Leo Kinnunen

 ( 1943 Births ) 

In 1974, Kinnunen was looking for a job and John Surtees offered him one of his new Formula One cars, Surtees TS16, on lease. Kinnunen accepted the offer since the Surtees TS14 had done well the previous season. After finally finding sponsorship, Kinnunen entered the series with a new team and a Cosworth DFV V8 3.0 litre engine. Antti Aarnio-Wihuri allowed the team to use the AAW Racing Team name, which was recognized and had a good reputation in racing circles.

AAW Racing's first Grand Prix at Nivelles turned out to be a disaster. The TS16 arrived in time for the race weekend, but Kinnunen had never even sat in the car before. It also turned out that the car had been used as a mobile testbed by the factory, and it already had a damaged monocoque and rear suspension. On top of that, it was 80 Kilogram overweight, the engine lacked power and the team was not allowed to get the top quality tires used by the top teams. When Kinnunen took the car on track, its gearbox broke after three laps. The team, consisting of only three mechanics, had no spare parts and repair work turned out to be unsuccessful, as the gearbox broke again in qualifying, leaving Kinnunen without a recorded time and the only driver not to qualify for the race.

After Nivelles, the team concentrated on testing and fixing the car. They did not travel to Monaco but entered the next race in Sweden. Kinnunen qualified 25th, and while usually only 24 drivers would be allowed to start, Kinnunen's good standing within the Swedish motorsport circle meant an exception was made for him and he was allowed to start.

The AAW team knew that the car would not last the whole race, so they fueled it for only ten laps in order to make a quick press run. This compensated for the TS16's heavy weight, and Kinnunen managed to overtake five cars in eight laps before a spark plug problem forced him to retire. Kinnunen later stated that a spark plug thread in the cylinder head had been stripped prior to the race. A Ferrari mechanic had loaned them a threaded insert kit to fix it, but a mechanic inadvertently damaged the threads while installing the plug and it never seated properly.

The rest of the season did not go well for the team either. They were not allowed to take part in the Dutch Grand Prix, and failed to qualify for the races in France, Great Britain, Italy or Austria. Lack of funding then forced the team to retire from Formula One.

Kinnunen was asked to drive in the film Le Mans personally by actor and racing enthusiast Steve McQueen, who himself drove for Porsche in North America. Kinnunen's contract with Porsche did not allow the performance and he was replaced by David Piper, who was severely injured during the filming.

• Leo Kinnunen – The Flying Finn