S – Page 2 – F3History

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Skoda

Czechoslovakia’s famous car company has had a long competition history usually based on rallying but they have also competed in sports car and single seater racing. First appearing in 1965, they had some success winning a race at Most and taking other top 6 placings. In 1966 they produced ten cars powered by their own 1000MB engine, the cars used a spaceframe chassis with inboard suspension. Unfortunately their engines were some 25bhp down on a good Cosworth Ford unit so they would always struggle against Western European opposition but they were reasonably competitive against their Eastern European brethren in the handful of German races they took part in.

Drivers:

1966 Vaclav Bobek Snr.

1966 Jaroslav Bobek, Vaclav Bobek Snr., Miroslav Fousek.

1967 Jaroslav Bobek, Miroslav Fousek.

1968

1969 Jaroslav Bobek, Miroslav Fousek.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Sirmac

Sirmac was the brainchild of Bernard Boyer who would later find fame as the designer of a number of cars for Matra including their F1 models, notably the F1 Championship winning MS80 (with Gérard Ducarouge), as well as their F2 cars and Le Mans winning sports cars. In the 1960s Boyer built a very neat looking F Junior car, it had a tubular chassis with cast light-alloy wheels and was powered by a 1100cc Renault Dauphine engine, and although the car was underpowered it gained a reputation for good handling. It is almost certain that the cars that appeared in F3 where converted F Junior chassis.

The Renault-powered Sirmac appeared at the beginning of the 1964 season taking 5th (3 laps down) at Pau and then seemed to vanish. There seems to have been at least two 1965 Sirmacs, the Ruata car was a Simca powered device whilst the Cassas model used a Renault engine. Both took part in a couple of early season Italian and French races in 1965, Frenchman Ruata failing to qualify for his two events, his compatriot scoring a DNF on his lone outing.

Drivers:

1965
Denis Cassas.

1965
Denis Cassas, Frank Ruata.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Simca

No details about this car except that it raced in a number of very minor German events albeit doing quite well in the small fields. It had a Simca engine, hence the name presumably and whether it counts as French or German I don’t know. Its best result was a second place at Ulm-Laupheim in 1968 amongst a field of eight.

Drivers:
1966 Antal Nemel.

1967 Antal Nemel.

1968 Antal Nemel, Dieter Schäfenacker.

1969 Dieter Schäfenacker.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Silva

The Silva was announced in July 1969, it was to be designed to the new 1970 1600cc regulations and would comprise a monocoque chassis with conventional suspension. The experienced Giovanni Salvati was listed as the driver and once the prototype had been tested customer cars would be built. To date there is no evidence that the Silva was ever built or raced.

16 May, 20212 June, 2022

Silani

The one-off Silani SJ96 was designed and built in 1996 by former AGS race engineer Jean Silani. Based around a carbon-fibre monocoque that was built by Duqueine (q.v.) in Villeurbanne it employed some advanced aerodynamic thinking in its design, it was very slim with a high nose and low sidepods and used an Alfa Romeo engine which mated to a Hewland gearbox via a Silani designed, AGS built, combined oil tank and bellhousing. Sadly the Silani was funded by Jean Silani’s savings and despite much needed non-financial help from AGS there was insufficient funds to develop the car and Jean Silani decided it was better to quit before the car bankrupted him and other than Cyrille Sauvage taking ninth in an end of season race at Paul Ricard results were poor.
The chassis is currently being rebuilt be Jean Silani for display in Henri Julien’s AGS museum.

Thanks to Peter Wyss for information and picture.

Drivers:

1996
Olivier Fiorucci, Cyrille Sauvage.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Sibre

The Sibre was a Swedish (?) car possibly an ex-F Junior machine, it was initially fitted with a BMC engine but then switched to a Ford. The car had a couple of top six finishes in early season races.

Drivers:

1964 Stefen Björk.

1965 Stefen Björk.

16 May, 202125 May, 2022

Shannon

The Shannon was the creation of Hugh Aiden-Jones and Paul Emery, of Emeryson (q.v.) fame, it began life as a F1 car fitted with a 3-litre version of the previously unraced 2.5 litre Coventry Climax FPE V8, it lasted for one lap of the 1966 British GP driven by Trevor Taylor. It was then converted to F3 spec, called the Mk1 and powered by an EMC-tuned engine it appeared only very rarely driven by Keith Jupp and Australian John Wilson. The Mk1 consisted of a very slim aluminium monocoque with conventional suspension, observers were convinced neither of the quality of workmanship nor of the rigidity of the tub.

Drivers:
1967 Keith Jupp.

1969 John Wilson.

1970 John Wilson.

16 May, 202110 July, 2021

Seymaz

No other details about this French car, the SW30 appeared for one race (Nogaro) at the end of 1982, finished 13th and was never seen again. Presumably it was built by the same Seymaz who are famous for building racing sidecars and at the end of the decade they were running a Dallara in the French series.

Drivers:
1982 Eric Vaugnat.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

Selex

The Selex company, based in Barcelona, built their first F3 car in 1969, the ST2, although it wasn’t raced until 1970 when it was driven by Salvador Cañellas. Selex continued to produce the occasional F3 chassis up until 1983 (although this last F3 car was called an Avidesa q.v.). However most of their cars were for the national Spanish series, SEAT Formula 1430 and the 1.8-litre Formula Nacional, eventually by the late 1980’s Selex had switched to the construction of specialist shock absorbers.

1970

The ST2 was the Selex offering for 1970, from the picture it appeares to be a conventional, outboard suspended design. No results of any importance were achieved.

1978

The ST8 monocoque was based on the design for a Formula Nacional car, it had conventional outboard suspension, a front radiator with a full-width nose although the picture on the left does indicate that the tub was very shallow indeed. Power as ever was supplied by a Toyota Novamotor. Since there was no Spanish F3 championship it lacked the stimulus to development that national racing might have provided. Also most of the Spanish F3 drivers at that time understandably preferred the more proven qualities of Ralt or March. Miguel Molons who seems to have been the only driver was the son of the patron, no results of any note were achieved.

1979

It may be that the ST8 continued to race into 1979 but no good results were scored.

Drivers

1970 Salvador Cañellas.

1978 Miguel Molons.

1979 Miguel Molons.

16 May, 202120 May, 2022

SEG

SEG were one of the companies that appeared around 1960 when the East German government wanted to use sport as a means of propaganda, this was euphemistically called using “socialist development racing communities”. The driving lights behind the company were Willy Lehmann (who had also been involved with the Scampolo F Junior cars) and Siegfried Seiffert and during the 1960s they produced a number of similar looking Wartburg-powered cars. They were generally competitive runners when pitted against the other East German cars but less so when they met more serious opposition. As F3 became more professional the SEGs faded from the scene but they provided cars for 7 years which is more than many more illustrious names managed. It is not clear how many different “types” appeared during the seven years as the cars were only ever shown as “SEG” on the entry lists.

Drivers:

1964 Siegmar Bunk. Dietmar Grieger, Erich Käppler, Willy Lehmann, Siegfried Leutert, Christian Pfeiffer, Siegfried Seifert, Wolfgang Wiele.

1965 Siegmar Bunk. Dietmar Grieger, Jerzy Jankowski, Jurgen Käppler, Willy Lehmann, Siegfried Leutert, Henry Linde, Klaus Mende, Christian Pfeiffer, Siegfried Seifert, Joachim Willmann.

1966 Eberhard Fingerle, Dietmar Grieger, Christian Haase, Jurgen Käppler, Willy Lehmann, Siegfried Leutert, Klaus Mende, Christian Pfeiffer, Siegfried Scholz, Joachim Willmann.

1967 Manfred Berger, Eberhard Fingerle, Jürgen Käppler, Willy Lehmann, Dieter Pankrath, Christian Pfeiffer, Siegfried Scholz, Joachim Willmann.

1968 Manfred Berger, Eberhard Fingerle, Lothar Grübner, Christian Haase, Jürgen Käppler, Dieter Pankrath, Christian Pfeiffer, Siegfried Scholz, Joachim Willmann.

1969 Manfred Berger, Eberhard Fingerle, Christian Haase, Jürgen Käppler, Dieter Pankrath, Kurt Rolapp, Siegfried Scholz, Lothar Wolf.

1970 Manfred Berger, Werner Eschrich, Eberhard Fingerle, Jürgen Käppler, Wolfgang Krug, Dieter Pankrath, Kurt Rolapp, Siegfried Scholz, Lothar Wolf.

1971 Manfred Berger, Jürgen Käppler, Wolfgang Krug, Dieter Pankrath, Kurt Rolapp, Lothar Schmidt, Siegfried Scholz, Lothar Wolf.

1972 Manfred Berger, Jürgen Käppler, Wolfgang Krug, Kurt Rolapp, Lothar Schmidt.

F3 History

Category: S

Skoda

Skoda

Sirmac

Sirmac

Simca

Simca

Silva

Silva

Silani

Silani

Sibre

Sibre

Shannon

Shannon

Seymaz

Seymaz

Selex

Selex

1970

1978

1979

SEG

SEG

We are always looking for photos, stories and memoribilia etc. to share on this website. Can you help?

Feel free to Contact us.