17 replies to this topic

[Barry Boor]

In my eternal quest to rake up the obscure and unimportant anomalies of racing through the years, while reading Tony Brooks' splendid autobiography - (you haven't got it yet? Why on earth not?) - I was once again reminded that the organisers of the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1958 and '59 and '60, timed the cars to 1/100th of a second.

This was unique in Formula 1 at the time and indeed, apart from a couple of odd individual lap times at Monza, no other Grand Prix was timed thus until the Austrian Grand Prix in 1964.

Remember, this was back in the days when the British timing was only 1/5th of a second. I'm wondering how the Portuguese were able to be so accurate when others weren't or was it simply that lap times were more largely spread and accuracy wasn't necessary?

Either way I find it an interesting peculiarity.

Edited by Barry Boor, 09 August 2012 - 06:12.

[David Beard]

In my eternal quest to rake up the obscure and unimportant anomalies of racing through the years, while reading Tony Brooks' splendid autobiography - (you haven't got it yet? Why on earth not?) - I was once again reminded that the organisers of the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1958 and '59 and '60, timed the cars to 1/100th of a second.

This was unique in Formula 1 at the time and indeed, apart from a couple of odd individual lap times at Monza, no other Grand Prix was timed thus until the Austrian Grand Prix in 1964.

Remember, this was back in the days when the British timing was only 1/5th of a second. I'm wondering how the Portuguese were able to be so accurate when others weren't or was it simply that lap times were more largely spread and accuracy wasn't necessary?

Either way I find it an interesting peculiarity.

Is the answer here?
http://forums.autosp...w...&hl=history of timekeeping&st=0

Mention of LSR to 1/100th, but I've not read everything properly.

Edited by David Beard, 09 August 2012 - 09:25.

[Barry Boor]

Well, no, actually, I don't think it really is.

My question is why Portugal and nobody else - and why so far ahead of the rest of the Grand Prix organisers?

There is a lot of info on that thread but I can't see anything specific about Portugal.

[Allan Lupton]

As pointed out in that other thread hand timing to less than a fifth is not reliable, but I do remember split-action chronographs which read to hundredths were available when I started fraternising with race timekeepers.
The timekeepers worked to fifths but some competitors offered times to hundredths when challenging times for a better grid position.
Therefore it is possible, but not probable, that the Portuguese timekeepers had chronographs that read to hundredths and recorded what they thought they saw on them.
I can't remember when I first saw a timekeepers' Omega printing clock but I'm sure 1958 isn't too early for that, so a light beam and one of those would do the job. Still doesn't explain why they didn't all do it that way of course.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 09 August 2012 - 13:38.

[uechtel]

I can't remember when I first saw a timekeepers' Omega printing clock but I'm sure 1958 isn't too early for that, so a light beam and one of those would do the job.

Hm, I don´t think that it would work like this. Take a car of 4m length and a speed of 200 km/h then it would mean, that it needs about 0.07 sec. for the whole car to pass by. Even if it were 300 km/h and 3 m length this would still be about 0.035 sec. So if two cars were closer than this a light beam would obviously not be able to notice the second car, as its nose would be covered by the first one. Therefore it would not make sense to record time distances closer than this using a light beam, or what is the trick?

[Allan Lupton]

Hm, I don´t think that it would work like this. Take a car of 4m length and a speed of 200 km/h then it would mean, that it needs about 0.07 sec. for the whole car to pass by. Even if it were 300 km/h and 3 m length this would still be about 0.035 sec. So if two cars were closer than this a light beam would obviously not be able to notice the second car, as its nose would be covered by the first one. Therefore it would not make sense to record time distances closer than this using a light beam, or what is the trick?

You are quite right that overlaps caused potential problems. When I first came across light-beam timing (at club races, not GPs) it still relied on people looking out of the window to record the comp. numbers and at the shout of "overlap" a nominal time for the second car was given. I think that would have been based on a nominal half length at a nominal speed: in club racing at (say) Silverstone the cars were 12 ft. long travelling around 100 m.p.h. (146.67 ft/sec) so would pass in 0.08 sec so the second car would be given a time 0.04 sec. later than the first.
Much later we were able to use transponders and the meticulous used a light beam for timing to remove the variability of transponder positioning, only using the transponder timing in the overlap case. At that point it is all getting a bit over-complex since the winner is still the one who is in front at the flag, whatever his lap times and race time.

[Roger Clark]

The problems of overlap was the reason British timekeepers gave for continuing to use hand timing to 1/5sec for so many years.

[Barry Boor]

Interesting. I wonder if this is how the timekeepers at Monza suddenly came up with splits between cars of 0.03 or 0.04 of a second when all the other cars were timed to a tenth.

[wenoopy]

Hm, I don´t think that it would work like this. Take a car of 4m length and a speed of 200 km/h then it would mean, that it needs about 0.07 sec. for the whole car to pass by. Even if it were 300 km/h and 3 m length this would still be about 0.035 sec. So if two cars were closer than this a light beam would obviously not be able to notice the second car, as its nose would be covered by the first one. Therefore it would not make sense to record time distances closer than this using a light beam, or what is the trick?

This calls to mind a New Zealand Grand Prix of the mid-1960's at Pukekohe. The track, like some others in that era, was built around the outside of a horse-racing track, and someone recorded the race start on the horse-racing photo-finish apparatus. The camera was positioned less than 100 metres after the GP start/finish line, and presumably set its speed to that of the first car away. Cars from further back on the grid had obviously covered a greater distance by the time they passed the camera, and were going somewhat faster than the leaders so that the length of their photo image related to their speed. This produced a quite bizarre photo effect. A bit like George Gamow's book "Mr Tompkins in Wonderland" - altering the speed of light or Planck's Constant or something.

Stu

[uechtel]

At that point it is all getting a bit over-complex since the winner is still the one who is in front at the flag, whatever his lap times and race time.

Thanks for the explanation, that sounds a quite reasonable compromise between precision and complexity.

But with your last sentence I can still not quite agree. Ok, if you are only looking who is winner, then you would need no timekeeping at all. But as in those days fastest lap was quite a matter (because of the additional championship point), therefore you could have the same problem with each car during the race, even with the winner when he is just lapping another car. And even worse: In such case it effects on the times of two laps, the one that is just ended and the next one, that they are just about to begin.

BTW thinking about the whole issue, when there were points for fastest lap and driver changes allowed, did a team ever have the idea of running a "fastest-lap-special" in a race?

[uechtel]

This calls to mind a New Zealand Grand Prix of the mid-1960's at Pukekohe. The track, like some others in that era, was built around the outside of a horse-racing track, and someone recorded the race start on the horse-racing photo-finish apparatus. The camera was positioned less than 100 metres after the GP start/finish line, and presumably set its speed to that of the first car away. Cars from further back on the grid had obviously covered a greater distance by the time they passed the camera, and were going somewhat faster than the leaders so that the length of their photo image related to their speed. This produced a quite bizarre photo effect. A bit like George Gamow's book "Mr Tompkins in Wonderland" - altering the speed of light or Planck's Constant or something.

Stu

Amazing idea! But I think in Mr. Tompkin´s world those cars the faster cars would have looked shorter than the slower ones.

[D-Type]

~
BTW thinking about the whole issue, when there were points for fastest lap and driver changes allowed, did a team ever have the idea of running a "fastest-lap-special" in a race?

I doubt it. Entering a "fastest-lap-special" would entail light fuel load, optimum (ie new but scrubbed) tyres, engine tuned for peak power at the cost of reliability (a bit more than simply telling the driver a rev limit) and a top level driver who would be prepared to "go for it" and sacrifice his chances in the race. The last is the stumbling block - would any top driver be prepared to throw away a chance of winning? Sports car racing is slightly different as it was often reported that one driver adopted the role of "hare" to lure the opposition into overstressing their cars, eg Moss at Le Mans in 1959 is credited with causing the Ferraris to break 10 hours later.

I can recall reading of Fangio fighting to set fastest practice lap and coming in with a car that was "oozing oil and steam from all over the place. But the mechanics could get it right for the race.

On a related topic: after the 1955 Argentine GP "musical chairs" they brought in a rule that only a driver's bestperformance counted. Did this apply to fastest lap? ie if a driver set fastest lap in his own car and then after it failed took over a colleague's car and finished in the points, did he get both lots of points?

But we are wandering OT, so back to timing to 0.001"

Edited by D-Type, 10 August 2012 - 11:50.

[Ray Bell]

Thinking back to the Moroccan GP situation, it could well have been a strategy to do this...

If Ferrari had a driver who could steal fastest lap from Moss as Hawthorn stroked along then without risking his car, it could have been a different approach. Even if, say, Phil Hill was to sit in the pits ready to go out again in lightweight form with a strong car that had only completed a few laps early in the race, it could have been possible.

[Charlieman]

But as in those days fastest lap was quite a matter (because of the additional championship point), therefore you could have the same problem with each car during the race, even with the winner when he is just lapping another car.

I think we have to consider probability here. On most circuits the start/finish is about one third of the way along a straight. In order for a fast driver to be overtaking a back marker at the timing point:
* he didn't overtake elsewhere on the circuit, and for the 1950s we can assume that the circuit was longer than two miles
* he had to overtake in the timing zone (two car lengths, so say seven yards) rather than the other few hundred yards
* he had to overtake on his potentially fastest lap

Over the seasons, it is possible that a driver lost the extra point owing to timing deficiencies. But most of them were more sporting in those days, more prepared to accept human limitations.

[ensign14]

Maybe they didn't. Maybe if they timed it as 1m 37.7 they gave it as 1m 37.72 to make themselves look dynamic and advanced...

[Barry Boor]

I have thought along those lines too. I mean, either they could time to a hundredth or they couldn't. If they could, why not show every car to the hundredth?

[Charlieman]

If they could, why not show every car to the hundredth?

Perhaps they had three sets of watches and time keepers: one for the red cars, one for the green ones and another for the rest. http://forums.autosp...fault/smile.gif In 1960, of course, they needed a lot of time keepers to watch the green cars.

Edited by Charlieman, 10 August 2012 - 19:34.

[Roger Clark]

On a related topic: after the 1955 Argentine GP "musical chairs" they brought in a rule that only a driver's bestperformance counted. Did this apply to fastest lap? ie if a driver set fastest lap in his own car and then after it failed took over a colleague's car and finished in the points, did he get both lots of points?

But we are wandering OT, so back to timing to 0.001"

I don't think it ever happened. Fangio and Moss, both on two occasions, set fastest lap after taking over a team mate's car. They did get a point for that.