John Love (racing driver)
John Maxwell Lineham Love ( born December 7, 1924 in Bulawayo, † April 25, 2005 ibid ) was a Formula 1 racer from Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
Career
During World War II John Love served in the British Army. It was used among other things as a tank driver in Italy. In the 1950s, Love participated in numerous Formula 3 race in southern Africa. His first big success was the victory at the Grand Prix of Angola in 1959, he scored in a five year old Jaguar.
In 1960 he moved Love to Britain. Here he became involved in Formula Junior. In 1961 he drove in Ken Tyrrell Formula Junior Team along with Tony Maggs. He finished the championship in third place. 1962 Love participated again in the Formula Junior Championship, next he went touring car race for the works team of the British Motor Corporation ( BMC). In a race in France Albi in September 1962 crashed Love heavy. In an attempt to evade Tony Maggs, his car went off the runway and hit a wall of earth. Love broke his left arm and fell for the rest of the year. Loves left arm was immobile for several months. He subsequently received no cockpit with a European team. He bought in the fall of 1962, a Formula 1 racing car of Cooper, with whom he returned to Rhodesia.
South African Formula 1 Championship
Since 1962, Love competed in Formula 1. In the 1960s, Love was one of the most successful racers of Africa. He won six times in a row, the South African Formula 1 Championship ( 1964-1969 ); six times, he also won his home race, the Grand Prix of Rhodesia. He possessed mostly about British race cars that were technically superior to the often self-constructed vehicles in its South African competitors ( Cooper T55, Brabham BT20, Lotus 49). For the 1971 season, Love took over a newly established March 701 ( chassis number 701 /10), which, however, proved not to be competitive. His competitor Dave Charlton, who sat on vehicles by Lotus, dominated from 1971, the South African Formula 1 championship in a similar way as it had done previously Charlton.
Formula 1 World Championship
In addition to race in the national championship Love played from 1962 to 1972, some races of the Formula 1 World Championship. His World Cup debut was on December 29, 1962 at the Grand Prix of South Africa. Love each reported its private vehicles; often it was announced under the name Team Gunston. Overall, he played nine World Cup races, all at the Grand Prix of South Africa.
Loves successful race was the Grand Prix of South Africa 1967. He joined here with a Cooper T79, which was powered by a 2.7 -liter four- cylinder engine from Coventry Climax. In this case, it was the car that Bruce McLaren was used in the 1966 Tasman Series. The competing works teams possessed by this time mainly on 3.0-liter engines that fully exploited the engine capacity limit of the applicable regulations from 1966. Despite the poor performance of his vehicle, he qualified for the fifth place. He took it in front of Graham Hill in the Lotus factory and before Jochen Rindt in the works Cooper into the race. In the race, Love was from round 60 to the first position; He led the race 13 laps. Seven laps to go had to love the guide to Pedro Rodríguez leave, who drove a factory Cooper T79. Rodríguez won the race, Love was second.
At the Grand Prix of Italy 1964 Love also got the chance to drive a factory car for the Cooper team alongside Bruce McLaren. Love did not qualify for the race. He achieved a lap time of 1:48,500 minutes in qualifying. He was 11.1 seconds slower than John Surtees, who had driven out the pole position in the Ferrari 158. His time was more than five seconds on the lap time required for a qualification.
John Love died at the age of 80 in his hometown of Bulawayo (Zimbabwe ) from cancer.