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F1 back at the ‘Green Hell’?

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 09:18:57 +0000

Dear Nigel,
Is there any possibility of competitive single-seater racing ever returning to the old Nürburgring circuit? It seems so sad that the greatest circuit ever built is not hosting a big event. I know there are dangers associated with the track, but car design has made massive strides since the 1970s when Formula 1 cars last raced there. Modern circuits are fine but seem to lack any real challenge to the drivers.
Jacqueline Carter

Dear Jacqueline,

A return of ‘competitive single-seater racing’ to the original Nürburgring, the Nordschleife? Unfortunately, I’d say there’s about as much chance of Gordon Brown admitting to destroying the British economy. Zilch, in other words.

In 1970 the Grand Prix drivers collectively decided they would not participate in the German Grand Prix there, after which the event was switched – at extraordinarily short notice – to Hockenheim.

We have to remember that this was an extraordinarily dangerous time in motor racing. Feelings were running very high when the drivers met in London to discuss the matter of the Nürburgring: that morning they had been to a memorial service for Bruce McLaren, and the day after they were due to attend the funeral of Piers Courage. Three months later Jochen Rindt was killed in qualifying at Monza, becoming the sport’s first posthumous World Champion.

Safety had long been a subject barely discussed – motor racing was dangerous, always had been, always would be – but now, thanks especially to the efforts of Jackie Stewart, that was changing. For some years changes to the Nürburgring had been requested, and ignored – there was no doubt that the track was regarded as sacrosanct, that the German Grand Prix would always be run there no matter what, and when the drivers opted to boycott it, the organisers were more than shaken.

It worked, though. At once work began on the old, 14-mile track and when the drivers returned there, in 1971, they found it greatly changed – not in terms of the actual circuit layout, but in the way it had been opened up. Vast numbers of trees had been felled, Armco barriers installed in places where there had been none, and there were even minimal run-off areas in places.

The purist in a man like Chris Amon was dismayed in a way, for, as he said, knocking all the trees down took away much of the challenge, in the sense that a driver could now see much further ahead: part of the satisfaction, he said, had always come from committing to a corner when you couldn’t see all the way through it.

Even Amon agreed, though, that the changes had been necessary – and no one for a second thought that the Nordschleife had suddenly become safe. It was merely less perilous than before.

“It’s very nice to reminisce about the Nürburgring,” says Stewart, who won there three times, “on a cold winter’s night, sitting by a log fire! Of course it was an incredibly satisfying circuit to drive round – but I don’t believe there was ever a driver who didn’t feel relief when he drove out of there…”

True enough – and what finished the Nürburgring in terms of Formula 1, of course, was the accident in 1976 which so nearly killed Niki Lauda. The race was immediately red-flagged, and when it was eventually restarted Amon – of all people – declined to take part. Like many drivers, he had stopped at the scene of Lauda’s accident, and what he couldn’t accept was the length of time it had taken for rescue crews and medical personnel to reach Niki. Chris and Hans-Joachim Stuck, indeed, took it upon themselves to find a field telephone, to alert race control to what had happened.

Amon was that day driving an Ensign, which had already suffered suspension failure more than once that season, and well knew that if a car were going to break anywhere it was more likely to happen at the ‘Ring, with all its ‘yumps’, than anywhere else. Were that to happen, he said, he would hope that marshals and doctors could be swiftly on hand, but from what he had seen of the Lauda accident that was not the case. It was impossible to provide adequate cover at a 14-mile track.

I’ve driven countless laps of the Nürburgring in a variety of road cars, some very quick, and a few years ago had a never-to-be-forgotten lap in a Merc with Bernd Schneider, but I’ve never really been able to conceive of what it must have been like to go round there at F1 speeds.

A few years ago, for a BMW publicity stunt, Nick Heidfeld drove one of the team’s F1 cars – with greatly increased ride height to cope with the undulations and surface – round the Nordschleife. Although he didn’t go hard he was entranced by the experience, and very regretful, he said, not to have raced in an era when circuits like this were in use for F1. That said, Heidfeld admitted that he simply couldn’t imagine how a German Grand Prix must have been in those days…

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Museum masterpieces

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:28:00 +0000

Museum masterpieces

Dear Nigel,

Much to my wife’s delight, a recent holiday in northern Italy happened to take in the motor sport hotspots of Mantua, Modena and Maranello (pure coincidence, you understand…).

I’ve always been a staunch McLaren supporter but I am now troubled by feelings of betrayal, brought on by the intoxicating romance of how the Italians go about their motor racing and how they treat their history. In particular I was amazed at the collection of cars Ferrari display in their museum and the fact that you can actually get right up close to them. For all McLaren’s efforts to become a ‘British Ferrari’, I can’t imagine Ron ever allowing the proletariat such access to its historic cars…

So my question is this: what are the great racing museums of the world?

Rupert Sexton

Dear Rupert,

When it comes to racing museums, my two favourites are the Donington Collection, for which we must ever be grateful to the late Tom Wheatcroft, whose passion for motor racing was unbounded: here sits an unmatched collection of Grand Prix from down the ages, and I defy anyone not to be blown away by it. Even though I’ve seen it countless times, that’s the effect it always has on me.

From a purely personal point of view, though, if I had to pick just one museum I guess it would be that at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where there is an amazing collection of cars from the 500, but also a fabulously eclectic selection of others, such as the Rindt/Gregory Ferrari 275LM which won at Le Mans in 1965. Add in a wealth of memorabilia from the 500 – drivers’ helmets and the like – and you have an environment in which I personally can happily spend hours.

As you walk in, for example, there in a cabinet on the left are Rudolf Caracciola’s trophies, left by his widow to the late Tony Hulman, a close friend of Caracciola – and, of course, the man who bought a semi-derelict track 60 years ago and transformed it into what I consider the most hallowed ‘racing place’ on earth.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (5/5)

Guest Writer — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:18:13 +0000

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (5/5)

In the final part of our special Jochen Rindt tribute, we hear from two more of his rivals who were due to race against him at the fateful 1970 Italian GP, where the Austrian was killed in practice before becoming Formula 1’s only posthumous World Champion. Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for that race survive, and we’ve spoken to all but one of them (as reader Chris Hall guessed correctly – George Eaton) in the run-up to this weekend’s race at Monza.

John Miles

GB, Lotus (team-mate)

“Jochen and I didn’t really mix, so in one way I didn’t know him that well. I didn’t move in the same circles as the F1 glitterati. He had a very glamorous wife, and I lived in a terraced house in Islington with my three children, so it was a rather different lifestyle. Socially our paths didn’t really cross. We didn’t gel I think because we came from such different backgrounds. He didn’t see me as the next Emerson Fittipaldi, or whatever.

“Having said that, we were team-mates, so I got to know him quite well. He had a tremendous urgency about the way he conducted his life and he was very quick to judge, I would say – not the most tolerant guy in the world, like a lot of racing drivers.

“The Lotus 72 (the title-winning car on which Miles led the development) was such a troublesome child for me – every time I got into it something broke and there were a lot of confidence-destroying problems with that car. Jochen once said to me at Spa, ‘I wouldn’t drive that car if I were you’. I had a wheel fall off – fortunately at La Source – then two tyres went down in the race. There were an unending sequence of things going wrong.

“Jochen kind of didn’t want to drive for Lotus in one sense because he knew the cars were liable to let him down. But once the anti-dive and anti-squat were taken off, the car got very fast, and he was compelled to drive it because it gave him a very good position to win the World Championship. He was caught between the opportunity of winning a World Championship, but of the car always falling to bits.

“To me he was always fair, but he didn’t see me as a racer. He didn’t see me as someone with the same risk-taking profile as he had. His clan were the likes of Jackie Stewart and Jack Brabham – he had a good relationship with them.

“1970 was the year that destroyed my career in a sense, so it’s not one that I remember with great fondness. It was a bit like being a rear-gunner in a Lancaster bomber. The Monza weekend itself… Well, it was catastrophic, for obvious reasons. I had a big disagreement after practice on Friday about the wing situation and I didn’t want to run the car without them. We had no idea, no data that supported the aero balance without wings. I drove one lap with the car like that and I concluded it was completely undriveable; I nearly killed myself going round the Curva Grande. Colin Chapman ordered me to take the wings off the car, so they came off, but before I could get out to practice Jochen was killed. He was such a tremendous driver that I don’t believe the aero issue was what made the car leave the track. I believe that something broke, although others think differently. I followed Jochen at the end of Friday practice and his car looked dreadful. Colin already wanted to take the wings off the car, but the initial idea wasn’t Colin’s: Jochen had suggested it to him.

“There was engineering rashness with the 72. If we hadn’t been doing stupid experiments like taking the wings off with zero aerodynamic data to base it on, and if the mechanics hadn’t pulled an all-nighter to do this stuff, then maybe Jochen would still be alive.”

Emerson Fittipaldi

BR, Rob Walker Lotus (team-mate)

“My relationship with Jochen ran quite deep, because we raced together in Formula 2. By the time of Monza I was the third driver at Lotus, behind Jochen and John Miles, and I remember him helping me in the first Formula 1 test at Silverstone. He told me about the car and he was holding out the board as I went around each time.

“Monza was my fourth race and on the morning before practice I remember clearly that Jochen and I were talking about my 1971 contract over breakfast. He wanted me to drive in the team he had started with Bernie Ecclestone (his manager) and I agreed. It was very exciting and I felt so proud that I would be driving for Jochen. That was the last time I spoke to him.

“Then came the disaster. It was awful for me. I was only 22 and he was a guy I had looked up to as an idol. He was always very good to me when I arrived in Europe from Brazil, and his death was a big shock. My wife had become very close to Nina Rindt also, so on many levels it was a really difficult time. It wasn’t just the racing. Back then we never knew when we packed our bags on a Wednesdsay or Thursday whether we would be coming home on a Sunday night.

“Jochen was always extremely focused and he used to read a lot, he was intelligent. That was his way to relax. He could sometimes seem quite cold if you didn’t know him, but if you got close to him as a friend he was a really warm guy underneath. The way he treated me was fantastic and it gave me a huge motivation. He was an extreme talent and a fantastic guy.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (4/5)

Guest Writer — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:40:03 +0000

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (4/5)

In the fourth part of our special Jochen Rindt tribute, we hear from three more of his rivals who were due to race against him at the fateful 1970 Italian Grand Prix, where the Austrian was killed in practice before becoming Formula 1’s only posthumous World Champion. Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for that race survive, and we’ve spoken to all but one of them.

There are more recollections to come tomorrow, as we count down to this weekend’s Grand Prix at Monza.

Tim Schenken

AUS, Williams

“I remember that weekend well. It was only my second Grand Prix. I’d been doing Formula 2 up to then, so I’d already raced against Jochen and he was a bit of a hero of mine. It’s funny how you have heroes and then suddenly you’re racing against them. Jochen was a special sort of person. Some people have something about them – Ayrton Senna, Enzo Ferrari – and Jochen was that kind of guy. When you were with him you knew you were in the presence of someone special.

“Jochen’s accident, and his death… It’s hard to explain how it affects you as a driver. You get to F1 and you’re doing something that you desperately want to do, so you’re there and suddenly someone who you look up to is killed and you feel very confused. Today a driver would probably have people around them, a manager maybe who they could talk to. But I was on my own. I was 27, and I’d come up through the ranks as you had to back then. So when Jochen died, it was certainly something you were never going to forget.

“A racing driver’s mind is really strange. You really think you’re never going to be hurt, otherwise you’d never do it. So somehow you put another driver’s death out of your mind. I didn’t reflect on it, which seems quite harsh, and in the next race it was as if he had been forgotten, which was quite odd and sad.”

Nanni Galli

IT, Ecurie Bonnier

“To understand something about Jochen, it’s enough to remember that he is the only posthumous World Champion in the history of Formula 1. He was that good and we were firm friends, although not everybody understood him. Above all, Jochen was a decisive man who knew his own mind.

“I don’t actually remember much about the Monza weekend now: maybe to some extent the sadness blocked it out. But I recall feeling shocked when I heard that he had died: I hadn’t seen any fire, so at first I thought the accident was not too serious. Back then, though, we measured things by different standards. Racing was dangerous: we were driving around in thin metal tubes protected only by 220 or 230 litres of petrol. This meant that fatalities were just a fact of life, but it also meant that the relationships between people were closer and that driving standards were more correct. In 1970, you would never have found drivers doing to each other what Michael Schumacher did to Jacques Villeneuve in 1997. It was too risky and everyone knew it.”

Chris Amon

NZ, March

“I talked to Jochen in the pitlane in Monza just before he went out for his last practice lap. I don’t remember what we talked about, but it was obvious his confidence levels were very high. He was on his way to winning the World Championship and he was confident of a good result at Monza. A few minutes later he got in the car and never came back.

“I didn’t see him crash. I didn’t even see the aftermath. I was having some problems with my car and by the time I got on the track it had all been cleaned up. We were all a bit shell-shocked because there had been a number of fatalities that year. But you block it out. He wasn’t wearing a full six-point harness belt but that is not quite as surprising as it sounds, because seat belts hadn’t been around that long. One of the reasons drivers didn’t like them is they were terrified of fire, and the thinking was you were almost better to get pitched out than stay in the car.

“Jochen was a very forthright character with a wicked sense of humour, and as a driver he was right up there. I don’t know if we ever fully saw the best of him. He drove some fairly ordinary cars up until the last few years of his career and I think there was a lot more to come from him. Around that time the two guys I really rated were Jochen and Jackie (Stewart). For me he will always be one of the best.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Why Monza is a must-visit

Rob Widdows — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:08:17 +0000

Why Monza is a must-visit

It’s time for Monza. What a delicious prospect. Passion, pasta, Peroni and the Prancing Horse. Then there’s the traffic, the tifosi and the double-booking of grandstand seats…

The Italian Grand Prix has been held every year since 1950 and, along with the British race, is the only round to have been on the calendar for so many consecutive years. One of the truly great things about this race is that it is held at the Autodromo di Monza – a true Grand Prix circuit situated in parkland just outside Milan.

I had my first experience of this place back in 1969. And what a race it was. We had seats in the huge grandstand opposite the pits – when I say seats, in those days you perched on bare concrete steps that reached skyward from the edge of that everlasting straight from Parabolica to Curva Grande. No silly chicanes, just a highly dangerous, slipstreaming blast from corner to corner. That year the Italians had double-booked our seats, so we were jammed into a long row of very excitable Ferrari fans. They stood and cheered every time the red cars went by. Fantastic. The man selling bags of nuts and drinks was unable to make his way up the steps.

This was one of the closest races in the history of the sport. Less than a second covered the first four cars as they came out of Parabolica in formation before ducking and weaving over the line. But there wasn’t much for the tifosi to cheer. Amon and Rodréguez struggled with an uncompetitive car, the Mexican finally finishing sixth, two laps down, while Jackie Stewart won the slipstreaming contest by mere feet from Rindt, Beltoise and McLaren. That secured his first World Championship and the Constructors’ title for Matra. By the end of this thrilling encounter we had a little more room, many of the locals having long ago walked away.

Two years later we were back, having again driven from Sussex, over the Alps and down to Lake Como – a good place to stay to make the most of an Italian GP weekend. Milan is easier, but not in Sunday traffic. Again we were treated to a classic Monza experience. This time Peter Gethin was the last man to duck out of the slipstream and cross the line in the lead, less than a second ahead of Peterson, Cevert, Hailwood and Ganley. It could have been any one of them, but it was Gethin in the BRM, and he still talks about it. The red cars, now raced by Ickx and Regazzoni, retired. The traffic started early.

Of course we no longer have four cars abreast, and nor do we have the same daunting circuit. But Monza is Monza, and you have to go there at least once in your life. Like Silverstone, Spa, Monte Carlo and Interlagos, it’s a pilgrimage for which you must put aside the pennies and go.

It’s not just Monza, it’s Ferrari, it’s the passion, it’s the blinding speed and noise, the flashes of colour in the trees through the Lesmos, the whole wonder of Italy. Ah, Forza Ferrari.

No, I am not biased – I simply believe that Ferrari and Italy are vital ingredients of Grand Prix racing. I don’t like team orders, and I very much hope that the stupid rule (Article 39.1) introduced by Max Mosley to outlaw the practice will be banished, and that Ferrari will not be singled out.

Meanwhile, Monza goes ahead as it always must. OK, the place has been emasculated in the interests of safety, but this is still one of the great sporting arenas. The atmosphere remains intact – the people have seen to that.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (3/5)

Guest Writer — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:57:08 +0000

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (3/5)

In the third part of our special Jochen Rindt tribute, we hear from three more of his rivals who were due to race against him at the fateful 1970 Italian Grand Prix, where the Austrian was killed in practice before becoming Formula 1’s only posthumous World Champion. Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for that race survive, and we’ve spoken to all but one of them.

There are more recollections to come tomorrow, as we count down to this weekend’s Grand Prix at Monza.

Jean-Pierre Beltoise

FR, Matra

“For us as drivers at the time, it wasn’t a question of if we would die in a racing car, but when. So after I learned that Jochen had died during the Italian Grand Prix, I didn’t really feel huge shock, just as I didn’t when my brother-in-law François Cevert was killed three years later. You became very hardened to injuries, accidents and deaths. These were simply the price you paid for racing, and for as long as the rewards were worth it and you had the chance to win races you just accepted it. The risks never stopped you sleeping at night and if those thoughts ever cropped up in your mind you chased them away.

“I don’t remember much about the weekend in Monza, but I’ll always remember Jochen as a very nice guy. The French drivers used to stick together and were very close, but while Jochen was Austrian, he was also one of our circle. I knew him well as we were both racing in Formula 2, and although I was younger than him, we were very good friends. When he died he was the man to beat in Formula 1: definitely one of the great drivers.”

Henri Pescarolo

FR, Matra

“At the time of the accident it was very difficult to know what had happened. It wasn’t like now when you have a safety car and yellow flags. Often in races, even if there was a very bad accident, they would just carry on. We knew something bad had happened because we could see how badly the car was damaged, but we didn’t know about Jochen until much later.

“He was a good guy, you know, and we were friends as we raced together in F2. I remember the year he died, 1970, at Monaco I stayed ahead of him for most of the race until he won at the very last corner when he passed Jack Brabham. I knew that if I stayed ahead of Jochen I had done a good job. He was exceptionally fast, very spectacular and aggressive. Great for the fans to watch.

“After he died… well, it’s hard to say it now, but we just carried on because we were so used to drivers being killed in F1 or sports car racing. It was just the way of the times. Every weekend, it seemed, somebody would die. The next time, maybe it would be you…”

Peter Gethin

GB, McLaren

“As a competitor Jochen was exceptional in everything he drove – particularly Formula 2. When he came into F1 he was with Cooper, which at that time wasn’t a great car, but you could see he was exceptionally good and that he was destined to be a World Champion. As a bloke he was a decent guy, a very intelligent guy and a nice guy – pretty hard-nosed, pretty sharp and very Austrian. He was a guy with a very good sense of humour, too.

“I remember speaking to him on the Friday night before the race and that was the last time. I was on track when he crashed and not that far behind him. I remember Jackie Stewart running back to me in the pits and asking if I’d seen what had happened. It was a very sad and traumatic day, but in those days these things happened.

“The accident was at the highest possible speed on the straight approaching the Parabolica. But he definitely didn’t make a mistake. He was unlucky that his car went under the Armco and that he wasn’t wearing lap belts, but it was going to be a terrible accident anyway.

“As drivers back then we had an attitude a bit like fighter pilots in the last war: we knew it was dangerous, but it was never going to happen to you. If it happened to someone else you were upset, but if you thought about it too much you couldn’t do your job. That’s how it was.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (2/5)

Guest Writer — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:22:12 +0000

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (2/5)

In the second part of our special Jochen Rindt tribute, we hear from three more of his rivals who were due to race against him at the fateful 1970 Italian Grand Prix, where the Austrian was killed in practice before becoming Formula 1’s only posthumous World Champion. Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for that race survive, and we’ve spoken to all but one of them.

There are more recollections to come tomorrow, as we count down to this weekend’s Grand Prix at Monza.

Sir Jack Brabham

AUS, Motor Racing Developments

“Monza 1970 was a very sad weekend for me. I had become very close friends with Jochen and we had so many great races together.

“Jochen had a horrible car failure at the end of the straight and was killed through no fault of his own. I rated him very highly indeed as a driver and felt he was a wonderful competitor, and I always enjoyed racing with him. I would say also that he was a very good type of man, who became a bosom friend, and beyond that he was one of the best drivers of that period and captured the imagination of the racing public.

“Fatalities, unfortunately, were something we had to live with and we had to get on with the job at hand, but it was a very sad period altogether.”

John Surtees

GB, Team Surtees

“Jochen was my team-mate, of course, at Cooper. I’d seen him in Formula 2, where he had a number of good events. He came before me at Cooper-Maserati. He showed good pace and did a good race at Spa, where I watched him because his tyres were handling in the wet better then mine. And it was obvious he was talented.

“In terms of his World Championship… Well, at that time there were a number of drivers who, if they were in the right car at the right time, had the potential to become World Champion, and he was definitely one of those. When he went to Lotus, to work with Colin Chapman, then definitely he was one of those with World Champion potential. Jochen had the right degree of aggression and he was also someone who was able to come together with a car. Colin could put together a real driver’s car, and by the time Jochen went there he had the right amount of experience to be a potential champion. What happened was just tragic.

“I had had a major accident in 1966 that nearly killed me, due to a mechanical failure. And Jochen’s accident was probably caused by a mechanical failure too. That reawakened memories that there are things beyond your control at times, particularly in those days. It’s one of the facts of life. You have to recall why you are there and what you are there to do – a job that generally you love doing. There are moments when that love goes away, of course, but you have to cast that to one side once you get behind the wheel, without wishing to sound callous.”

Andrea de Adamich

IT, McLaren

“I first met Jochen at the Vallelunga Italian Formula 3 race in 1963. We were both beginners, although our career paths diverged after that. He was far faster than me in Formula 1 but I was very proud to beat him in the 1968 Temporada Argentina, when I had the Ferrari Dino Formula 2 car.

“By Monza 1970, the only reason he was not dominating rather than simply leading the championship was that his Lotus was fragile as well as fast. It’s a weekend that will remain imprinted on my memory. Just before Jochen crashed he had come out of the pits. It’s my belief that his belts weren’t done up properly after he left, and this is what caused him to slide under them, with the buckle crushing his neck. We’ll obviously never know, but I think that if his belts had been properly fastened then he could have survived the accident, although he would still have sustained severe leg injuries.

“I remember both him and his wife Nina with a lot of affection. They were cultured, educated and refined people – which is not something that you could always say about everyone in the paddock.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (1/5)

Guest Writer — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:41:29 +0000

Jochen Rindt – by his rivals (1/5)

This weekend’s Italian Grand Prix marks the 40th anniversary since the death of Jochen Rindt, who was killed at Monza in practice for the 1970 race. Having been that season’s dominant driver for Lotus – first in the 49B, then in the 72 – he came to Monza with 45 points and a 20-point lead over nearest rival Jack Brabham. It would be enough to confirm him as champion two races later when Ferrari’s Jacky Ickx, by then the only man who could overhaul Rindt, finished fourth at Watkins Glen. The three points he scored meant Rindt would remain out of reach and become Formula 1’s first posthumous World Champion.

He was also Austria’s first World Champion, and in his home country he remains feted to this day.

A hugely charismatic figure, Rindt was not, however, universally popular and some of his rivals, in particular, considered him aloof, even arrogant.

Fifteen of the 26 drivers entered for the 1970 Italian GP are still alive and to commemorate a majestic driver, cut down in his prime, we’ve spoken to all but one of them. Here are some of their recollections, with more to follow in the run-up to this weekend’s race at Monza.

Jackie Stewart

GB, Tyrrell

“By the time the race came around a lot of the immediate emotion had somewhat reduced. The day before had been very traumatic. Helen went to the hospital with Nina and that’s never a nice thing for a wife to do, to look after another wife.

“I think I finished second. I can’t remember where I was on the grid [he was fourth]. I went out and did quite a good qualifying after Jochen died. It’s in Winning is not Enough. Tried the March, went back to the Tyrrell, and then the March. As a racing driver, when the visor goes down and the lights go out, you have to get on with it. Driving a car, you are so totally consumed by what you are doing, you’re never allowed to be distracted. In that respect it was maybe it was one of the advantages I had: being able to block things out. I always tried to remove emotion and I was able to do that. I had won the championship the year before. From about halfway through ’68 I suddenly matured mentally and was able to manage everything better in my own head.

“That was a bad year, 1970. Bruce McLaren and Piers Courage were killed, and of course Jochen. It was quite difficult to deal with these things, because it’s not just at the track, and seeing the things I saw. It’s brought back to you the next week because of the funeral, and two months later there’s a memorial service. Monza was one of those circuits where we didn’t have a problem with safety. We’d refused to go to the Nürburgring and that was a big deal. Jochen was part of that with me.

“There’s always emotion involved at the start of the race. I was lucky enough to be able to remove most of it. I can’t remember much about it. To finish second in the March was a good result.”

And the Coke bottle-smashing incident after qualifying?

“I make no excuses for that. I’d been to Jochen. I’d been to him and come back to Nina, who had disappeared with Helen. Then Ken…

“Going back out was the right thing to do. The barrier had been fixed, but I suppose because of what I had seen when I went out I was in tears. But when I had the visor down that was when I did my qualifying time, which was the best lap I had ever done at Monza. I didn’t have a death wish. But as I came back in, my best friend John Lindsay handed me a Coca Cola. I took a drink and I will never forget I had it in my hand and I was so angry, I took the bottle and smashed it against the concrete wall that separated the pits from the track. That was my emotion. But not in the race. That’s what I remember.”

Jackie Oliver

GB, BRM

“I remember that most of us were staying the Hotel de Ville on the edge of the park. I had breakfast with Jochen’s wife and we went to the circuit together. We certainly all knew each other.

“Jochen had certain people he wanted to associate with and others he didn’t. He tended to be very self-centred, which isn’t unusual in a successful racing driver. I wouldn’t count him as a friend. He associated with people, I believe, who were as good as him and then he’d make a judgement on the others and didn’t give them space in his life.

“We raced together in Formula 2 the year before and then again in F1. Colin Chapman, Jochen’s boss at Lotus, saw Jochen as a replacement for Jim Clark, and he was probably right about that.

“It was a very dangerous period for motor racing. Lots of us were getting nailed. The cars were not as safe as they are now. They tended to catch light in a crash. No fuel bags. In that situation, it was a bit like being in the military, I imagine. There was no point in dwelling on it. If you were dwelling on it for too long, you weren’t doing a good job. You were better off doing something else.

“I didn’t dwell on it. I knew there were people dealing with the situation so I shut myself down. A few drivers were able to engage with the death of another driver, perhaps because they needed to immerse themselves. Certainly Jackie Stewart felt he had to be involved because he was pushing to get improved safety standards. But I just went my own way and thought ‘there’s another one of us gone and it will never happen to me.’

“No remorse. No sadness. No tears. As far as I was concerned Jochen was just gone. Looking back it was probably an inappropriate way to behave, but I suppose a number of others were exactly the same.”

Jacky Ickx

BE, Ferrari

“Not winning at Watkins Glen was such a release. How could you beat someone not able to defend his own chances? The fact that Jochen won the World Championship was the most perfect solution. As for me not having won, it doesn’t create any kind of sorrow at all. Now, when I think back, I feel so sad for all those around me – probably more talented than I was, and certainly more dedicated, who didn’t have that extra piece of luck that made you a survivor. That was the great thing about that era – survival.”

Anthony Rowlinson

Anthony Rowlinson is executive editor of The Red Bulletin

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

A highly charged season

Rob Widdows — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:53:48 +0000

A highly charged season

I wonder if, like me, you are partial to the music of Frank Zappa? In one of his more philosophical moments, Zappa opined that the mind is like a parachute. It only works if it is opened. In August 1970 I travelled to the Isle of Wight Festival with Zappa, assigned to this task by the local newspaper. This ‘happening’ came between the Grands Prix in Austria and Italy.

Leaving aside the fun and frolics of the Isle of Wight, it’s interesting to look back on what was a highly charged season, brutally fractured by the death of Jochen Rindt at Monza in September. Already we’d lost Piers Courage at Zandvoort and Bruce McLaren in a test session at Goodwood. It seemed it couldn’t get any worse, but it did. The 1970 season is an example, too, of why we should keep an open mind. And this applies as much today as it has done over the decades.

If you recall, the mesmeric Rindt dominated proceedings, winning five races through the summer, from Monaco to the Hockenheimring. The only glitch came at Spa when the Cosworth in his Lotus 49C let go after 10 laps. Two weeks later Rindt, now in Chapman’s innovative 72, won the first of four on the trot. The championship, we thought, was surely his and deservedly so. But motor racing, as we have seen again this year, is full of surprises. Some happy, some sad.

All in all, a momentous year. Jacky Ickx was back at Ferrari after a year away at Brabham and by mid-summer the glorious 312B was coming on song, Ickx winning in Austria, Canada and Mexico. But it was not enough. Despite the tragedy of Monza, the mercurial Rindt could not be caught and he remains the sport’s only posthumous World Champion.

Intriguingly, if Ickx had won the penultimate round at Watkins Glen in October he would have beaten Rindt to the title. But it wasn’t to be. In a dramatic race that typified the season Ickx duly started from pole but this day the Ferrari was no match for the other man on the front row, Jackie Stewart in the new Tyrrell 001. Stewart led easily while Ickx pitted just after half-distance with a broken fuel line, returning in 12th place and storming back to a superb fourth by the flag. Meanwhile, a minute in the lead, Stewart retired, the Cosworth leaking oil. Who came through to win and wreck any hopes of a world title for Ickx? A young Brazilian called Emerson Fittipaldi in a Lotus, in only his fourth Grand Prix.

You needed a very open mind to keep up with the scriptwriter in 1970, and a strong stomach. It was both thrilling and awful, the sport at its best and worst. And it wasn’t over yet. Ickx won a chaotic final race in Mexico where spectators climbed the guardrails, stood trackside, and the maddest ran across the circuit itself. Eventually a dog escaped and ran into the path of Stewart’s Tyrrell, damaging the suspension and forcing the Scot to retire. Ickx came through to win and the 1971 Mexican Grand Prix was removed from the calendar.

Triple World Champion Jack Brabham hung up his helmet, having started his final season with a win in South Africa. Clay Regazzoni scored his first Grand Prix victory in a Ferrari at Monza. March arrived in Formula 1. Tyrrell built its first Grand Prix car, Stewart putting it on pole first time out in Canada. And Goodyear introduced slick tyres to the sport. What a year.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

1970 – a year of change

Damien Smith — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:07:05 +0000

1970 – a year of change

‘Iconic’ is a much overused word these days, and it’s a particular bugbear for one of my team here at Motor Sport. But sometimes it’s a word that’s hard to avoid. Sometimes it’s the first thing that springs to mind when presented with a certain image. And if anything deserves this hallowed status it has to be the Gulf Porsche 917 on the cover of the August issue, perhaps the greatest racing car ever built – depending on your point of view.

Like everything of the ‘greatest ever’ nature, it is purely subjective, of course. It’ll depend on your age, your bias towards sports cars or Formula 1, and so on. And the same came be said for our assertion that 1970, a year of thrills and turmoil in equal measure, is ‘Year Zero for the Modern Age’.

We thought long and hard about such a tag when we decided to theme an issue around a single season, 40 long years ago. It seemed to fit. Rampant commercialism and concerns about safety really took hold in the final years of the 1960s, but certainly on the point of safety this was the year when people finally started to listen to Jackie Stewart. After 1970, the sport had to change.

As Nigel Roebuck writes in his introduction to our special section, this was the year when F1 drivers managed to change the venue of the German Grand Prix from the Nürburgring to Hockenheim at less than six weeks’ notice – all in the name of safety. The deaths of Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage and, later in the season, Jochen Rindt focused the drivers like never before on their attitudes to the sport. Rindt’s own mixed feelings on racing are captured in this issue with an extract from David Tremayne’s new biography. The Austrian would become F1’s only posthumous World Champion. But had he lived, the dangers and loss of close friends appear to suggest he would have retired anyway.

It went beyond safety. 1970 was the start of a new decade where the whole world changed dramatically – in some respects for the better and in others for the worse. The 1960s are often depicted, rightly or wrongly, as the end of the age of innocence. In a decade that featured the assassination of a US president and the futile war in Vietnam that’s perhaps too trite. Nevertheless, it’s a fact that nostalgia for the ’60s remains stronger than for any other decade. Nostalgia for the ’70s is popular, but it’s also remembered as a tougher, more cynical decade. The colour and extravagances of the world today can be traced back 40 years, to a time when the old values, fashions and expectations were being overtaken by new attitudes – with a harder edge. As usual, motor racing ran in parallel to the world at large. Life would never be the same again.

We chose the Gulf 917 as the image most linked to the year even though the monster was actually born a year earlier. It didn’t even win Le Mans in the blue and orange colours. But it’s so familiar, so of the time and – aided by Steve McQueen – so of that specific year.

Perhaps you might disagree with our ‘Year Zero’ premise. If there were such a thing, maybe you’d care to argue it was 1968, or ’69 or ’71… We’ll be awaiting your comments. But in the meantime, whatever your feelings, I hope you enjoy a group of features that will surely entertain you. Just check out this line-up: Rindt, Stewart, Amon, Rodríguez, March, BRM, Porsche 917s – and of course that man McQueen. With that lot, you can’t go wrong!

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Psychological battles

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:44:40 +0000

Psychological battles

Dear Nigel,
Having just watched both the qualifying at Melbourne and highlights of the 1969 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, courtesy of YouTube, I was struck by the enormous gulf between F1 then and now. I was born in 1974 and my earliest memories of motor racing come from the early ’80s, but I’m a huge fan of ’60s and ’70s racing.

The biggest difference, it seems to me, is that the psychological challenge was greater in earlier years than it is now, when climbing into a racing car and going to the limit was extremely perilous. The kind of ‘mind management’ needed to overcome natural fears of death or injury mark out yesterday’s drivers as a breed apart.

I’m always staggered at the reaction to François Cevert’s death in 1973. The accident couldn’t have been more horrific, yet both drivers and team managers seemed able to put it behind them and get on with the job of racing. In Peter Revson’s biography, Peter Manso mentions Revson going to an exhibition of motor sport art which looked out on the spot where Cevert was killed that same day without batting an eyelid. Bernie Ecclestone has recalled mentioning the accident to Carlos Reutemann, and then the two of them moving on to discuss tyre choices for Sunday! Meanwhile Jody Scheckter, who did at least admit that what he saw changed his outlook on motor racing forever, was already in discussion with Ken Tyrrell with regards to joining the team in ’74. The only driver, it seems, who reacted ‘normally’ was James Hunt, who was described as looking pale and visibly shaken, yet remarkably he went on to finish second the next day!

Did it ever strike you that this sport is not only very exciting but also callous and indifferent to the lives of its main protagonists, and did you ever entertain doubts about whether it was all worth it?
Ryan

Dear Ryan,
No getting away from it, Grand Prix racing has changed out of recognition in the last 40 years, and no change has been more dramatic than that in safety. At Jacky Ickx recently said to me, “Nowadays you can do it, and you’re almost at risk zero – and that’s wonderful…”

It wasn’t like that in his era, though, and to some degree there was a sort of ‘Spitfire pilot’ attitude to the risks involved. During 1971, my first year of working as an F1 journalist, three Grand Prix drivers – Ignazio Giunti, Pedro Rodríguez, Jo Siffert – all lost their lives in racing accidents (although only Siffert was killed in an F1 race). That wasn’t untypical of the time. The year before, Piers Courage, Bruce McLaren and Jochen Rindt had all died. No surprise that Ickx – as you can read in the next issue of the magazine – is so grateful that he is still around.

I think you’re wrong, though, to suggest that the attitude within the sport to these tragedies was callous. Certainly, the death of a driver was more commonplace in those days, and therefore the sport’s participants were more accustomed to dealing with it, but that didn’t mean that the losses were not keenly felt. Of Jimmy Clark’s death, for example, Chris Amon said this: “We all felt we’d lost our leader. If it could happen to Jimmy, what chance did the rest of us have?”

It’s a fact that I have on occasion encountered callousness in motor racing – less than an hour after Gilles Villeneuve’s accident in 1982, another driver asked me, “Who d’you think will get the Ferrari drive?” – but it’s been very much the exception to the rule. The fact is, times were different, death was more prevalent by far – and the belief, I think, was that it had always been part of the sport. Very regrettable, but occasionally inevitable. And bear in mind, too, that this was all long before ‘public grieving’ became so fashionable. Motor racing people may have borne their grievances discreetly, but certainly they felt them.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Crystal-clear memories

Nigel Roebuck — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:42:24 +0000

Crystal-clear memories

Dear Nigel,
To my mind you’re the best racing journalist I’ve ever read, and Motor Sport has to be the most factual racing mag.

My question is this: were you a regular spectator at Crystal Palace and did you view from North Tower?

Each time I’ve passed you in a paddock or some place I’ve always forgotten to ask you in person. A daft question, but I’d love to know.
Berni

Dear Berni,
First of all, thank you so much for your compliments, and I’m pleased to hear you’re a fan of Motor Sport.

I can’t say I was a regular spectator at Crystal Palace because I’m a Mancunian, and didn’t move to London until 1967, soon after I left school – and that was only five years before the track closed. Prior to that, whenever I did come south for a race, invariably it was to Brands Hatch for Formula 1 or major sports car races.

That said, once I had started living in town I made a point of going to Crystal Palace, notably for the Formula 2 races run – as far as I remember – on Whit Monday, and invariably, yes, I did watch from North Tower. Don’t you feel sorry for anyone who never saw Jochen Rindt through there?

Crystal Palace had an atmosphere all its own. Although it was very short, I always thought it a real drivers’ circuit – and an extremely unforgiving one at that. There was no run-off area anywhere, and a mistake meant contact with those forbidding sleepers. I remember, too, that even in the early ’70s, when trees at race tracks were being felled by the hundred, a great many of those at Crystal Palace remained. Very dangerous, of course, but undeniably they allowed the place to retain its ‘parkland’ feel.

I was there in ’72, when Jody Scheckter’s McLaren won the last big race, and have only the best memories of the place. When I saw your question I had a look at YouTube, and came across the most wonderful footage of Jimmy Clark, hurling his Lotus Cortina round Crystal Palace in 1964 – made me quite dewy-eyed, and reminded me of those youthful days when I loved saloon car racing. If you haven’t seen it, go ito youtube.com and put ‘BRSCC Crystal Palace 1964’ in the search window. You’ll thank me, I promise you…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Jenks’s problem with Jochen…

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 16:35:25 +0000

Jenks’s problem with Jochen…

Dear Nigel,
Please clear something up for me. You knew both Jenks and Jochen Rindt. Can you tell my why Jenks didn’t believe Rindt would ever win a Grand Prix? He said he’d shave his beard if Rindt ever won and I remember a picture of Jenks sans beard in Road & Track years ago. Maybe I have the story mixed up because Jenks seemed to have such an eye for talent. Most books about that era mention Rindt’s natural ability and speed. Was Jenks really that dismissive of his talent?
Craig Lightcap

Dear Craig,
First of all I should say that, although Denis Jenkinson was one of my closest friends, I never – sadly for me – knew Jochen Rindt, for I began working as an F1 journalist at the beginning of 1971, a few months after Rindt’s death at Monza the previous September.

That said, I very well knew of Jenks’s somewhat controversial opinion of Jochen, and often quizzed him about it – and I have to say that I finished up none the wiser! Jenks, as we know, was a quirky fellow, and it wasn’t always easy to find logic in many of his opinions and conclusions – I suppose we’re all like that, to some degree. However, having said that he would shave off his beard if Rindt ever won a Grand Prix, he indeed kept his word after Jochen’s inaugural victory at Watkins Glen in 1969.

Jenks was always a man of strong opinions (thank God!), but I have to say that I never agreed with – or understood – his judgement of Rindt, whom he resolutely refused to accept as one of the artists of the sport, despite the fact that a man like Jack Brabham (for whom Jochen drove in 1968) considered him perhaps the greatest of all time. Jenks would suggest that Rindt’s spectacular, tail out style was ‘agricultural’, compared with the smoothness of a Clark or Stewart – and yet he loved that about Gilles Villeneuve!

It was, I think, something of a blind spot, and perhaps we all have them. Jenks tended to put people into one of two boxes – pro and anti – and once you were in either one, there you stayed forever. As well as that, of course, he had a mischievous taste for winding people up: he would, for example, praise Fangio for ‘winning a race at the slowest possible speed’ and then criticise Prost for doing the same thing! How, I would argue, is what Prost does any different from what Fangio did? “Just is…”

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

One that got away from Amon

Nigel Roebuck — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 13:04:18 +0000

One that got away from Amon

Dear Nigel,
Please tell me it isn’t true, the allegation that Pedro Rodríguez was running a 3.3-litre engine in his BRM when he narrowly beat Chris Amon’s March to win the 1970 Belgian GP.
If he had been running such an engine, how on earth would it have got past the scrutineers?

There’s no chance, I suppose, of retroactively awarding the win to Chris Amon? (One of the greatest racing drivers, uncrowned or crowned, I’m sure you’ll agree.)
David Goddard

Dear David,
It has never been proved that BRM was using a 3.3-litre engine at Spa in 1970, but, as Robin Herd said in Simon Taylor’s interview with him in the March issue of Motor Sport, “It’s generally accepted now that Pedro had a 3.3-litre engine that day. We knew it right after the race…”

All I can tell you is what Chris Amon told me a couple of years after the race. Amon had qualified his March 701 on the front row, alongside the sister (Tyrrell-entered) car of Jackie Stewart, and the Lotus 49 of Jochen Rindt. Rodríguez, meantime, started from the third row.

Amon passed Stewart for the lead on lap three, and Rodríguez passed him a lap later, to move up to second. On lap five Pedro took the lead, and for the rest of the race he and Chris ran together, finishing a second apart. On the last lap Amon steeled himself to take the Masta Kink without lifting, and set a new lap record, six-tenths faster than Stewart’s pole time, but even so he could do nothing about the BRM.

Amon was invariably brilliant at Spa, but so was Rodríguez, and if Chris was disappointed – yet again – to be denied a Grand Prix victory, he was… surprised, let’s say, by the BRM’s speed on race day. “You’d expect a ‘twelve’ to have an advantage over an ‘eight’ at a place as quick as Spa, but Pedro hadn’t been that quick in practice, and when I saw off Jackie I thought I’d cracked it. Then I saw this white thing in my mirrors, and thought, ‘Where the hell did he come from?’

“That was one thing. What really amazed me, though, was the way Pedro overtook me. I got out of Eau Rouge better than he did, but up the hill to Les Combes he just drove past – didn’t even bother to slipstream me! That thing was unbelievable in a straight line – I was pretty disappointed to be beaten that day, because I honestly don’t think I could have driven any harder, but later on someone who’d then been part of the BRM team told me I shouldn’t feel too bad about it…”

It’s a lovely thought – now to award the victory to Amon, one of the greatest drivers, crowned or uncrowned, as you say. But I guess it will for ever remain in his ‘if only’ box…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Top 10 drivers revised

Nigel Roebuck — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:25:46 +0000

Top 10 drivers revised

Dear Nigel,
Based on what you have seen in last 30 years, how would you review your Top 10 list that was published in the book (itals) The Grand Prix Drivers (Racing heroes from Fangio to Prost) issued in 1987? Many thanks in advance for your attention.
Piero Dessimone

Dear Piero,
How nice to be reminded of that book we – Denis Jenkinson, Alan Henry, Maurice Hamilton and I – did all those years ago. The decade about which I was asked to write was the ’60s – a touch illogical since I didn’t start writing about F1 until 1971, but nevertheless a task I much enjoyed.

We compiled out Top 10s in 1987, and at the time I rated the drivers thus: Stirling Moss, Jimmy Clark, Alain Prost, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jackie Stewart, Gilles Villeneuve, Ronnie Peterson, Niki Lauda, Jochen Rindt.

Were I compiling the list now, it would read as follows: Stirling Moss, Jimmy Clark, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jackie Stewart, Gilles Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, Jochen Rindt.

Well, perspectives change a little as you get older…

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Why Ickx feels lucky

Gordon Kirby — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:24:33 +0000

Why Ickx feels lucky

A few days after Christmas I had the pleasure of talking to Jacky Ickx for a book I’m writing about the history of Carl Haas and Newman/Haas Racing. Thirty years ago Ickx won the Can-Am championship driving a Lola for Haas’s team, and I wanted to talk to him about his 1979 season in America. Jacky celebrated his 65th birthday on New Year’s Day and he’s not only one of the most accomplished racing drivers but also a delightful, old school gentleman.

Ickx is proud that, much like Mario Andretti, he won races across a broad range of categories. Jacky won Le Mans six times, of course, but he also won 37 World Championship long-distance sports car races – more than any other driver – and two world sports car titles in 1982-83.

Ickx won sports car races driving Gulf Ford GT40s, factory Porsches, Ferraris and Mirages, and came to be celebrated as a maestro of Le Mans and endurance racing.

He also finished second to Jackie Stewart in the 1969 Formula 1 World Championship and was second again the following year to Jochen Rindt. He won eight Grands Prix between 1968-72 driving for Brabham and Ferrari, and claimed the European F2 championship in 1967 when he was just 22. Jacky retired from racing sports cars in 1985 but continued to compete in the Paris-Dakar rally until 1992, having won the gruelling event in ’83. “I had a career that was similar to Mario in a way because Mario did all kinds of racing successfully,” says Ickx. “He could go from a dirt track, to Indy, to long-distance racing or F1, and whatever he did he could do it well. And that’s what I did, too.”

Jacky says that over the years he’s gained a deeper appreciation for the people and teamwork that makes the sport happen. “When you’re older you don’t see things the way you did when you were a kid,” he says. “It’s a very individual sport and a selfish sport too for the drivers, and it takes time to understand that you don’t do anything without a large number of people – the engineers and mechanics and so on – who are working in the shadows with a lot of motivation and passion. Your success depends on their abilities and goodwill. They do their jobs with pleasure, but the only rewards they receive is when their driver wins.”

Jacky is also aware how lucky he’s been and how much richer his life has been made by racing. “In sport, your career is reasonably short,” he says. “Mine started when I was 16 in 1960 and I stopped in 1992. So it was very long and I was extremely lucky to survive 30 years of motor racing in those days. Today, when I meet Jackie Stewart or Carlos Reutemann or some people from that era, the first thing we say is how lucky we’ve been to survive such a big amount of racing miles in F1, long-distance racing, Can-Am, the Paris-Dakar and everything else without losing a wheel or having a major technical problem. It’s a miracle!

“That is why every day when I wake up I feel lucky. It’s also why I pay more attention to the human side than the score. To me, the score is not important – the fact that I won Le Mans six times, or that I won 50 long-distance races, the F2 championship or Paris-Dakar. What counts are the outstanding people I had the chance to meet.”

Jacky is also a devoted Motor Sport reader. “It’s the only racing magazine I buy,” he says. “You guys are doing a great job. Keep it up!”

Thanks for the compliment Jacky. Keep reading and we’ll keep writing.

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine