Monte Carlo: it’s all about preparation

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If you really - really - want something, you will get it, won’t you? Rally driver Maurice Gatsonides - freshly recruited for Ford’s works team in 1952 - eagerly set himself to the task of winning the 1953 Monte Carlo Rallye, 61 years ago today. The key? Preparation, preparation and preparation. Anything on the bulky Ford Zephyr was meticulously prepared. From the exact right ballast in the boot to the 13” snow tyres, designed by Gatso himself. Together with his family he spent no less than a month in Monaco to practice the mountain passes, doing the Col de Braus ascent twice a day. This one would have a regularity trial with an average speed somewhere between 40 and 50km/h, but the competitors would of course know the chosen speed only prior to the start. And so Gatsonides practiced each of the eleven possible average speeds, having a complete set of time cards at hand.

One other trouble was the car’s brakes. Uprating them was not allowed, but the small diameter drums of the Zephyr were prone to fading. Especially the 21-kilometre long Col de Castillon descent proved troubling. Gatso came up with a surprising simple solution. Two teams, one at 7kms on the route and one at 14kms, were equipped with buckets of water, which they threw over the hotted-up front wheels as the Ford passed slowly in a hairpin. Monaco resident Louis Chiron saw the Dutchman flying up and down for weeks and told a newspaper in December: “Gatso is going to win in January, I’m sure of that. He knows the roads around Monaco better than the residents themselves.” And he did
(words: Jeroen Booij)

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