PAST IMPERFECT:Alf Francis spent years as mechanic to racing star Stirling Moss, an eventful time to say the least, writes BOB MONTGOMERY
DOWN THE long history of motor racing, surprisingly few mechanics have become famous in their own rights. One that comes to mind is Ermanno Cuoghi, who was mechanic at Ferrari to World Champion driver Niki Lauda, and about whom Jeremy Walton wrote a book, telling the story of his seven years at the Scuderia. Nearer to home, “Wilkie” Wilkinson wrote his own book, Wilkie, detailing his days with the Le Mans.
But the most famous of all racing mechanics has to be the inimitable Alf Francis, best remembered for the years he spent looking after cars driven by Stirling Moss.
Francis, whose real name was Kovaleski, was born in Poland, but emigrated to Britain. He began his career as a motor racing mechanic in 1948, when he answered a newspaper advertisement and applied for a job with John Heath.
Francis had no racing experience, but was hired on account of his fluency in several languages – Heath was intending to race abroad. Francis soon found that, not only was he expected to be chief mechanic to John Heath’s stable of HWM cars, he was also expected to be team manager, making the arrangements for getting the team and their cars to races in France, Italy and Germany.
The outspoken and often stubborn Francis found himself pitched in at the deep end, a situation in which he thrived to the extent that, by 1950, he was also deeply involved in the creation of the HWM Alta, as well as a production line of cars for the then new Formula Two.
Francis first met a young Stirling Moss in 1950, when he was a team driver for HWM and, when Moss left the team and the Moss family purchased a new Maserati 250F in early 1954, Francis was the natural choice for Moss. The season that followed put Moss on the map as a driver of great talent, thanks in no small part to Francis’ spannering abilities and, when Moss unexpectedly went to Mercedes in 1955, Francis followed him there. In the following year, he also went to the Maserati factory team.
Those years with Moss are legendary in the annals of motor racing, not least for the many adventures Francis had as he drove Moss’s car around Europe between races in a Ford truck. It was a punishing schedule: “I did not know that I should cover over 15,000 miles in the Commer van during that memorable 1954 season, cross the Channel nine times, negotiate the mountain passes of the Alps 15 times, and cross more than 30 international frontiers in order to deliver the Maserati safely to 15 major meetings in seven European countries.”
While en route to the 1950 Rome Grand Prix, Francis drove through the Mount Cenis Pass, got hopelessly lost in Turin, and had to seek directions from the police.
In Genoa they got lost again, only to have their transporter expire on a tramway track. Francis persuaded the passengers to get out and help push the truck several hundred yards to safety. He recounted one Italian explaining to him: “We like to help you because you have racing cars. And we want to get home!”
Francis was to work with Moss again in 1957 when he developed the Rob Walker F2/F1 Cooper Climax, reliving his golden years as chief racing mechanic to Stirling Moss.