F1 is the prima donna of the motorsports stage, steeped in tradition. To the idealistic amongst us, Max and Bernie’s show stills sings a siren song: dazzling technology, elite pilots, glitz and glamour, the passion of competition and the pursuit of perfection. The reality is somewhat grimier and less spectacular than the sport’s aura would lead us to believe. Even so, there are good reasons why today’s races have so little in common with the epic and sometimes fatal battles of the sport’s golden age.
The romantics among us picture Fangio’s Maserati 250F on the banking at Monza or Stirling Moss thrashing his revolutionary, mid-engined Cooper around Goodwood. Today, Monza’s banked corners are slowly going back to nature, their concrete remains spotted with graffiti. The German Hockenheimring has suffered a similar fate. Organizers have abandoned its tree-lined forest straights for a new, sanitized, Herman Tilke-fied version. The course is now utterly devoid of the character that gave the original circuit its allure. F1’s powers have dismantled and discarded some of the defining facets of the sport.
And no wonder. While today’s spectators will never see Schumacher’s 248 F1 dart through the Masta Kink at Spa or streak through an un-chicaned Tamburello, drivers will never face the sort of needless dangers that typified these tracks. Lest we forget, Spa nearly claimed Jackie Stewart in ’66.
Stewart went off at Masta at more than 130mph, struck a stone wall. Trapped in his mangled machine, the driver lay battered in the cockpit covered by searing racing fuel for more than 15 minutes before rescue personnel arrived. Once the rescue team extricated Stewart from the car, it was a further 20 minutes before he arrived at a medical facility (the ambulance crew got lost en route). Upon arrival, the Scot was shocked to find that the “medical facility” was a dirty concrete slab surrounded by cigarette butts.
Stewart’s shunt at Masta shed light on the inherent danger of circuits run through villages and farmland, bordered by houses, trees, fences and light poles. The inherent dangers that almost led to Stewart's demise was remedied by the evisceration of the historic nine mile circuit at Spa-Francorchamps, curtailing its length by more than fifty percent and reducing average speeds considerably. Consider that the highest average speed achieved by a Formula 1 car over a lap at Spa was over 150mph, achieved in 1970 by then 20 year-old Pedro Rodriguez. As a sign of the times, Rodriguez was dead less than 12 months later, a victim of the same safety deficiencies that defined early F1.
The Tamburello circuit's design contributed to Ayrton Senna’s death in ‘94. Both incidenta were catalysts for a sea change in safety and course design. That said, Senna’s tragic end elucidated the immense improvements in circuit safety. Unlike Stewart, Senna was surrounded by medical personnel and marshals less than 15 seconds after his Williams struck the barriers. Senna’s death has been attributed to a strike on his helmet by a piece of wildly flailing front suspension, ripped from his machine as he made contact with the Armco. Senna’s tragic end accelerated the push for greater driver and spectator safety that had begun in earnest following the notable shunts of the early 70’s.
Europe’s legendary circuits may lack the air of danger that made them legendary, but they’ve become quantitatively better circuits. For drivers, strategically placed run-of areas, deformable barriers and safety-conscious circuit design provide a critical measure of extra safety. The tracks are also designed with rescue crew response teams and medical helicopter access in mind (F1 races are now subject to cancellation should weather conditions ground the medical helicopter).
The removal of the trees that lined so many circuits, undertaken in the interest of preventing accidents like Jim Clark’s at Hockenheim, has improved sight lines. The 100k plus spectators that attend the German GP at Hockenheim annually are able to see much of the circuit from their grandstand seats. The dark forest straights may be gone, but the spectacle is not. The much-lamented loss of character and length of many circuits has, in this case at least, greatly benefited the spectator experience.
The danger and heroism of the world of early F1 has passed into memory. And yet that legacy lives on beneath the increasingly corporate veneer. Moss’ Cooper, which had its humble beginnings as a 500cc F2 racer, has formed the basis for every F1 car that followed it. Spa’s Eau Rouge remains as daunting as ever. The MP4/21 McLaren Mercedes wears the silver that adorned its Teutonic predecessors. And the fact remains that just like in 1955, a Formula 1 car remains the absolute fastest way to get around a road course.
Excellent article. I especially like how you write in a way that car guys will “get,” but still make it accessible. I only recognize some of the tracks mentioned through video games; I can’t imagine how amazing it must be to watch the real thing. It seems almost impossible for me to imagine that there was a time just a few decades ago when racing really was flying in a tub with just a helmet wearing you for protection. If the bureaucracy of racing and corporate sponsorship calmed down a bit, I think more people would come into the fold of F1.
I recently saw the classic movie “Grand Prix” for the first time and… wow! The difference between then and now is amazing. From a driver’s point of view I would imagine they like today’s conditions (safety and equipment wise) far better, but one could argue that the racing was “purer” back then.
That said, I wish someone would find a way to combine today’s safer racing conditions with a circuit that offered some of the drama of the older circuits. Shanghai and Bahrain (to name two) offer up magnificent architecture… but bland racing.
Bahrain was an entertaining race this year, but I know that hasn’t always been the case. And China isn’t looking like it worked as it should have (but I bet if they ran it in reverse it’d be better).
Turkey, however, is exactly what we’ve been waiting for from Tilke. Today’s race was awesome, and there were a lot of great passes. That’s not a great win/loss record for the Tilke tracks, but maybe it’s a sign that he’s figured things out.
If it were up to me, I’d drop Imola, Spain, Hungary, and one of the German tracks. And I would NOT drop Suzuka for Fuji as they are doing for 2007 (grr). It wouldn’t have to be permanent cancellations; give other tracks a few years to prove themselves.
I think we could have great racing with modern safety. I think F1 needs two things. In case you don’t know it, the driver has the car do much of the driving for him now.
The other thing is such extreme downforce.
If the driver controlled the car himself it would help racing. And if F1 would outlaw downforce production you would see much better racing. It wouldn’t be as fast as now, but it would be interesting competition with the driver’s skills making more difference. And since cornering would occur at about half the speed in any given corner, it would be safer still.
Of course manufacturer’s would prefer to take it out of the driver’s hands. They feel if it was car only they could manage never to worry about the drivers. One less headache.
F1 hardly qualifies as racing now. And mentioning qualifying, well the top few spots are mostly determined by qualifying position. Mechanical problems and mistakes in pits are about all that shake up the first few positions. If that doesn’t happen, qualifying is the race with so little passing going on. Or rain, I forgot about rain. That rain in Hungary made it the best F1 race of the year.
Esldude, I agree with a lot of what you said. To use an analogy (I hate analogies) tennis used to be a lot more entertaining back when everybody used those old wooden and early metal and composite raquets with sweet spots about the size of a tennis ball. Everybody didn’t hit the ball 100+ mph all the time, but when they did you knew it was a great shot and that the player gambled to make it.
I appreciate the technological marvels that F1 cars are, but just like the new tennis raquets they can cover mistakes like the old cars couldn’t. Less opportunity for mistakes homogenizes things. More opportunity for mistakes makes for better racing with more focus on the drivers. I realize safety isn’t going to go backwards, so as a tradeoff I’d rather see smaller courses with slower speeds but more competition. But that’s not going to happen, so I’ll watch F1 sometimes, mostly for the amazing in- car camera sequences, and watch other series for racing.
Same here. I watch mostly qualifying for F1 because it has lots of in car camera shots. That look positively surreal.
For ‘racing’ one must look elsewhere as you said doublechili.
I admit, F1 from the 50’s to the middle/late 70’s was a different time in the sport’s history. When you think about the absolute mortality rate, there were several 4 year spans in which 1 in 4 drivers who took a green flag would not live out that span. 1 in 4! Coal miners who crab fish in the bering straight during the summer and sky dive for fun on weekends wouldn’t accept those kind of odds. The horrific stories abound – 2 rookies killed at spa in the same race; 6 ferrari drivers killed in 3 years; body parts on the track at le mans – these were everyday occurences. The culture of the sport itself was fundamentally different when every Sunday, you were faced with the fact that your fellow drivers might not make it to the post-race party. The Stewart and Senna shunts are really relatively bland examples of the carnage – read Robert Daley’s book “The Cruel Sport” – though he’s sometimes referred to as “Death” Daley for his fascination with the darker side of things, the book paints a very vibrant picture of the period.
elsdude: If you’re interested in in-car shots, I highly recommend picking up “50 Years of Formula 1 Onboard” from speedtvbooks.com – excellent onboard footage from Fangio, Stewart, Moss, DePailler, etc… And for those who would like to do away with the armco and put the trees back trackside, this may change your opinion.
Thanks for the heads up on the SpeedTVbook.
I am not advocating a return to yesteryear’s lack of safetly. I am advocating a return to racing where the driver mattered more. In fact, putting driving back into the hands of the driver does only a little if any to make the sport more dangerous. Outlawing downforce producing bodies greatly reduces cornering speeds, which combined with keeping all the other modern tech safety items would make F1 far safer than what it is now. And you still have interesting racing instead of what we see now.
Wings and huge downforce make the racing more dangerous not the reverse.
There are a few ways to look at “making the driver matter more” – on one hand, the absolute ultimate of this ideal is NASCAR or Star Mazda Series, one of the truly spec series – and they do produce good racing. On the other hand, F1 has always used technological innovation and progress as a key selling point – there are 2 championships, the drivers’ and the constructors’, and most importantly, there are innumerable instances of inferior drivers succeeding with great equipment and vice versa (Jacques Villeneuve is a great example, famous name aside). Removing the element of aerodynamic development from the mix would change the sport immensely, not to mention greatly change the layout of most modern F1 tracks. There have been efforts in recent years to limit aerodynamic development differently – rather than reduce overall levels of downforce by changing wing heights or endplate designs, design rear wings that don’t disrupt airflow to cars behind quite as badly – the so-called Center Downwash Generating Wing, the CDG wing.