. More of Patrick’s story is told in the new book Patrick Tambay: the Ferrari years published by Evro (ISBN 978-1-910505-12-0 £60.00) with evocative photographs by Paul-Henri Cahier and foreword by Alain Prost. Gareth Tarr


THE 2016 MODEL ENGINEER EXHIBITION News the 2016 exhibition was the Museum.


Over 30 clubs and societies attended the exhibition, each bringing along bountiful collections of their best models of subjects ranging from traditional steam engineering, locomotives, road steam models, aero and other internal combustion engines, cars, ships and dioramas. Several steam traction engines enjoyed the exten- sive tarmac surface outside and a miniature railway


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