29 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

I am fascinated to see so much interest expressed in this forum in drivers as opposed to cars, races or venues, and in the attempts to 'correct' inconsistencies long perpetuated in bygone Championship tables, race results, etc.

How do you fellers feel about the notion that motor race results - when assessed over a long period - and therefore World Championship (or indeed any Championship) tables that edxtend back into the '70s or beyond can never be made perfect for one simple reason...the fallibility of pre-electronic-sensing timekeeping.

Like the famous egg-timer multi-shared fastest lap in the British GP at Silverstone in '52 or '53 - I can't recall which - but I think seven drivers were cited as sharing it, and the wacky races results published in early Argentine GPs. It is virtually certain that the 'shared' fastest lap was in reality never shared at all, but now we will never know what would have been the truth to the third place of decimals...

When faced with screw-ups in the published - and confirmed - results of such races as the '68 Italian GP, or the '73 British and Canadian, and all these other celebrated snafus - is there any acceptance that statistical 'perfection' can never be achieved, or is the intellectual exercise of pursuing the uncatchable irresistible to you?

I'd be interested to hear how you experts regard this conundrum?

[Allen Brown]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
or is the intellectual exercise of pursuing the uncatchable irresistible to you?

Yes

If it was catchable, that would mean there would be a day when I was finished.

Which is the more depressing thought? Never catching it, or having to find something else to do? I'm too old to develop new interests.

Allen

[bira]

Doug, how is it different for motor racing than for athletics, or for that matter any other sport that requires accurate measurements - be it of time or distance or otherwise - to establish a 'winner'?

[Frank de Jong]

Well, Doug, I'm impressed to meet you here. Thanks for joining.
TNF inspired me to try building a site for international touring car racing; a championship which wasn't covered on the internet, and as far as I know there's no book written on this subject - I've heard that a Czech book exists however.
So, for me, I try to get the results as close as possible to "the" truth - but I'm aware of the fact that you'll never achieve that goal. The final positions (as published) in the championships and the races itself sometimes just don't match. Then, the problems of disqualifications, a fastest lap or pole position for a car rather than a driver, incomplete results, contradictions, you know what I'm talking about.

But, for me, by reconstructing the results, I get to know the drivers, cars and championships. I hardly knew anything about the ETC period of 1963-1967; now I know a lot more. I've learnt when the first GTA raced. I 've learnt that Cortina's were raced even before the Lotus Cortina was built. I know now who Denise McCluggage was. I know who José de Uriarte was. Etcetera.
In the end, it may not be perfect - but it's a lot more than nothing at all. And it's great fun.

And, while I was writing this, Allen reads my mind: yes, if one day a complete and authorized book on the ETC would be published, it would rob me of a great hobby...

[Dave Ware]

I am fascinated to see so much interest expressed in this forum in drivers as opposed to cars, races or venues

I don't think I'm alone in wishing I had the ability to be able to race wheel-to-wheel with the likes of Clark, Hulme, Stewart, etc., so for that reason I think we are more interested in our heros than in the other stuff.

Don't get me wrong; we do mourn Spa, Nurburgring, the Can-Am...

is there any acceptance that statistical 'perfection' can never be achieved, or is the intellectual exercise of pursuing the uncatchable irresistible to you?

I'm not a historian or a researcher. Just an enthusiast. Perhaps that's why I agree that you have to draw the line somewhere, or you have nothing to talk about. You can play "what-if" forever. If in the '50s and '60s lap times were measured with hand-held stopwatches, then I'll accept those measurements.

Regards,

Dave

[Doug Nye]

Surely one of the essential differences is that I cannot think of an unassisted athlete who can exceed 88 feet per second, or anything even close to it, which makes the act of timing in motor racing so very much more important since any slight inaccuracy can make an enormous measurable difference in distance covered - and so to the end result. Ditto, of course, lap charting errors in a long, hectic race - especially one on a circuit with a brief lap time.

On an associated level, I always have my doubts about 'the fastest human on earth' and those kind of claims, on the basis that one wonders about the poor guy looking for a leak in a gasworks while holding a candle. For one fleeting nano-second, as the inevitable detonation occurred, did he involuntarily exceed 1,000mph? D'you see what I mean?

And so, if bygone race results have to be treated with a degree of doubt - and since there is absolutely NO WAY we can today cross-check bygone lap timing, and lap charting because there is no surviving real-time record whatsoever of so very many events - isn't much of the intellectualising about X really finishing 6th or, well, don't forget the 13/64ths of a Championship point which should accord to Gonzalez for his 1/7th share of fastest lap there, 1/5th share here, 1/3 share there...and so on...that it all becomes lin its most literal sense unresolveable - because for darned sure Gonzalez was either faster than all of those 7, 5 or 3 other guys...or he was not...and the truth is that we have no way ever of nailing it down, and solving the problem in any way, at any time.

It's fun playing Devil's advocate. It is SO nice to have the stimulation of like minds...since I work most of the time entirely alone I haven't experienced this in years...which I hope excuses the verbal diarrhoea of a newcomer. Sorry about that.

DCN

[bira]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
It's fun playing Devil's advocate. It is SO nice to have the stimulation of like minds...since I work most of the time entirely alone I haven't experienced this in years...which I hope excuses the verbal diarrhoea of a newcomer. Sorry about that.

Please don't apologise. I haven't spent that much time in TNF in ages! And I love grumpy historians - why do you think I adore Don Capps so much?

[Rick Baumhauer]

I hardly think an apology is necessary!

I'm sure I speak for many in saying that it's a priviledge to have you here on TNF, and it will be a long while indeed before anyone utters anything like,"That Doug Nye, always running on about something or other........."

I know I'm quite proud to have copies of a number of your books, or those you've contributed to, on my shelf (the Autocourse Histories of the Grand Prix car (and when might we see another volume?) and "My Cars, My Career" spring immediately to mind), and it's nice to know that you are enjoying yourself here.

On the question at hand, I've never been particularly concerned with the vagaries of timing, actually, though it's hard to ignore the qualifying times only going to the tenth of a second in Mike Lang's "Grand Prix" series (sorry, only born in '67 and American to boot, so early issues of Motor Sport aren't particularly available to me). I'm more concerned with great individual drives, what Nigel Roebuck refers to as a driver's "day of days", than with lap records and such on their own. That said, if we'd had timing systems available in the 50s-70s to rival those of today, would there be dramatic qualifying tales to tell to rival those of Senna at his peak? Perhaps not, but it's interesting to pose the question.

Speaking of Nigel Roebuck, any chance of him being persuaded to join us here? His leanings would certainly seem to fit this forum to a "T" - his piece on the Hermanos Rodriguez on Autosport.com this week is really quite touching, and much-appreciated. Having missed the mid-60s to early 70s era, I weep for the racing I didn't get to experience, but also for all the greats that were lost to us, as well.

[fines]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
Yes

If it was catchable, that would mean there would be a day when I was finished.

Which is the more depressing thought? Never catching it, or having to find something else to do? I'm too old to develop new interests.

Allen

Couldn't agree more! What on earth am I going to do when I finish my studies? Start LIVING? You must be joking...

[Doug Nye]

Okay, okay - really it does absolute wonders for my EGO too! DCN

[Speed Demon]

Originally posted by Doug Nye

On an associated level, I always have my doubts about 'the fastest human on earth' and those kind of claims, on the basis that one wonders about the poor guy looking for a leak in a gasworks while holding a candle. For one fleeting nano-second, as the inevitable detonation occurred, did he involuntarily exceed 1,000mph? D'you see what I mean?

DCN

I certainly know what you mean - although I don't suppose the poor unfortunate would the fastest man on earth for long. Fastest man in the air perhaps...

I've always had a similar thought when asked who is the greatest driver on earth. Schumacher, Montoya, de Ferran, Jeff Gordon? Or is it a peasant farmer in the far east who's never even sat in a car, but if he did, would blow the barn doors off the acknowledged experts?

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Surely one of the essential differences is that I cannot think of an unassisted athlete who can exceed 88 feet per second, or anything even close to it, which makes the act of timing in motor racing so very much more important since any slight inaccuracy can make an enormous measurable difference in distance covered - and so to the end result. Ditto, of course, lap charting errors in a long, hectic race - especially one on a circuit with a brief lap time.

I have to disgaree with the athletics analogy. Granted the speeds are not as high, but when considering world records over 100 metres, timing to 100th of a second is essential.

I do wonder about modern timing in motor racing to 1000th of a second. Even at 100mph a car will travel less than 2 inches (say 5cm) in that time. Can we be sure that any device is accurate to that degree, particularly when cars are circulating closely together? (chance would be a fine thing, I hear you say).

While on the subject of timekeeping, it has always been my understanding that British organisers of the 50s and 60s timed cars to the same level of accuracy as their continental counterparts but chose to release to the nearest 10th or 5th because they could not gurantee accuracly in all circumstances. They preferred to publish lap times only to the level of accuracy where they could be confident of all of them. Can anybody say whether this was so?

As regards Doug's central point, I think we do have to realise that the past is messy and some things will never be known with certainty. Racing car manufacturers were not known for their ability to maintain records and those that could maintain records rapidly became skilled at falsifying them. Championships were not as important as they are now, and if there was a little fuzziness in the rules it could all be sorted out over a pint of bitter, or more likely a glass of claret. Journalists wrote about what they considered to be important and what they thought would interest their readers, they did not stop to consider what might be important to historians several decades later.

Denis Jenkinson is a very good example here. He wrote about what he saw and what interested him. In the main this was racing cars and racing drivers. He showed no sign of being interested in championships or the naming of racing formulae. I would not be surprised to learn that he never read a press release in his life.

Somebody once said that here is no fact concerning the history of motor racing that cannot be proved without any shadow of doubt to be false. Let us continue to seek the truth and improve our knowledge; but let us also realise that in many things there is no such thing as absolute truth.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Journalists wrote about what they considered to be important and what they thought would interest their readers, they did not stop to consider what might be important to historians several decades later.

Especially pre-War! It is frustrating, to say the least, to try to put flesh on the bones of reports in magazines like "Speed", which was prone to using codes known only to a small clique - what Christopher Hilton referred to as "The Chaps" in "Hitler's Grands Prix in England". You find news reports that say something like "A certain driver from Stoke Poges is putting together a team to challenge for Continental races". Now that's fine, if you know that Charlie Snodgrass was the only BARC member living in Stoke Poges in 1936 - unfortunately, I'm sure most of us don't have the time or resources to check that sort of thing out 60-70 years down the line!

Originally posted by Roger Clark
Somebody once said that here is no fact concerning the history of motor racing that cannot be proved without any shadow of doubt to be false. Let us continue to seek the truth and improve our knowledge; but let us also realise that in many things there is no such thing as absolute truth.

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by bira


Please don't apologise. I haven't spent that much time in TNF in ages! And I love grumpy historians - why do you think I adore Don Capps so much?

Ain't that the truth!

[Don Capps]

Doug,

When Bira asked me to host this forum, we had several goals in mind and to be honest, we are doing pretty damn good at the Big One: providing a place for folks to gather, kick over stones and gaze at the results, talk about it, chat about other stones looked under, and generally do so at pace more leisurely than the internet normally allows.

I have to warn you, though: this place is addictive! In my old office I had two computers and most of the time one was tuned into the forum while I did my Day Job on the other... I was the commander so I could get away with it!

We have a wonderful community here that spans the length and breath of motor racing and is not just another F1 site -- I love variety in Life and apparently so do the majority of those who visit, lurk, or actively participate on the forum. We aren't stumped often -- it does happen (Jack Lewis comes to mind....) -- but, we generally can find that most obscure of obscure tidbits from soemwhere within the community. I have been truly amazed more than once to find something pop up here that I would have never imagined to see the light of day. We even know exactly what Dan Gurney wishes his Grand Prix car to be called....

At any rate, I think one strength is the rich variety of people who visit, especially those who are just beginning to scratch the surface of racing history. These folks are the future and I hope that we are treating them well. And it is always nice to hear the story from the horse's mouth -- Barry Boor's stories about the Connew Saga have often left me with a serious case of envy.....

[Hans Etzrodt]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
.....I am fascinated to see so much interest expressed in this forum in drivers as opposed to cars, races or venues, and in the attempts to 'correct' inconsistencies long perpetuated in bygone Championship tables, race results, etc.....

This is exactly where I spend most of my time with, trying to eliminate the existing contradictions up to 1950. It is a very time consuming enterprise and rather costly.

Originally posted by Doug Nye
.....How do you fellers feel about the notion that motor race results - when assessed over a long period - and therefore World Championship (or indeed any Championship) tables that edxtend back into the '70s or beyond can never be made perfect for one simple reason...the fallibility of pre-electronic-sensing timekeeping.....

.....I'd be interested to hear how you experts regard this conundrum?

The question of accurate time keeping exists since the beginning of contests but I was not aware of any existing mystery before electronic-sensing timekeeping. Occasionally I have stumbled across some incidents, where time keeping was an issue. I have never been concerned about the lack of accurate time keeping because time keepers and chronographs were not changed during the race. Up to 1888, times were measured not showing fractions of seconds. During the following year, progress was made by giving fifth of seconds for the first time in results and from 1905 timing had advanced to tenth of seconds. I cannot remember where time keeping had an effect on the outcome of the race or the results or a championship.

[paulb]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
I am fascinated to see so much interest expressed in this forum in drivers as opposed to cars, races or venues, and in the attempts to 'correct' inconsistencies long perpetuated in bygone Championship tables, race results, etc.

I want to add my penny about the interest in drivers as opposed to cars, races, or venues. At the highest level, I think the reason is obvious, that we as fans of racing yearn to relate to our present and past days heroes. What was it like to be them? What were they thinking while driving at Spa and the 'Ring in the wet with too much horsepower for skinny tires? What was it like to drive a V-16 AutoUnion? Could we do what they did?

I think its much more subjective to judge people than mechanical things and thus more open to debate.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Hans Etzrodt
....I cannot remember where time keeping had an effect on the outcome of the race or the results or a championship.

Two examples come to mind, though I don't know if there is any recognised dispute:

1. Races that have been stopped and re-started, with the aggregate times giving the positions... has that timekeeping been accurate?

2. The 1958 WDC... hypothetically. Should a fastest lap have been erroneously been recorded - or missed - it could well have tipped the scales in this series. Or maybe one did?

Not that championships really matter, of course... a contention that is more than prevalent over at least the past 18 months in this forum.

[TonyKaye]

I tend to agree with Hans on this question. Over the years timing technology has tended to keep up with the needs of the sport. Today's cars have almost identical performance, so we need thousandths of seconds to separate them on the grid. When the world championship was inaugurated, the spread of practice times was so great that tenths were normally quite adequate for the purpose. And even if a car was placed a couple of positions back on the grid due to inexact timing, it really didn't matter that much, because in those days passing was allowed during the race. Really, it's true!

In the thirties the performance of Grand Prix cars was so disparate and the circuits so long that fifths of a second caused no problems. Races in Germany in the twenties were nearly always recorded to a fifth of a second. It caused no problems at the time, only later, when casual historians have written up the times believing them to be tenths. Strange to see only even numbers in the tenths column!

At the turn of the century (the previous one, not the latest one) the City-to-City races could have been recorded to the nearest minute and it wouldn't have affected the results. I was tempted to say to the nearest hour, but that would have caused a few problems.

No doubt one can search the record books and find a few instances where more sensitive timing might have made a difference, but this would be nothing more than a drop in the ocean. I prefer to believe that in most instances timing has been more accurate than is actually required. This is not a criticism of timekeepers and their equipment, quite the contrary, they have usually kept ahead of the game.

It's probably not widely known, but as long ago as 1909 the races at Atlanta were timed to one hundredth of a second. It wasn't really necessary since Louis Chevrolet beat Bert Dingley in the Coca Cola Trophy Race (they were pretty advanced in their adoption of sponsorship too!) by almost seven minutes. It didn't change the result one jot to know that he actually won by six minutes fortyfive seconds and 45 hundreths of a second.

At Indianapolis in 1911 the timing system was, if anything, too advanced. The timing wires broke under the continuous pounding of the cars and members of the backup team of hand scorers deserted their post to get a better view of an accident. However precise the timing system had been, in those circumstances we still wouldn't know who really won the first Indy 500.

Doug specifically mentions the poor timing used in early Argentinian races. I assume he is referring to the early 50's or late 40's. Well the circuit races in Argentina were all timed to the nearest tenth of a second, no better nor worse than in Europe at that time.

The biggest problem I find when trying to determine the exact outcome of old races is not the timing system, but the lap charting. The big question is not who finished first, second or third, but who finished ninth, tenth and eleventh. It's rarely a question of time, but of the number of laps completed. Pit stops, off-course excursions and even the very basic physical needs of the the scorers during a long race all contribute to this problem.

And we haven't even mentioned the need to get the results back to the newspaper office before the results have been officially confirmed and the fact that the reporter's main interest was golf and he had never previously been to a motor race and anyway he spent most of the race in the beer tent ............If small errors in timing were the main problem, we would be so lucky!

[Allen Brown]

Originally posted by Don Capps
We aren't stumped often -- it does happen (Jack Lewis comes to mind....)

Don

Don't worry, regular lurker Ted Walker has ridden to our rescue - or would do if he could figure out how to log on.

Great thread here. It's not often a newcomer asks us why we are bothering. Good question. And good answers.

Allen

[Doug Nye]

Let me clarify the timing issues screwing up history in a manner we cannot now resolve -

Consider the 1954 British GP so acrhaically (shamefully) timed to 1/5th of a second with archaic egg-timers - seven drivers each credited with equal-fastest lap, in a period when fastest lap conferred an extra Championship point. Drivers Ascari, Behra, Fangio, Gonzalez, Hawthorn, Marimon and Moss all therefore received one-seventh of a point. This is madness - had the RAC timekeepers measured to tenths of a second, much less hundredths, we might have had only three drivers sharing that bonus, perhaps only one. Had it been timed to hundredths, probably it would have been one driver only who benefited.

Now it wasn't better timed, so the noition becomes academic, but it still means that inadequate timing skewed the points-scoring outcome of that race, and that year's Championship, and the result therefore distorted a racing reality. Even the Spanish timed their race to tenths, and they were reckoned to be the least experienced organisation then extant.

Italian GP 1968 - Jackie Oliver was declared as having set the fastest lap in his Lotus. I'm darned sure this was later corrected, I recall Jenks pulling Jack's leg about it - and Jackie not appreciating the joke. I cannot recall who was subsequently credited with FL, but I do remember the AC Milan declaring a correction - many weeks later. By that time, of course, it did not affect Championship scoring.

Many times DSJ would be spitting blood about timekeeping nonsenses - declaring FL to driver A on lap 23, when he lost ground visibly - Jenks always noted such things in his lap charts - to driver B; i.e. driver B had completed relevant lap more quickly... Think about it.

I confess what I really meant about Argentina was lap charting rather than pure timing, but the above are details of timekeeping inadequacies screwing up history from day one. How do you resolve that in retrospect. Tell me, boys, tell me...

DCN

[MrAerodynamicist]

Of course theres a difference between the actual accuracy and the number of decimal points you list a time too. Everytime somebody pressed the buttons on their clocks, they would have been slightly to quick or slow to do so by some random amount. I don't know if theres been any scientific study as to the accuracy that people can achieve?

[unrepentant lurker]

Originally posted by Roger Clark

I do wonder about modern timing in motor racing to 1000th of a second. Even at 100mph a car will travel less than 2 inches (say 5cm) in that time. Can we be sure that any device is accurate to that degree, particularly when cars are circulating closely together? (chance would be a fine thing, I hear you say).

I'm sure we can be sure, atleast in the last 5 or ten years. They could very easily get a great deal more accuracy than what they have now, but whats the point?

There is one sport (luge, I think) measured to 10,000th. You have to wonder about something like that - what's the point? If 1st to 20th is separated by 1 cm, what does it really matter?

[Wolf]

Well, I don't know; first of all, what good would come out of applying modern timekeeping to different eras, even if it could be done? I belive that it should not be done for, e.g. C'ship races, because it could affect results as Doug has pointed out. That way, in aforementioned seven-way share of FL point, would not affect final C'ship standings much (Hawthorn may've tied Gonzalez for 2nd, Ascari could've moved few places ahead, 3 IIRC). But would anyone dare to, say, strip Fangio (or someone else) of a title if revised results warranted the reasons to do so? Methinks, not; and I certainly wouldn't like to see it done, not even for '58 (come to think of it, particularly not for '58)...

Besides, timekeeping in tenths of seconds, at least for me, gives certain appeal to racing 'back then'. I can relate to a 'tenth of a second', it's a time one can notice, whereas I see no 'tangible' difference between 1.284 and 1.285 seconds; I can't relate to that 0.001sec no more than I can relate to corporate PR and PC correct drivers when compared to Graham Hill or Innes Ireland; even though 1/1000th is 100 times more accurate than one tenth, and even though todays drivers might be as much better drivers as some people say...

And looking for absolute truth is futile work, IMHO. What is so good about not learning from absolutely accurate history compared to doing so from almost accurate history? One is doomed to repeat it anyway...

BTW, Mr. A- next time I see you in chat I'll send You a program that will help You find out for Yourself.

[Allen Brown]

While we're (nearly) on the subject, how to people feel about the retrospective championships that USAC awarded for the early days of Indy racing?

Allen

[stevew]

For what it's worth...

It appears that the 1952, '53 & '54 British GP was timed only to the nearest second for qualifying, fastest lap and the race.

I only have "store bought" references available, but they are consistent with the times listed between them (no tenths or fifths listed).

I looked at: Mike Lang's Grand Prix! Vol 1 1950-65, Grand Prix Data Book by David Hayhoe (1989 version) and www.forix.com

But my question is why the organaziers apparently decided to time to the nearest second?

Ascari and Gonzalez shared the FL in 1953 with a time of 1:50, the "exact" same time those seven drivers set in 1954.

[Milan Fistonic]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here's an interesting one: thanks to his ultra-sticky Dunlop wets, Masahiro Hasemi took fastest lap in his first of two World Championship appearances, at Fuji in 1976. Together with Jacques Villeneuve, he is the only first-time fastest lapper in championship history.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Unfortunately, whilst being a damn good story (and far be it for me to dispute Racer.Demon) this account is not, strictly speaking, true.

Masahiro Hasemi did not actually set the fastest lap - that honour really belongs to Jacques Laffite.

Hasemi was undoubtedly fastest in the rain, but Laffite was the first to change to slicks toward the end when it dried out. After the race, the Ligier timekeeper, a man by the name of Michele Dubosc, was adamant that Jacques has gone quicker than Masahiro.

They referred it to the CSI, who's secretary, Yvon Leon, wrote to the race organisers. They checked their records and lo and behold - Laffite was indeed fastest.

But the FIA hasn't ever done anything about it - with them too lazy to change it, Hasemi's name still stands in the records.

So offically, despite what actually happened, he's still got it!

------------------
Formula One Rejects
www.crosswinds.net/~f1rejects
Profiles of the WORST drivers and teams in Grand Prix history


Kuwashima posted this back in February 2000. A perfect example of an error that has become fact and is now quoted in all the record books.

[fines]

The trouble with Michele Dubosc is just that she is not a man...

And the trouble with Hasemi is that on the precise lap that was supposed to be the fastest of the race, he had stopped at the pits...

For me, timing is only essential to the nearest tenth, everything else is just tie-breaking.

[fines]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
While we're (nearly) on the subject, how to people feel about the retrospective championships that USAC awarded for the early days of Indy racing?

Allen

The first AAA National Champion was Dario Resta in 1916, the second Gaston Chevrolet in 1920. Everything else is bull...

(And btw, the culprit is triple A, not Yew-sack!)

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by Allen Brown
While we're (nearly) on the subject, how to people feel about the retrospective championships that USAC awarded for the early days of Indy racing?

Allen

I am going to approach that wonderful topic very soon....again! Since my last journey down that road more has come to light....