Been there, done that. Ray Mallock had won the Formula Atlantic championship in Britain in 1979 when the category was reintroduced to the country after a two-year hiatus. He’d then competed in the Aurora British Formula 1 Championship in 1980 at the wheel of Surtees – before a huge shunt at Thruxton caused by a car failure – and Wolf machinery. But for 1981, there was good reason to return to Atlantic to attempt to win a second crown.
“There was this thing that Bernie Ecclestone [then the owner of the Brabham F1 team and head of the FOCA teams group] was supporting,” recalls Mallock. “The prize for that was an F1 test drive…”
At the wheel of the Ralt RT4, the new ground-effect version of the all-conquering Formula 3 RT3, Mallock dominated the championship against variable opposition. Little wonder, because he’d already proved himself on the international stage – including a giantkilling second place in the 1977 Silverstone round of the European Formula 2 Championship behind Rene Arnoux.
“I won the championship and called Bernie at the end of the year,” continues Mallock, “and he said, ‘Yeah, we’ve got quite a few tests coming up, and we’ll get you in the car’. I said, ‘Well, next week I’m due to go off to do the Asia-Pacific championship – three rounds in Australia, Macau and Malaysia – but I can come back in between and test. And Bernie said, ‘No, you don’t need to come back, just get your races out of the way and give me a call as soon as you’re back.’”
As the British champion, Mallock had been invited out to those flyaway races. He claimed a brake-troubled seventh in the Australian GP at Calder, in which Alan Jones drove his last single-seater race before his first retirement from the cockpit but exited late on when his engine lost power. Jacques Laffite also took part, naturally with a Gitanes-liveried RT4.
Mallock then went on to claim third in a highly attritional Macau GP, keeping things consistent but struggling for pace against those on quicker tyres. And the adventure finished 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 got home, he got back on the blower to Bernie…
Mallock believed he would get his maiden F1 test shot after returning from the Asia-Pacific championship, but it never happened
Photo by: Jeff Bloxham
Mallock recalls: “And the answer was,…
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