Interlagos, Brazil. McLaren complete the race with ease after the introduction of the six-speed gearbox.

We had a five-speed gear box. In most race cars you had a four-speed gearbox and it wasn’t enough. We used to spend endless hours talking about gear ratios and at the end of the day the drivers would say: ‘Well I was using second gear here but if I make second gear higher then I won’t be able to use it in the first chicane.’ Then he and the other driver would talk about it and then they would go and sit on the loo and talk about it, then they would come back and talk about it and then at 10 o’clock at night they’d change their minds. And the mechanics; we’d have to take the car apart again.

The gearboxes in Grand Prix cars are intimately variable and can be changed in minutes – relative to each other and over all. So you can have a 1st gear that does 20mph or 100mph. They’re all stepped, you have them in a big box – hundreds of them. I thought; well, if you have six, this would give us effectively five and this way it would be better. I said this to the gear manufacturers and they said it can’t be done and I told my boss and he said it was too expensive.

Once again, since I had nothing else to do at night, I took the gear box apart and looked at it very carefully and realised that by modifying the inside of the gear box I could put six inside the standard casing. So I did. I put six gears in and I only had to make two pieces to do this. I had to make a reverse outside the gear box. McLaren still have the drawing of it.‘Drawn by ASC!’ I was finding out about gears, I had to get technical manuals and read about gears and learn about them to build these little reverse gears. I did it, and it worked like a charm. One of the reasons why we won the World Championship in 1976 was because we had the air starter, which made the car lighter, and the six-speed gearbox.

We went to the first race in Interlagos, Brazil, and James was on Pole. After practice we were sitting doing our so-called debrief and I said: ‘What about the gear ratios?’ And, like a miracle, James said: ‘Gear ratios?’ And Jochen said: ‘Gear ratios? Oh they’re fine.’ Suddenly, something that had been a complete obsession became a nothing.

• 1943 Alastair's early years
• 1955 Licence to drive
• 1957 Alastair's High School years
• 1959 Evading the police
• 1960 Becoming a mechanic
• 1966 The Tasman series
• 1966 Leaving New Zealand
• 1967 Joining McLaren
• 1967 CanAm Door Catches
• 1967 Monza
• 1968 South Africa
• 1968 CanAm
• 1969 Driving the Formula 1 Cars
• 1973 Fittipaldi joins McLaren
• 1973 McLaren Team manager
• 1974 Montezemolo
• 1975 Hunt replaces Fittipaldi
• 1975 Hunt gets paid little
• 1976 Inventing the Air-Starter
• 1976 Six-speed Gear Boxes
• 1976 Misbehaving in Canada
• 1976 Japan
• 1977 Adidas Uniforms
• 1977 Changing Tyres
• 1977 Leaving McLaren
• 1979 Nelson Piquet
• 1980 Skirts on Formula 1 Cars
• 1981 Leaving Formula 1
• 1982 Making Lists
• 1982 Signing on
• 1982 Creating Space Station
• 1991 Highland Fling
• 1991 Classic Marathon
• 1992 Getting the Austin A35
• 1992 El Salvador
• 1993 Carerra Panamerica
• 1993 Centre of attention
• 1993 Nicest car in rally
• 1993 LeJog
• 2000 London to Sydney
• 2000 Porsche Racing
• 2000 Porsche Crashing
• 2001 Ferrari
• 2001 Inca Trail
• 2004 Berlin - Moscow - Berlin
• 2005 World Cup Rally
• 2007 Norway
• 2008 Liège-Brescia-Liège
• 2008 An Icelandic Odyssey
• 2008 North & West Africa
• 2009 West Coast America
• 2009 London to Casablanca
• 2010 New Zealand Festival of motor racing
• 2010 New Zealand Big Sky Adventure