12-10-68 The Christchurch Star Sports, Oct. 12, 1968—Poge 31 CAR! NEW FACE! With 39-year-old former world champion Graham Hill driving it in the Lady Wigram Trophy on January 18, the hush-hush Lotus 58, seen here in a secret track trial in England, could be the car to beat. For Wig ram ropny 69, A new face and race here on January THE NEW FACE: Grabarn Hill - World Champion 1963, runner-up the 3 following years, 39-yearold veteran with more than one hundred world title race drives behind him, leading this year's series. THE NEW SHAPE: The hush-hush wedge-shaped Lotus 58, with de Dion suspension to keep its enormous tyres flat on the road at all times, and a radiator mounted in an upswept, chopped-off tail aerodynamically designed to put 70 per cent of the car's weight on the rear wheels and make obsolete the massive aerofoils " introduced On Grand Prix cars a few months ago for the same purpose. Seeks 4th Win This is the combination in which multi-millionaire Gold Leaf Team Lotus chief Coln Chapman is pinning a new shape will add 18. his faith for a fourth Tasman Championship win in a series which will be six years old when the seventh and final round in the 1969 series is decided at Sandown Park, Melbourne, in February. Aill, who has twice won raced elsewhere in this country will take over from where his friend and team-mate, the late Jim Clark, left oil. New Record? Three times Tasman hampion, Clark_won at Nigram in a Lotus-Ford at a record speed st ner nearly 103 miles an hour. In motor racing they say that when the flag drops the "bull" stops. But I predict that Hill will better Clark's • race record if the wedge-shaped By Peter Greenslade colour and excitment to Lotus 58 and its Cosworth- Ford V8 engine hold together for the • 100 mile South Island classic. That's not to say that I'm predicting a Hill Wigram victory. Lined up against him will be New Zealand Chris Amon in a brand-new lightweight Ferrari Dino V6 and Englishman Piers Courage in a Brabham powered by a Cosworth-Ford V8 similar to Hill's. Amon finished runner-up in this year's Tasman series while Courage was third on the ladder. Tough Courage, who went so well in an under-powered for mula 2 McLaren Ford FVA last season, will have tough assignment, for both Hill and Amon will be backed up by No. 2 drivers. Hill's team-mate will be the 1969 international Lady Wigram Trophy Jackie Oliver, the young Englishman who joined Gold Leaf Team Lotus after Clark's tragic fatal race crash at Hockenneim, west Germany, at the beginning of the European season. Oliver has already shown that he can hold his own with the best in the Grand Prix "circus,", but, as he will most likely drive one of the current heavier Grand Prix Lotuses fitted with a 2.5 litre engine, te may find it hard to seep up with Hill. Amon's team-mate will be another Englistman, Derek Bell, who recently signed up to drive for the Italian Ferrari team through to the end of 1969. Blooded in cut-and-thrust European Formula 2 racing, in which blanket finishes involved up to halfa dozen cars are the order of the day and every driver does his utmost to catch the eye of the Grand Priz team managers, Bell is al ready being tipped as a potential world champion. • Promising Courage, a member of the famous English brew ing family, could spring a surprise. He has tremendous ability, but has not really had cars to match it. For this Tasman series he is being sponsored by Frank Williams Racing Cars, Ltd., and his Brab ham-Ford V8 will certainly be a very competitive mount. Although negotiations are still going on, It is pro bable that the sixth overseas visitor at Wigram will be the likeable Australian Frank Gardner, who will again be driving an Alía Romeo-engined Brabham for his Sydney patron, Alec Mildren.