Watching the Beebs classics on the red button last night, reminded me of the fragility of the cars from the era shown. Tambay at Las Vegas 1981 had what appeared to be a relatively minor impact in the Ligier when it fell to bits like a chocolate egg. His legs were the only thing visible from the cockpit forward. How he did not lose them is beyond my belief. Horrendous.

Totally agree, posted the following in the BBC thread...

Jesus, these old GPs really do make you realise how insanely dangerous those old race cars used to be.

In the 1981 Las Vegas race Patrick Tambay just had a big crash.

The front of his car was totally destroyed.

Everything forward of his hands was missing, steering wheel, dashboard, everything.

So much so he unclipped his belts and walked out of the front of the car, just like he was getting out of sofa chair.

And all he had was a limp!

AND...

Jesus Christ, how insane was catch fencing?

I'm watching the 1980 race from the States.

Ricardo Patrese crashed his car was basically wrapped up in chicken wire.

Poor Ricardo was trapped for a time while a bloke with bolt cutters(!) tries to snip him free.

Totally insane!

I seem to remember Michael Schumacher testing the Ferrari from the 1980`s that Patrick Tambay raced. MS said then that he respected those guys for racing the cars with so little protection. Remember that Didier Pironi had his career cut short by the very nature of the Hockenheim crash. I also remember `Jumper Jarier in the Ossella at Monza losing a wheel at the end of the main straight in 1982 and the car getting wasted over the run off - he then just walked out of the front of the car like Tambay did a season earlier...
Yes they were brave! The cars were on the edge of `safe` but the spectacle was amazing. (and they all looked different!)..

Michael Schumacher drove a 1950's cars actually at medium speed around Silverstone in 2002

I may stand corrected.. but he definately commented on the `fragility` of the Tambay car even if he never drove it..

No Michael did drive Tambay's car as well, at Fiorano sometime around 1999 I think. He said it scared him, seeing how little protection there was.

Wow, are there any videos for this? Was it part of some special anniversary/event?

"To race a car through a turn at maximum speed, is difficult, but to race a car at maximum speed through that same turn when there is a brick wall on one side and a precipice on the other - Ah, that's an achievement." - Sir Stirling.

IIRC, when Schumacher sat into Tambay's old Ferrari, he was surprised/shocked when his feet touched something, that just shouldn't be there.

"Is that the front suspension??"
"Yes it is. Plus springs."

Insanely dangerous cars - but what a joy to watch.

Reminds me of the Youtube clip of Howden Ganley at the Nurburgring in 1973. Camera mounted on his Iso-Marlboro, you can see and hear that the car does not wish to go as fast as he is pushing it, terrifying to watch. Later in practice he wrote the car off and missed the race. Brave indeed.

You have to remember that we are judging these drivers from the relative comfort of the modern era.

I remember that Jackie Stewart said something along the lines of "there was a 1 in 3 chance of survival" in the 1960s so the 1970s cars were an improvement.

Back in the 1990s I sat in a carbon-fibre tubbed hillclimb singleseater which I was thinking of buying. There was something rubbing on my calf muscles when I moved my feet round on the pedals. On getting out I discovered it was the mounting points for the bottom links of the front suspension. Needless to say I walked away.

The current crop of GP cars are probably the safest that have even been built but who knows what the cars will be like in 20 years from now.

"Fantastically dangerous", is what Schumacher called Tambay's 1983 126 C2B after driving it at Fiorano. Kind of sums it up perfectly.

It was an awesome looking car aswell. Testing at Ricard for the first time the size of the rear wing got me - described as a tea tray and then with winglets aswell. They were maybe dangerous but beautiful looking cars..

Just remember, these things were the latest word in F1 safety AT THE TIME...

DCN

Good tip. Thanks. Great and indeed terrifying to watch.

Jop

Mind you, the C2B was quite a dangerous car even at the time as it was merely a converted C2 (not the safest F1 Ferrari built...) with shortened sidepods that Ferrari used for the first half of the 1983 season after wing cars had been banned at the end of 1982; the C3, the first all carbon F1 Ferrari, was ready for Silverstone '83.

They were perfectly safe if used properly, they weren't supposed to be driven into things...............

The C2 was a big improvement over anything that came before it. Take a good look at a T4 and you would see that the C2 is a very strong car by comparison.

In the seventies, Ferrari was known to produce strong, relatively "safe" F1-cars compared to what we the standard then. Or maybe I should say less dangerous than most others. Remember Lauda said that he didn't think he would have survived his Nurburgring-crash in another car. It did catch fire as probably any other car would have done at that time, but he reckoned that the chassis withstood the impacts well, allowing the other drivers to pull him out (he didn't have any fractures).

The C2, however, was criticised quite heavily at the time (after the Zolder and Hockenheim accidents) as the cars of Villeneuve and Pironi broke in two on impact. I know that probably any 1982 F1-car would have been seriously damaged in such accidents, but, having had the chance to study the actual cars quite intensively, I don't think that safety wise the C2 was a "big" improvement or "very" strong compared to the T2/3/4/5, nor that it had any intention (or obligation by rule) to be so.

What I remember at the time is that some experts said that Harvey Postleweight (I hope I spell it right) designed a very good car and that it would have been a very safe car if the same structure would have been made of kevlar or carbon. But it was made of aluminium honeycomb structures, molded on eachother. Aluminium is light and can be very strong, if the form and structure of the mould is solid and one piece. The C2 consisted of several pieces, and the pieces were not solid but panels.

By the way, the aforementioned accident of Tambay can be seen here

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=154...=nl&view=2#

It's after two minutes or so.

Just under 1 minute in.

Qoute in this weeks Autosport - whilst Nico was having a run in dad`s old FW08 at Silverstone Keke phones him and says "Your Nuts!!"
Nico is reported to say he`d love to race it - would be great to see him as a guest in the HFO somewhere next year in the FW08. Anthony Reid had the time of his life whilst guesting in a Williams in 2008 at Spa, so why not Nico? Even now just getting up close to the cars in the pits it still amazes me at some of the exploits the original drivers got up to whilst racing them. Although the cars are still `raced` today there is great respect between the drivers on track because they appreciate the cars as well as drive them. DCN, you are on the button when you say F1 Safety `at the time`- but these cars are still on track today!!!

This might be a myth, and I probably read it at this very forum, but I seem to recall an anecdote involving Schuey being introduced to Froilán González at a Ferrari press event. In reference to the safety of the era's cars, MS said to the Wild Bull: "I couldn't possibly have driven the cars you drove...". González replied: "I couldn't drive your car - I can't operate a computer"


Justin

If they really did write that as quoted, they should be spanked very hard indeed...

Perhaps it was an incomplete quote, with the remainder reading "... may be big but never fool yourself that they're as big as mine!"

In the middle of the feature in bold white letters against sky background and a picture of Nico in the FW08 at Silverstone: "A liitle later on, Nico gets a telephone call from his father who, on hearing of his exploits, says, `Your Nuts!`"
There, I have just repeated what is on Page 66 this week. Nico must dream of doing some of the things Keke got up to in a Williams - THAT pole lap at Silverstone, THAT 360 spin at Long Beach, and the win at Monaco on slicks in the damp and showing the blisters on his hands to Murray afterwards. Yes - Keke did have it large!!!

Blood pressure!

what actually happend to Tambay in that incident as it is not captured, just the aftermath. Is there any photos of the car afterwards? I just can;t believe there is so little fuss made over the event!

Yes you`ve got a point there rallen. It was like the Pironi accident at Hockenheim and Didier wasn`t as lucky. I can only assume that Patrick bounced off the walls at an angle where the car`s front was taken out and he didn`t take too much of a battering! The car from which Tambay clambers from didn`t seem to have much at all left from where the steering wheel should have been. Makes a mockery of the rule where drivers must re-attach the steering wheel after getting out of the car....

In today's F1 Tambay would probably have been fined for not re-attaching the steering wheel

He would have had to tie-wrap it to the roll over hoop!!!

I already knew the film showing Ganley's Iso on the Nurburgring and I thought I was the only one to be shocked.

Look at the following video : Jacques Villeneuve trying a Lotus 72 and realising how dangerous it would be to have an accident in such a car.

Sorry, the video :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bLlNp3MYxc

That would be an older Keke than the one who delivered storming F2 performances at the Nurburgring. But it means that he is qualified to use the word "nuts".

Could you show us the clip of Ganley's Iso please?

Steady on and lower your blood pressure! Pink Snail must have made a rushed mistake. My copy of Autosport quotes Keke as saying 'You're nuts'.

Whoops a daisy! I am prone to the odd smelling pistake - Yeah Keke probably told Nico "You`re Nuts!!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otqXk2r_m7s

If the car crashes, the bumpers are the guys' legs.