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The Formula 1 Thread

Nick_L

By Nick_L
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dayte

dayte

Posted
Posted

What makes it worse is that Williamson wasn't severely injured from the crash, nor from the fire itself - he was just trapped and would have got out alive if the car was upright. According to wikipedia he was screaming for help when Purley arrived, that must have haunted him.

All it needed was just more one driver to stop and help, or one brave marshall to help Purley push the car over.

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Shimmyhill

Shimmyhill

Posted
Posted

That documentary just made me associate the name Lotus with stupid deaths, really.

Yeah and that was the only thing bad about the docu, odd how they concentrated on Lotus when all teams where at it and many more had higher fatality rates or injuries. Viewing through modern eyes obv makes it worse as death was expected and part of the sport back then, i'm not saying this was right but it was how it was back then, where today it is totally shocking but on the same line if you invented the piston engine today it wouldnt pass health and safety regs!

All the deaths were of course sad but it's Jim Clark that always gets me much in the same way Senna does, good on Jackie Stewart for taking safety so seriously and forcing through the many changes that started the ball rolling on safety.

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McSpeed

McSpeed

Posted
Posted

It was appalling. Any driver that just drove past should have been bloody ashamed of themselves/borderline charged for neglecting to help a fellow person in need. And the incompetence of the marshals has to be seen to be believed.

Not that I take the blame, but leave that to the Dutch to happen in those days. I've read several articles in magazines over here on the subject, explaining how the marshalls at Zandvoort at the time hardly had any proper training. They could barely handle a fire extinguisher and were even walking around in bermuda's and t-shirts.

Then there was the local police meddling as well, telling anyone who interfered with the crash to sod off until the firemen arrived (far too late).

Believe me, the whole scene opened the eyes of racing officials in The Netherlands. It all became much safer soon after.

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wev

wev

Posted
Posted

Considering that it was discussing the 60s and the 70s I'm incredibly thankful they didn't cover Tom Pryce's death, I know I've mentioned it before, but I imagine what happened that day (not strictly to Pryce, but to the Marshall at the track in South Africa, although Pryce's car was involved) as its absolutely horrifying and would of gained a number of complaints I imagine.

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myoozikk

myoozikk

Posted
Posted

Considering that it was discussing the 60s and the 70s I'm incredibly thankful they didn't cover Tom Pryce's death, I know I've mentioned it before, but I imagine what happened that day (not strictly to Pryce, but to the Marshall at the track in South Africa, although Pryce's car was involved) as its absolutely horrifying and would of gained a number of complaints I imagine.

Jeeeez why did I just YouTube this... Eeeep!

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makkuwata

makkuwata

Posted
Posted

I always knew people routinely died in the sport in decades gone by, but until that documentary I never really soaked it in. It's just incredible to me what a difference a decade or two makes in the accepted attitudes to something. F1 being a relatively trivial example.

Weird to think how our own attitudes will evolve in the coming decades.

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myoozikk

myoozikk

Posted
Posted

Anyone seen the Senna movie, i see it's 'out there' and UK release is a while off and WTF has it been released in the USA first - fucking idiots!

Anyway, i hear it is awesome and will see it on the big screen but...

oh shit.

I've got a ticket to the James Allen screening in May. Gonna have to watch it before then i think though. :ph34r:

Official UK release date is June i believe.

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Shimmyhill

Shimmyhill

Posted
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Senna film is amazing, incredibly well made and proper lump in my throat as had not seen the crash footage in a long time - you are still willing him not to drive that race and you can see he is upset and just not happy at williams :( :( :(

He will always be my hero and IMO the best driver bar none, R.I.P.

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kiroquai

kiroquai

Posted
Posted

What makes it worse is that Williamson wasn't severely injured from the crash, nor from the fire itself - he was just trapped and would have got out alive if the car was upright. According to wikipedia he was screaming for help when Purley arrived, that must have haunted him.

All it needed was just more one driver to stop and help, or one brave marshall to help Purley push the car over.

Something else that makes it even more haunting is that, when she was interviewed for David Tremayne's book 'The Lost Generation' (as with all of Tremayne's stuff I seriously highly recommended it by the way, can get it here), Roger Williamson's partner said he had told her that he was absolutely terrified of fire and being trapped in a car that was burning, and that if he had to go he hoped it would be quick. There was also a really touching bit where she said some years later and by pure chance she ended up going to Zandvoort with her husband and as she realised where she was headed she just grabbed his arm and couldn't let go.

I would agree with whoever commented in the documentary (Jackie Oliver perhaps) that it is the darkest stain on F1's history though. As you rightly say, all it would have taken is for one more person to push the car and they could have got him out. Something they don't mention is that whilst all the drivers continued circling past the scene slowly, one of them (Peterson) went by lap after lap without even reducing his speed which is even worse.

Regarding the Lotus thing, it's now pretty much accepted that Rindt's crash was nothing to do with a car failure. Jochen was running the car without wings and on a very strange mixture of tyre compounds, and it seems that when he broke for the Parabolica the car became unsettled due to both and speared left into the barrier. The car did have a broken right brake shaft, but many reckon it fractured during impact, not before. Lotus were not the safest cars to be in though, and for all his genius Colin Chapman wasn't really a particularly nice bloke at times.

Anyhow apologies for the rambling boring post - bit of a closet F1 historian :). Here's a link to the first part of a really interesting documentary on him, which covers the early years through to the de Lorean stuff and his death. Subsequent parts are also available :).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIQHzTbMgJ0

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SharkyOB

SharkyOB

Posted
Posted

All the deaths were of course sad but it's Jim Clark that always gets me much in the same way Senna does, good on Jackie Stewart for taking safety so seriously and forcing through the many changes that started the ball rolling on safety.

The one that gets me the most is Francois Cevert, he just seemed like such a great guy and would have been an amazing team leader after Stewart retired. The way he went was so sad, dying at the final race of the year before he was due to step up the following season. You can see how devastated the whole paddock was from the footage at the time (Colin Chapman's reaction in the pits). When Jackie talks about it in The Flying Scot documentary it's as though they lost a member of the family.

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kiroquai

kiroquai

Posted
Posted

There's a chap who posts regularly at the Atlas Nostalgia board who was a marshal at Watkins Glen during the weekend Cevert crashed. He posted this (might be a bit distressing, just thought I'd point that out):

Actually, I was too stunned to ask the ambulance how he knew he threw up before he crashed. Secondly, since he was cut in half instantaneously I doubt he had time to throw up! I have no medical knowledge so that is strictly a guess on my part. In other words, he was decapitated. I had been watching Cevert very closely all weekend and he had seemed even more keyed-up than normal. He was a very high strung driver. I was not aware of the incident with Jody which had gotten him so mad at Mosport the week before.

It is possible that when he saw Jody closing up on him, he got even more

excited. Jody's was right behind him at the time of the accident.

Before Cevert would get in the car, he would go through this very long

and very dramatic entry into the car. It was almost a ceremony in which

each step was exactly the same, the mechanics stood in the exact same position each time, the attached his belts exactly the same each time.

So he did everything possible to prepare himself for the highest possible

mental and physical effort.

He was driving very, very agressively and he was throwing the car around

with great risk. It was exciting to watch, but I was saying to myself

why is he driving so hard, so early?

When the car was bought back to the pits on the flatbed, the cockpit area

was covered completely by a blue oil cloth. The car was then unloaded

and taken away by the medical examiner.

I did not see his sister the rest of the weekend, she was Beltoise's wife.

Francois was a very good looking guy, his sister was and is one of the

world's great beauties in my mind. Unlike Francois she is a blond with

fantastic eyes.

Beltoise was very strong that weekend. I was impressed with his calmness

and his strenght. He got in his BRM and drove the race in honor of his

fallen brother-in-law.

Watkins Glen pretty much showed up the flaw with armco barriers then, and again the next year when Helmut Koinigg had another awful accident.

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Sidewaysbob

Sidewaysbob

Posted
Posted

I'm torn with the Senna thing. I appreciate he was a brillent driver and one of the very best i saw racing. But to me the crash at Suzuka has tainted anything he did. I just can't forgive him crashing into Prost deliberatly, for a driver that was so great he couldn't just beat Prost driving, he had to crash into him.

Because that led to things like Schumacher being able to crash into Hill and ayone else that got in his way. It made it acceptabel to be agressive and be a cock for a long time.

I know ot's not a popular view, but there you go. Senna isn't as heroic as some one like Mansell who got there by grit and english pluck. Or Massa who almost died and missed out by one corner on the last lap of the season. They never had to drive anyone of fthe circuit to win a race or championship. Hakkinon too is a nice bloke that beat Schumacher fair and square.

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kiroquai

kiroquai

Posted
Posted

Perhaps not a popular view, but one I agree with. I mean, okay, Prost did purposefully nerf Senna off at the chicane the year before, but that was at slow speed into a chicane with no one following. Driving into the side of a car at a flat-out first corner with 24 cars going at over 140mph directly behind you was borderline insanity.

Senna had this strange contrast of on one hand being highly religious and caring (his charity work, his actions when he came across Eric Comas and Pedro Lamy's crashes during Spa practice in 1992 and 1993) and on the other being utterly ruthless to the point where he would risk his and someone else's life if it meant winning.

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whizzo

whizzo

Posted
Posted

What makes it worse is that Williamson wasn't severely injured from the crash, nor from the fire itself - he was just trapped and would have got out alive if the car was upright. According to wikipedia he was screaming for help when Purley arrived, that must have haunted him.

All it needed was just more one driver to stop and help, or one brave marshall to help Purley push the car over.

Nowadays I wouldnt expect a driver to stop simply because they would be 100 percent sure that systems are in place to deal with that sort of situation. The fact that was ever not the case is mind boggling

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marsh

marsh

Posted
Posted

I think, and I really do think that there's an 'edge' you have to have in the manner of dick dasterdly to get to the top. Schumacher, Senna, Alonso would all to a certain extent do whatever they have to in order to win a WDC. Be it own their team mate, or punt a fellow racer off at the first corner.

Senna set the foundations for others to follow, he was just a bit more mental with it than any of the others, though Schumacher comes close having tried it on no less than 3 occaisions?

Maybe it's just me because I'm also hideously competitive, but the distinct lack of champions in other sports that the UK fails so spectaculalry provide I put down to most of the these people lacking in the 'complete arsehole' department. Which is strange because I'd dump the entire england football team in that catagory, and they're rubbish.

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SharkyOB

SharkyOB

Posted
Posted

There's a chap who posts regularly at the Atlas Nostalgia board who was a marshal at Watkins Glen during the weekend Cevert crashed. He posted this (might be a bit distressing, just thought I'd point that out):

Watkins Glen pretty much showed up the flaw with armco barriers then, and again the next year when Helmut Koinigg had another awful accident.

I always though Cevert was cut in half diagonally across his body from hip to shoulder, but that's just what I've read. If Helmut Koinigg is the incident I'm thinking of, he was the driver who was decapitated when his car went underneath a poorly secured armco?

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kiroquai

kiroquai

Posted
Posted

Yeah, you're correct. His car went off going into a slow(ish) right hander and didn't even hit the armco that hard, but the nose caused the lower layer of the armco to give way, the top bit remained in place as the car pushed under it... horrible. Was watching an interview with Niki Lauda once where he said something along the lines of 'Koinigg was just as good as I was'.

I'd probably class the 1974 - 1982 period in F1 to be every bit as dangerous as the 1960 - 1973 period The Killer Years covered. Even when you know what happened to drivers during that time, watching the sport today means that every time you are reminded you still find it shocking.

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