When you think of Formula One Racing, Canada is not the first country you think of. You might have though in 1997 with French Canadian Jacques Villeneuve the driver champion of the season. What a great time to remind Canada had some in the family history with Formula One. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
The stamp shows a Gilles driven Ferrari 312 T4 receiving the checkered flag during his best ever season in 1979. He won 3 Formula One races that year, two in America and one in South Africa.
Todays stamp is issue A671, a 45 cent stamp issued by Canada on June 12th, 1997. This was a two stamp issue in different denominations that came before son Jacques’ later year championship. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
Gilles was born in 1950 in Quebec, the son of a piano tuner. During his attempts to break into Formula One he would subtract two years from his age to more appear the young up and comer. In his teen years he raced locally in his personally owned 1967 Ford Mustang. He was also a notable and more lucrative snowmobile racer. Money was tight but he was able to get into open wheel racing in a personally owned Formula Ford racer that put him in competition with some better known drivers.
He received an invitation in 1977 to join the McLaren Formula One team. He only ran two races with lackluster finishes and was let go when he asked for a pay raise for the next season. This freed him up though to accept a position personally from Enzo Ferrari to drive for the factory Ferrari Formula One team. He was a controversial choice but the team had just lost more famous Nikki Lauda.
The first 1978 season with Ferrari did not go well. This was not all Gilles fault. The cars were having trouble with a new variation of their Michelin tires and the Lotus team that year added ground affects to their cars for the first time making them more stable then the Ferraris. Things got even worse at the last race of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix when he bumped another car went airborne and landed on a group of spectators, killing one. He was not penalized as the spectators where not where they were supposed to be.
1979 was where things came together for Giles. Ferrari had copied the Lotus ground effects and it was the last year they ran their reliable 515 horsepower, 3 liter normally aspirated flat 12 cylinder engine. The car won 6 races that year, three with Gilles at the wheel. He came in second in the driver point championship.
!980 saw a new chassis and a new smaller turbocharged V6 engine. The team did not have as much success as the cars had handling problems. At the 1982 during a practice lap for the Belgian Grand Prix, Gilles again ran into a car ahead of him and went airborne. As it was a practice lap. he was not wearing a helmet and died of a broken neck after a bad landing. Giles’ son Jacques has had a long career currently in some European version of NASCAR and lives in European tax havens.
Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.