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TTS 042 March 782 'Astra' 1978 European Formula 2 Championship - Piero Necchi. RRP £TBC. Scheduled April 2022.

Following on from the white kit, TTS have announced the imminent arrival of the first livery on their 1:24 scale March 782 Formula 2 car. The dominant works March of 1978 F2 champion Bruno Giacomelli will be produced, but the TTS team have chosen another Italian driver for the honour of their first liveried March 782...

   

Born just down the road from Lella Lombardi, Piero Necchi seemed destined for the big time. Hugely successful in 100cc karting, Necchi won three Italian titles and then three consecutive European championships between 1973 and '75 - beating the likes of Riccardo Patrese, Eddie Cheever and Elio de Angelis. He was also in the mix for the world title, missing out on two occasions with mechanical failures.

   

Necchi - pictured above in 1978 - stepped up to single-seaters in '76, racing a season in Formula Super Ford 2000 - finishing second in the Italian championship - followed by a year in Formula 3 with the Astra team. A win at Varano and six more podiums gave him an impressive sixth place in the European F3 Championship in his debut season. There was no hanging around in F3 - next was Formula 2 and a ride in the privateer Astra March 782 for the 1978 European Championship...

   

This was a big step up for both Necchi and for the small Astra team, run by the Bertuzzi brothers from Piacenza. Despite his car being less well prepared and rather fragile compared to the bigger teams, Necchi put in some outstanding performances in the yellow March. The season began with difficult qualifying sessions, not helped by the brand new Pirelli tyres that the Astra team were being paid to test and develop. Yet Necchi always managed to fight his way up through the field and into the top six... and then mechanical issues struck and he'd retire. By Vallelunga in June, things were getting better - Necchi qualified on the front row, 0.42 seconds behind pole-sitter Giacomelli and then finished an excellent third - only the team's second finish of the year.

   

Three weeks later at Donington, Necchi's Astra March was battling for the win with championship-contenders Giacomelli and Keke Rosberg - a battle pictured above. In what would be the high point of his season - and perhaps of Necchi's career - he finished runner-up to Rosberg's Chevron-Hart and ahead of Marc Surer's works March. The rest of the year was a struggle for the team to put out a car to match Necchi's talent. After Derek Daly smashed into the March at Pergusa during a battle for third place, something was very wrong with the car. The team suffered the ignominy of a DNQ at Misano and then Necchi retired on lap two of the final race of the season at Hockenheim. Points scored at Pau, Vallelunga and Donington gave Necchi a creditable sixth-place finish in the championship... but it wasn't enough to be picked up by a bigger team - and the year had proved too much for the Bertuzzi brothers' resources. Both dropped back to F3 for 1979. There's no doubt Necchi continued to have fun - with an F1 test and occasional F2 appearances - but his stellar rise had fizzled out. That's sadly been the story for so many very talented young drivers over the years.

   

That story makes it all the more pleasing that Piero Necchi gets to ride again in the TTS March 782. The new 1:24 scale car looks very exciting and is engineered in BRM style with an aluminium & steel chassis, a new 20k motor (cheekily labelled 'BDA' as a reference to the favoured Formula 2 engine of the mid-70s), plus a 10:34 gear ratio...

   

With the white kits and more liveries to come, the TTS Formula 2 cars promise a fabulous racing class for clubs with tracks wide enough to accommodate them. At around 80mm across the rear wheels, they won't fit on 1:32 scale sectional track systems.

If you want to see the real thing, then there is the wonderful Historic Formula Two International Series that races this year at Hockenheim, Paul Ricard, Brand Hatch, Oulton Park, the Nürburgring and Dijon. Open to Formula 2, Formula B and Formula Atlantic cars built between 1 January 1967 and 31 December 1978, the cars must run to their original specification, using period components and have a valid FIA Historic Technical Passport. The racing is as good as ever and those 2-litre engines sound superb. Here's a full race from Silverstone in 2019...



If you fancy seeing the cars up close, check out the HSCC website: https://hscc.org.uk/championships/historic-formula-2/

A big thanks to Sean at Pendle Slot Racing for sending us the images and technical details of the TTS model.