page_title: March 701
section_title: Chassis and bodywork
hierarchical_section_title: March 701 / Design / Chassis and bodywork
caption_attribution_description: Silverstone Classic, 2012
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 The 701 was superseded by the March 711 in 1971, and made its last World Championship race appearance at the 1971 Italian Grand Prix.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 was built around a "boxy and workmanlike" bathtub monocoque chassis – constructed from L72 alclad aluminium sheet with cast magnesium bulkheads – that carried the engine as a stressed member. Most of the 701 chassis produced were manufactured in 18 swg sheet, although a special lightweight car, chassis 701/6, was built for the works team during the 1970 season using lighter 20 swg aluminium, although they never raced that car. One of the Tyrrell cars, 701/4, was also rebuilt with a 20 swg monocoque early in the course of the season.
  Ahead of the car's forward bulkhead the brake cylinders, fire extinguisher system, battery and radiator were carried on a tray-like extension to the cockpit floor pan, constructed in lighter 20 gauge aluminium sheet. Herd did consider using side-mounted radiators, but these were too complex to design and build in the time available. The car's fibreglass nose bodywork enclosing the radiator was relatively square, with a near-rectangular opening for the radiator intake. On either side of the radiator opening Herd placed small wings to generate downforce, moulded with the radiator cowl as a single unit. These wings were fixed in position, braced with a steel tube that spanned their full width, and carried adjustable trim tabs along their trailing edges. At the rear of the car a large, single-plane, adjustable wing was mounted atop the gearbox, between the rear wheels.
  One of the 701's visually distinctive features was the aerofoil shape given to the side-mounted external fuel tanks, positioned between the wheels. Before the start of the 1970 season Herd had reckoned on the car requiring a fuel capacity of "well over" 40 gallons for each race. Each of these side-mounted tanks contained six gallons of fuel that, combined with the main tank behind the driver's seat and two tanks on either side of the driver within the monocoque, gave the 701  a total fuel capacity of 60 gallons. The tanks' profile was created by Peter Wright, who at that time worked for March's bodywork contractor Specialised Mouldings. Although the aerofoil shape was claimed at the time to produce "downthrust" and aid stability, Herd has since stated that in the turbulent air between the wheels they would only have been marginally effective.
caption: Tyrrell Racing's March 701/2, showing the aerofoil shape of the side tanks
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