Lest We Forget

11/08/2013
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE

Before the German GP, there was talk of a drivers' boycott following the tyre fiasco at Silverstone. A steel belt came close to hitting Fernando Alonso, never mind the danger to drivers whose tyres had broken. The tyres broke, there is no other word; they did not fail, they broke.

For those of us of a certain age, the threatened boycott revived memories of a time when motor racing was dangerous to the point of irresponsibility. All the time and not just when the FIA want to spice up the show.

Recently I watched a repeat of a BBC TV documentary: 'Grand Prix - The Killer Years'. In essence it went from von Trips (Monza, 1961) to Cevert (Watkins Glen, 1973).

Seeing Lorenzo Bandini, Jo Schlesser, Piers Courage and Roger Williamson being burned alive is not my idea of light entertainment. The tone of the programme, however, was not sensational, but measured. It could have said that drivers who passed the burning cars smelt human flesh being roasted, and they did, rather the programme concentrated on the main issues.

What got me is that I followed motor racing during the period and accepted the horrendous death toll, which included Jim Clark, Chris Bristow, Alan Stacey, Mike Spence, Jo Schlesser, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Piers Courage, Wolfgang von Trips. Jo Siffert, Ricardo Rodriguez, John Taylor. Lorenzo Bandini. Roger Williamson and Francois Cevert.

That list is not comprehensive and does not include drivers from American racing or sports cars (Pedro Rodriguez and Bruce McLaren included) and nor does it include numerous anonymous spectators or drivers like Chris Lambert who died before they reached formula One. It does not include drivers too badly injured to continue, Stirling Moss among them.

Circuits were unnecessarily dangerous. Whatever the reason why Jim Clark left the road, it was a tree that killed him. Even when Armco barriers were erected, there were instances of the holding bolts not being tightened, something that contributed to Jochen Rindt's death.

Organisers did not learn. Before the 1975 Spanish GP, people like Ken Tyrrell walked around the circuit with spanners and socket sets, making the Armco fit for purpose. At least by then there was Armco and not straw bales which have a tendency to burn.

Jackie Stewart was the main force behind reform, but trying to organise the egos which is a typical F1 grid was like herding cats. Organisers did not want to know because safety meant expenditure. Then there was the faction that reckoned that motor racing should be dangerous. The fiercest critic of Jackie Stewart was my mentor, Denis Jenkinson, and we never found common ground on the issue. Jenks was sometimes pretty juvenile in his attacks.

Motor racing was lucky to have Jackie Stewart, for six years he was the undisputed world number one and so could not be criticised for losing his bottle or for sour grapes. He had authority like nobody else.

I once heard a multiple Grand Prix winner of the period boast that he had faced the dangers with the implication that others should as well. He was able to say that because he had survived, and luck had played a part in that. If you are trapped under a car with no help to hand, I would say that it is luck that another car comes off at the same corner and knocks your car off you without hitting yourself.

Marshals are now trained and wear protective clothing. It was at the urging of Jackie Stewart that drivers donated old Nomex suits to marshals. When I first became a marshal in 1959, aged 16, I was given a cardboard armband and that was it. I would like to claim that I had special powers, or even a basic knowledge of first aid, but I was a teenager who got the gig because I had volunteered.

In 1973, when Roger Williamson was burned alive during the Dutch GP, a lot of money had been spent on improving the circuit, but no attention had been paid to the marshals. Another driver, David Purley, reached Williamson before a marshal did and David had to shout for a fire extinguisher.

The immensely talented Tom Pryce died during the 1977 South African GP when a teenage marshal ran across the track with a fire extinguisher to render aid to a car that was merely stationary.

There were Grands Prix when the primary medical care was in the hands of nuns. Not nuns chosen because they were qualified doctors or trained nurses, but nuns chosen because they were nuns.

Marshals are now the backbone of our sport and we must never forget that. If a virus wiped out every current F1 driver, teams would find substitutes, but no event can take place without marshals.

The documentary brought me up short because I had lived through the era and had accepted the terrible toll as an inevitable part of racing. Crash helmets were still primitive, Moss and Fangio wore helmets made from cork designed for polo players. When I went karting in 1961 I wore an ex-USAF fliers' helmet. I had a better skid lid than most Formula One drivers.

The first person to do something about fire retardation was Les Leston who was burned during the 1957 Syracuse GP. Les had show biz connections and so had cotton overalls treated with the same solution used to retard fire on the curtains of theatres. It was basically baking powder and water, but it was an improvement.

Les sold these through his accessory shop and when, first Promex, then Nomex, became available, he promoted them as well. He donated money to the East Grinstead burns unit which, during WWII, had pioneered treatment of burns.

Williamson, Bandini, Courage and Schlesser burned alive, but Jo Siffert also died because of fire, in his case from asphyxiation because fire burned the oxygen around him. Some drivers took to carrying air bottles with a tube to their helmets which, by 1971, were often full-face.

The documentary concentrated on Formula One, but here is a point to ponder. In 1966, UK road fatalities were 7,985, in 2011, with many more times the number of vehicles, there were 1,901 fatalities. I do not think that driving has improved, but the design of cars and roads has.

I can recall the cries of outrage by some when the wearing of seat belts became mandatory. Apparently, the law infringed their liberty to have their mangled carcases removed by paramedics, who had to live with the memory.

Attitudes have changed because we began to realise that some things were not inevitable. Jackie Stewart had a hard time persuading his fellow drivers that while danger is a part of motor racing, it can be controlled.

There are times when I suspect that a safety car has been deployed to spice up a race, but I would rather that happen than the potential alternative.

A few weeks ago two teenaged girls drowned in a fast-flowing river in Britain and there were tributes in the national press, flowers on the river bank and grief counsellors. These days, when such things happen, the kid had the potential to be Mother Theresa, a prima ballerina and a Nobel laureate rolled into one. We must not point out that the kid was stupid, which is why she drowned.

When I was 14, a friend drowned while swimming in a fiercely tidal river. It was a brief story in the local weekly paper. His friends did not line up to pay tribute, or leave flowers, and there was then no grief counselling industry.

The feeling among his friends was that he had been bloody stupid, we all knew that nobody swam in the river. That remains my attitude when I read of similar cases. There are some things we can control, but there is no legislating against stupidity.

For years, however, motor racing did not take control of elements over which it had control. The organisers at Hockenheim thought that a tree was more important than the life of Jim Clark. They spent years making excuses, but the tree had no business being there.

Jo Schlesser should not have been allowed to start the 1968 French GP in the Honda RA302, a car which had no proper testing. Team Lotus should not have been allowed to improvise wings in the pits at the 1969 Spanish GP. The rear wings on both cars failed and Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt had big shunts.

We have come a long way in safety, in racing and on the road. Manufacturers now boast about the performance of their models in the N-CAP safety tests, instituted by the FIA under Max Mosley. At Silverstone we saw a massive step backwards because the FIA wanted to spice up the show. The FIA decided to introduce plain bloody stupidity.

We have a break and when F1 returns, we have no idea what jolly japes the FIA has in store.

Mike Lawrence
mike.lawrence@pitpass.com

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Published: 11/08/2013
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