As the head of his small Formula 1 team, Colin Crabbe, who has died aged 82, was the man who gave Ronnie Peterson his big break.
It was just before Crabbe’s 27th birthday when his Antique Automobiles team made its F1 debut in 1969, in the non-championship Madrid Grand Prix at the brand-new Jarama circuit, with a Maserati-powered Cooper T86B. Crabbe was unable to fit in the car, so it was his pal Neil Corner who drove it to fourth place among a small field.
The legendarily versatile Vic Elford took over in the Cooper for Antique Automobiles’ world championship debut at the Monaco Grand Prix. Crabbe then acquired a McLaren M7B and Cosworth DFV engine, and Elford raced this combination to fifth place in the French GP and sixth in the British GP, before a crash at the German GP caused a shoulder injury that ended his single-seater career.
With a surplus of drivers for 1970, new constructor March needed a berth in F1 for its protege Peterson. Co-founder Max Mosley therefore worked out a deal with Crabbe to run an additional 701, and the Swede finished seventh on his debut in Monaco. He did a sterling job to qualify in the top 10 at both Spa and Clermont-Ferrand, but unreliability scuppered any chances of points.
From this launchpad, Peterson graduated to the works March team for 1971, when he finished runner-up to Jackie Stewart in the world championship.
Crabbe, meanwhile, returned to his world of exotic cars, where he was becoming famed for the lengths he would go to in order to track down the most fabled of machinery.
