In 1958 a whole country mourned the premature death of almost the entire glorious Manchester United football team, all of them perishing in a plane crash near Munich while on their way back from a match in Belgrade. Some seventeen years later, the British motorsport fraternity was confronted with a similar tragedy, as the Embassy Hill F1 team – Brise, Graham Hill, and four team members – lost their lives in another plane crash.
Ironically, Tony Brise was given his F1 break in a race which would be equally tragic to the Spanish in terms of fatalities: this was the race Rolf Stommelen led for Hill before going off through the sloppily fixed Armco to kill four spectators immediately behind it. In a move of yet even more subtle irony, Brise was then called upon to replace the hapless German.
This was after just one race for the Williams team, in a season Frank was on an all-out attempt to give his cars to as many drivers as possible. In that respect, Williams wasn’t necessarily surprised to see Brise go to Hill. But in hindsight, just a couple of months further down the road, he must have lamented Tony’s departure in the same way Eddie Jordan still mourns Benetton’s signing of Michael Schumacher.
Funny thing was, though, that before Williams signed the young man from Dartford, Kent, no-one really noticed what a great talent he actually was. In 1973, Tony Brise had taken two British F3 championships, the John Player version by himself while sharing Lombard North Central honours with Richard Robarts. As Robarts signed for Brabham – where he would be replaced after just two races by none other than Rikky von Opel, that’s right, the 1972 Lombard champion – Brise tried to raise enough funds to secure a works March F2 seat. It was mission impossible for the underfunded Englishman, and so he had to consign himself to a season of F Atlantic.
His single chance to earn a place in the limelight came at the Monaco F3 support race, where he duly took second. The rest of the season he relied on Teddy Savory to give him the Modus Atlantic drive – which he used to score one crushing victory after another – while waiting for the ‘phone to ring. It finally rang in April 1975…
Brise, in only his fourth year of car racing, was bred in karts and despite his cash-flow problem had the mercurial rise to the top which today seems necessary to make it to F1. As a matter of fact, Beppe Gabbiani’s quick rise to F1 is another case in point but perhaps his is not a good example preceding the current trend among F1 team owners to entrust their million-dollar machinery to ever younger inexperienced go-kart teenagers – 19-year-olds Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa the next ones to follow in Trulli and Button’s shoes. Just turned 20? We’re sorry but that’s just to old to debut in F1!
In 1971, Tony’s first full season in race cars, Brise was also 19 years of age, having been in karts from the age of 8. In 1968 Brise became the British champion and continued in the category for two more years, cash-strapped as he was. Finally, late 1970, he was offered a ride in the BOC Formula Ford championship, in an elderly Elden. For 1971 he swapped it for a more competitive Merlyn and was on the pace straight away, finishing second in the championship.
This had not gone unnoticed by new Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone who offered Brise a ride in one of his BT28s. But the car wasn’t up to it and a switch to a GRD greatly improved his fortunes. So for 1973 GRD’s Mike Warner signed Tony for one of his works cars, replacing the F1-bound Roger Williamson. Brise said thank you by delivering two championships to Warner.
Then, finally, one and a half years later, Brise drove his first F1 race in a Williams. It may not have been as good an opportunity as it would have been in 1993-’94, when Damon Hill and David Coulthard were as lucky as they were, but Tony was grateful nonetheless. The occasion rose as a result of Jacques Laffite’s clashing F2 commitments, the young Frenchman preferring the damp Eifel over sunny Montjuich in his chase of the European F2 crown. So while Jacques was busy winning the Eifelrennen along with five other F2 rounds in what was to be a successful European challenge, Tony took over FW03 (now in its third year of existence, having started life back in 1973 as the Iso-Marlboro IR3 tub), Tony put a 1m26.4s on the clocks, which meant 18th place on the grid at a venue he hadn’t been before. He was just one tenth shy of Jacky Ickx and Mark Donohue and ahead of Alan Jones and Wilson Fittipaldi. It was an outstanding performance.
On Sunday, Brise would be the only Williams driver to take the start. Along with Emerson Fittipaldi – the man unwillingly responsible for starting off the Armco row in the first place – team mate Arturo Merzario, debuting the new Williams FW (also known as “FW04”), declined to race, withdrawing at the start with Emerson’s brother Wilson, both in protest of the shambolic safety measures at Montjuich.
Then, during a race in which a total of eight cars violently left the track, the last one proving to be fatal, Tony moved into sixth but then got hit from behind by Tom Pryce, forcing the Williams debutant into a lenghty pitstop. He eventually was classified seventh, just shy of Lella Lombardi’s historic half point.
Amidst the carnage, Brise had been scouted by Graham Hill, who had just seen his race-leading German star being taken to hospital. At Monaco, while Laffite was back in the second Williams, Hill was a single entry for his own team, Graham celebrating his last GP outing at the venue where he won five times, but sadly failing to qualify. This was the moment Hill had decided in his heart to finally quit GP racing after 17 years of loyal service. So at Zolder Embassy Racing with Graham Hill showed up with two cars again, but now had Tony Brise in the No.23 entry and François Migault returning in the No.22 seat after also having driven the No.23 car for the team at Jarama since Hill had hurt himself in a practice crash at Kyalami.
His Lola T370s now both upgraded to Hill GH1s, Hill was looking for the same form Stommelen showed at Montjuich. In qualifying it seemed they found their way, Tony placing the car a sensational 7th on the grid but suffering a blown engine 17 laps into the race. Meanwhile, Migault was languishing down the grid and for Anderstorp he was replaced by Teddy Tip protégé Vern Schuppan. In Sweden, Brise also crushed his new team mate in qualifying, although his 17th place wasn’t too good either – but then he had to work around two blown engines… After racing as high as 5th before his clutch started to play up he did go on to score Hill’s first point in history – what was to be the only point he himself ever was to score.
At Zandvoort and Paul Ricard followed two fighting 7th places. More impressively, he managed to outperform his third team mate in succession, another Australian, this one by the name of Alan Jones, in Holland by a qualifying margin of almost two seconds, and in the races by a lap at least. In Britain and Germany Brise continued to consummately outpace Jones, although the Aussie held on in the race to finish a distant fifth and earn Hill’s second and third points. In qualifying on the 14-mile track Tony had been 8 seconds up on Jonesy, however.
This was the time luck was turning on the Embassy Hill team. With Stommelen returning to his mount from Austria on, first they didn’t figure at all at the rain-shortened Österreichring race before both crashed out within three laps of the Italian GP.
With the Canada race cancelled, Tony was free to enter the first Long Beach GP, run for F5000 cars. In one of Dan Gurney’s Lolas he set fastest lap and took the lead twice. Eventually the car broke but he had shown the way to some of America’s greatest drivers, Big Al and Mario among them.
Then he was off for his last race of 1975, having already signed on for 1976. Deciding to go with just one car, Embassy Hill showed up with Brise at Watkins Glen, Tony having gained the momentum on Rolf during the German’s absence. But yet again, Brise was off the track within a handful of laps, courtesy of Brian Henton’s efforts.
That was the last on-track appearance of Tony Brise and the Embassy Hill. On November 29, on their return from testing Andy Smallman’s new GH2 at Paul Ricard, Hill’s private plane crashed on its approach to Elstree airport, at Arkley golf course, near Barnet, killing all its occupants, including Hill, Brise, Smallman and three mechanics. Tony was just 23 years old.
Just as Roger Williamson and Stefan Bellof, Tony Brise was a shooting star. The speed with which he rose close to his zenith was impressive and left everyone expecting when the next British World Champion could be celebrated. In fact it would be the very next year, James Hunt rising to the occasion, but in the winter of 1975 all thoughts were still with the double World Champion and the champion-elect who had just retired to the great pitlane up in the sky.
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