Tom Belsø (27 August 1942 – 12 January 2020) is a former motor racing driver.
He is credited as the first Formula One driver from Denmark. Belsø qualified a Formula One Iso-Marlboro for the Frank Williams Racing Cars team at the 1973 Swedish Grand Prix, but could not start the race because his sponsorship money didn’t arrive. In 1974 he tried four times to qualify for Williams, but was only successful in South Africa and Sweden. In South Africa, the clutch on Belsø’s FW failed on the first lap of the race. In Sweden, he finished his only complete Grand Prix, in eighth place. Info from Wiki
Allan Nielsen from FB
Tom Belsø moved from Denmark as a non-professional racing driver to UK at the beginning of the 70’ties – now trying as the first Dane to make a career as a professional racing driver in England. It soon became a struggle finding money. Also Tom was already quite old (compared to modern racing).
He started out in Formula Atlantic and got success. Next move was difficult. But he was lucky to find sponsorship for a F2 season during 1972 driving a Brabham. But the big jump directly to F2 was a very hard learning curve – and it did not make things better than he suffered from bad reliability. Anyhow a kind of turning point came when he finally got into the points at Hockenheim – the first Dane to get points in F2. But the really big success came later during the season at Albi.
Tom was also a very good mechanic and managed to get his hands on a very good engine for that race. He actually personally had to drive to the race in a small car where he removed one of the front seats so the engine could be there. And that engine made a difference. He finished in a sensational 4 position in that race – and that suddenly got him into the spot-light. That was noticed by many and the result was a seat during 1973 in the Shell Sport Luxembourg F5000 team where he got a very competitive Lola. A very big step forward. He did a good job during that season and now F1 begged on the door.
A very important step for Tom was to manage to be included in the Marlboro driver’s academy. Suddenly he (partly) had Marlboro helping him with the career and the link to Marlboro was the key to get a chance driving in F1 for Frank Williams (who had Marlboro as a main sponsor). But it was not as good as it sounded. As always money was the problem. It started very good – Tom being at home in UK suddenly got a phone call. He should as fast as possible come to Anderstorp GP 1973. Reason was that Nanni Galli had left the team with very short notice. Tom got into the car without any preparations. And to a lot of surprise did he actually manage to qualify for the race. But now Frank Williams saw the possibility to get a lot of money out of Marlboro and also the Swedish organizers (who of course wanted one more Nordic driver on the grid). But the money was not there and therefore no race for Tom. Anyhow Marlboro promised him a new chance at Watkins Glen USA GP 1973. When Tom arrived it was only to discover that Frank Williams had sold the seat for more money to Jacky Ickx. OK – now Marlboro promised Tom an even better chance participating during the 1974 season. But first problem was that he had to share the car with Gijs Van Lennep – so he would only get a few races. But much worse – the team had in reality only the money for one car and the second car was more a “starting money cash-cow”.
First try was South Africa – where Tom did qualify the car. But the clutch failed on the starting grid. Tom still believes that Frank Williams had “fixed” the clutch in order to get all the starting money – but without any wear on engine, car and tires. Next “chance” was the next race during 1974 – the Spain GP. But Tom was denied qualify tires during the sessions. After a lot of discussions he finally got the tires – but much too late in the final session – DNQ.
Anyhow Tom made a break-through during the Anderstorp Swedish GP 1974. He managed to qualify – and on a track he knew very well he drove a superb race not making any mistakes – and was lucky the car did not suffer mechanical problems. Engine was weak – but very reliable. And he was not far behind Graham Hill who finished at 6 position. Next chance after the success was the British GP later that year. As always many cars trying to qualify – so the struggle was to qualify. First qualify day went perfect. Tom new Brands Hatch very well and he were comfortable inside the DNQ cut. Unfortunately Merzario (first driver in the team) crashed his car and Tom was forced to give up his car for the later qualify sessions. Standing at the pitwall without a car he could only witness that the track now got much faster after receiving a lot of rubber from all the cars – and suddenly he went from a safe did-qualify into the DNQ. At the end of that day Tom was more than close to physical fighting with Frank Williams – grabbing his troath – and left Frank Williams for good – hardly as good friends.
Today he regrets he was not able to calm down and wait for more chances. Instead he went back to F5000. But this time setting up his own team being his own team boss and sponsor hunter. But it was a bad move. Even though his found sponsors like Marlboro and Texaco the money was next to almost nothing. Everything was a financial struggle. Tom did not race during 1976 – but had one last F5000 season during 1977. But the F5000 class was already in troubles – and Tom left professional racing for good. He then made a fantastic turn-around. He left motor racing with almost no money – but started instead producing Muesli for breakfast and that became a very big success – making Tom a rich man. Today he is retired – but still going strong.
Bios about Tom Belso by Carsten Frimodt in Danish language Part1 Part2 Part3
Memories from John Dennie FB
Belso was given the ride due to pressure from Marlboro. It drove Frank crazy.
Belso wasn’t qualified for F1 but Marlboro Denmark had their say.In 1974 each team was allotted 2 sets of qualifying tires per session per car(2 sets Friday aft/2sets Saturday aft for each car).The softer qualifying tires were a lot faster. There were times especially final qualifying Saturday afternoon that Belso’s qualifying tires were secretly used on Merzario’s car.
In other words Merzario had 4 sets, Belso none. Belso didn’t know. All the tires were the same colour. This did advantage Merzario but more important.
I think it was a quite way to ensure Belso was slow enough to push Marlboro into losing interest in keeping him going. It worked. Not pleasant but keeping the team afloat was more important than being nice.
