APRIL 7, 2005

Cliff Allison

The former Formula 1 racer Cliff Allison has died at the age 73. Born in Brough, a town in the Eden Valley, at the foot of the Pennines hills, Allison came from a family which ran a garage in the town. Cliff's father and uncle were both motorcycle racers but he did not start racing until 1952 when he acquired a Cooper-Norton Formula 3 car, which he debuted at Charterhall in 1952. It would be three years before Allison won anything but then he did sufficiently well to catch the attention of Lotus's Colin Chapman, impressed by the fact that Allison had beaten the Cooper works drivers. He was offered a chance to race in F1 alongside Graham Hill in 1958 and finished sixth in his first two races and then was fourth at Spa. He also did well in Formula 2 and sports car races for the team and at the end of the year was offered a job with Ferrari in 1958. Mike Hawthorn had retired and Peter Collins had been killed and Enzo Ferrari and Ferrari was restructuring and signed up Jean Behra, Tony Brooks, Phil Hill and Allison. In the mid season Behra fell out with team manager Romolo Tavoni and was fired after punching the Italian at the French GP. That opened the way for more new men and Ferrari also tried out Dan Gurney, Olivier Gendebien and Wolfgang von Trips before the end of the year. Allison's best result was fourth in Belgium, where he would have won if the race had been a lap longer as all three men ahead of him broke down at the end of the race. The following year he won the Buenos Aires 1000 with Phil Hill in a Testarossa sports car and was second in the Argentine GP. Suddenly he was the man of the moment but at Monaco he crashed on the first day of practice and was thrown from his car, breaking his arm badly and suffering facial injuries. He would be out of racing for the rest of the year. Ferrari offered him a job as a test driver but Allison wanted to be in F1 and so joined the UDT/Laystall BRP team, driving a Lotus 18. The team did not have enough cars at Spa and so it was decided that the fastest driver would race the car. Allison pushed too hard and crashed at Blanchimont. The car rolled and Allison suffered severe leg injuries. He never raced again.