MOTORSPORT: F1 design genius dies

The man who created a radical six-wheel Formula One car that won a grand prix has died short of his 80th birthday.

Derek Gardner was arguably the most creative designer F1 has seen other than the late Colin Chapman, founder of the original Lotus marque and race team.

Gardner appeared quite suddenly in the F1 limelight, secretly designing the first Tyrrell F1 car in 1970 when team boss Ken Tyrell was disappointed with the original March car that Jackie Stewart drove that season.

Stewart put Gardner's Tyrrell 001 on pole position at its first race, the Canadian GP.

The next year Stewart won his second world championship in Gardner's Tyrrell 003 and in 1973 a third in the 006, although he retired before the end of the season after the death of his French teammate Francois Cevert.

In the mid '1970s Gardner created the six-wheel P34 that took F1 by storm with its four tiny front tyres. According to the theory, the smaller front wheels lowered the car's frontal area for aerodynamic efficiency, without reducing the contact patch.

South African Jody Scheckter made history by winning the 1976 Swedish GP in the six-wheeler with his French teammate Patrick Depailler second in that race at Anderstorp.

While Scheckter was later a world champion with Ferrari, Gardner became disillusioned in F1 and left to become the head of engineering and research at Borg-Warner and took to designing boats and microlites.

Picture shows Mauro Pane in a Tyrell P34 at the 2008 Silverstone Classic race meeting (courtesy Russell Whitworth)

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