B. T. looking back on the Danish Formula 1-drivers, and this time it is so Jac Nellemann.
In the mid-1970s, Jac Nellemann one of Europe’s best Formula 3 drivers.
He saw at close range how the fellow and his friend Tom Belsø tried himself in Formula 1 in 1974, and would even try out a couple of years later.
English RAM was a little ‘rent-a-racer’team. It toured to the european grandprixer with a few end-of-life Brabham cars, which were rented out to local riders.
Nellemann secured one of the RAM-Brabham’s to the Swedish grandprix in 1976.
“It cost about 100,000 dollars, and I managed to find the necessary sponsors,” says Nellemann.
After a short test at the Jyllands-Ring, he was unleashed between the stars as Niki Lauda, Emerson Fittipaldi and James Hunt on the Anderstorp circuit.
Here there were 27 riders, who fought on the 26 startpladser, and the dane fought heroically with the outdated Brabham.
But the RAM-the mechanics were too inexperienced to solve the ignition problems that plagued the car, and when the qualification round ended, Nellemann measly 239 thousandths of seconds from to become the only second briton in a Formula 1 race.
“But the weekend with the RAM team convinced me that I could do it just as well themselves. So I started my own Formula 1 team for the 1977 season,” says Nellemann.
He bought for about 100,000 dollars a 1976-model of the u.s. Penske organization, and the first Formula 1 team – with the official name of Grand Prix Racing Denmark – were presented at the annual car show in Bella Center in January.
It was originally the plan to put up in four races, but it soon proved difficult to find the necessary sponsoropbakning to operating costs and to rent a motor.
And then destroyed a labour dispute that the beautiful dream of a Danish Formula 1-team.
A comprehensive strike meant that there appeared newspapers throughout the spring of 1977, and so it was impossible to get the publicity, which should ensure the necessary sponsors.
Jac Nellemann had to give up to get to the start with his Penske-races, and in the next many years was the car of his business partner Karsten Rees cellar.
“When I finally got sold on, was the old, and I got almost exactly the same for the, which I had given in 1976,” says Nellemann.
