page_title: March 701
section_title: Suspension and ancillary components
hierarchical_section_title: March 701 / Design / Suspension and ancillary components
caption_attribution_description: English: 1970 March 701 of Tyrrell Racing
context_page_description: The March 701 is a Formula One racing car model, designed by Robin Herd with Peter Wright, and built by March Engineering. The 701 was March's first Formula One design – following their one-off March 693P Formula Three prototype of 1969 – and was designed and built in only three months. The March 701 made its race debut a month after its public unveiling, at the 1970 South African Grand Prix. In total, eleven 701s were constructed, with March supplying many privateer entrants as well as their own works team. The 701's career started well, March drivers taking three wins and three pole positions from the car's first four race entries, but lack of development through the 1970 Formula One season resulted in increasingly poor results as the year wore on. The 701 was superseded by the March 711 in 1971, and made its last World Championship race appearance at the 1971 Italian Grand Prix.
context_section_description: The 701's rear suspension was a relatively conservative twin link and radius arm system, with coilover spring and damper units mounted outboard of the car's bodywork, in the airflow. Double wishbone suspension was employed for the front wheels, which Herd described as "slightly unconventional for a current formula 1 car", again with the spring and damper units mounted outboard. Herd attributed his choice of the double wishbone system to a desire to overcome the suspension geometry compromises necessary to accommodate the increasingly wide front tyres of contemporary Formula One, while outboard shock absorbers – despite aerodynamic disadvantages – provided advantages in simplicity, cooling and stress management.
  Braking duties were performed by 10.5 in (26.7 cm) Girling disc brakes at each wheel. These were initially positioned within the car's wheel rims, but for the second race of the 1970 season, in Spain, March switched the works 701s' rear brakes to an inboard design, that Herd estimated reduced the car's unsprung mass by approximately 25%. All other 701s were converted to the same specification over the subsequent few weeks. The wheels themselves were to March's own design and employed the single centre stud fixing method that Herd had pioneered on the abortive Cosworth four-wheel drive car of the previous year. Herd had intended them to be 13 in (33 cm) in diameter all round. However, March were forced to specify 15 in (38 cm) rims at the rear in early races due to a lack of suitably developed 13 in rear tyres at the start of the 1970 season. Once the cars' brakes had been modified to the inboard design 13 in rims could also be employed at the rear.
  Another visual hallmark of the 701 was its combined oil tank and de-aerator. This large, cylindrical tank was mounted vertically to the right hand side of the Hewland transaxle, filling the space between the right rear wheel, the gearbox and the wing. Autocar sporting editor Innes Ireland described it as "enormous" and looking "like an old fashioned coffee percolator". The oil radiator itself was mounted atop the gearbox, to avoid the surge and starvation problems associated with the lengthy pipes needed to mount the radiator in the nose, alongside the water radiator.
caption: The large oil tank and small oil radiator mounted to the car's Hewland DG300 gearbox, at the rear of one of the Tyrrell team cars
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