WHO WAS MIKE B. ?

It was a normal Saturday afternoon actually, if there wasn`t that unbelieveable weather. 52 degrees Centigrade in the sun are the hell on the plateau of Zeltweg and the thin air does additional work. For one and a half hour the final practice for the 1972 Austrian Grand Prix is in action, bringing 25 years old Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi to the finish straight of winning his first ever worldchampionship title that year. I am standing outside the Glatz Curve, where the thunder of the Ford engines suddenly can be heard, when the drivers come down from the Mercedes Star, before it becomes a bomb explosion between the hillocks of the Schoenberg Straight. Then a very, very active guardian angel prevents us from a big catastrophe: Mike Beuttler, in the third March Ford 721G the team mate of Ronnie Peterson and Niki Lauda, hit by inner intrigues within his team, is fighting for qualifying himself against Francois Migault in the Connew Ford, when Francois Cevert`s Tyrrell Ford 002 begins to overtake him in this middle-fast corner. But the Briton, both nervous and under mental tension, does not see him in the rear view mirrors and shuts the door, as it is said in racing English - Life and Death only seperated by a few millimetres. Before that, there has been a deep quarrel between the March team (and their advocate Max Mosley) and Beuttlers sponsors, the London stockbrokers Clarke, Mordaunt, Guthrie and Durlacher, who put their names onto the yellow car written by fine English letters. They are seldom watched, but always there and know the political game of power and money. But: This time it was not a question of money, but one of the engines. The March Ford 721G, originally constructed exclusively for Beuttler, had got a Formula 2 chassis of the 722 type. Additional lateral fuel tanks and the 3 litre Ford Cosworth made it a Grand Prix car. When the technological revolution of the March Ford 721X designed for Peterson and Lauda became a basic danger for the Bicester based team, it was over with the exclusivity. Lauda got his reputation as a technical genius and the technological development of March was predicted, because the following years all Grand Prix cars were based on each year`s Formula 2 model. When Beuttler should overhand his engine to Lauda, because Mosley wanted to make his rising star faster than his car was in front of his home crowd, the limit to deep depression became pretty near.

Later, when practice was over, and the job of the mechanics lasting deep into the night has begun, Beuttler comes into the Tyrrell camp, shakes hand with Cevert and then they discuss the steering problems of the Tyrrell Ford 002 twice involved in heavy crashes, the mechanics are not able to solve for a long time (Stewart even is driving the 005). The rivals come very, very near, not only at top speeds of 300 kms/h.

Mike Beuttler, a Briton born in Egypt`s Cairo, Grand Prix driver in the March team from 1971 to 1973 endet his career at the 1973 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen after the retirement of his sponsors. What he has done after that, where he has worked and a lot more, in most cases is not known. After their retirement from active competition Grand Prix drivers use to do a lot of public activities and often they reach a very high age, as the the examples of Fangio, Stuck or Chiron prove.

Mike Beuttler has not reached all that. When he died shortly after Christmas 1988 in San Francisco, only 48 years old, nearly nobody noticed it and exactly that fact must sadden us greatly.

Klaus Ewald

© 2001 by researchracing

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