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.
1976 Introducing Six-speed Gear Boxes
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 infinitely variable and gears 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 main 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.
