Tribute to Peter Gethin with a closer look at 'his' BRM P160 ...
Last night the sad news reached us of the passing of Peter Gethin. Aged 71, he lost the fight to cancer. In a racing career that lasted barely a decade, he achieved great successes on both sides of the Atlantic. His style was best suited to the thundering F5000 cars, which he raced from 1969. His results earned him the daunting task of filling Bruce McLaren's place at McLaren after his fatal crash. He won a Can-Am race in 1970 and piloted one of the team's works Formula 1 cars until switching to BRM halfway through 1971. In only his second race for the team, he scored the best known result piloting his BRM P160 to victory in the Italian Grand Prix. This epic slipstreaming fight saw five drivers vie for victory in what for over three decades was the fastest ever Grand Prix. Eventually Gethin came out on top with the top five separated by just 0.61s. He later returned to F5000 and in 1973 used a Chevron to score the only victory ever for a F5000 car in a F1 race. After his retirement as a driver in the late 1970s, he remained involved in racing.
In what must have been one of his final public appearances, we were very fortunate to capture Gethin reunited with 'his' BRM P160 at the 2010 Goodwood Revival where BRM was the featured marque. The Tony Southgate machine was the last successful BRM racing car, scoring three Grand Prix victories. As can be seen in our 12-shot gallery, Gethin drove the Italian Grand Prix winning P160 during two of the weekend's three demonstrations.
Enjoy the links:
1971 - 1973 BRM P160 - Images, Specifications and Information
If you should see a man walking down a crowded street talking aloud to himself, don't run in the opposite direction, but run towards him, because he's a poet. You have nothing to fear from the poet - but the truth.
(Ted Joans)
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