13 replies to this topic

[pcpool]

Who was the first Grand Prix driver to wear a safety belt ?

[Barry Lake]

It is probable that some drivers of earlier eras wore lap belts, but as far as I know (goting purely from memory) the first of the modern era was Jackie Stewart.
He certainly was the one who did all the talking about them.
And it would have been 1967-1968. I remember that I did not have seat belts in 1967 but had decided by 1968 (due to reading Stewart's comments) that I should have them in the F3 car I was driving at the time.

[Don Capps]

Stewart deserves credit for stirring up folks on the Eastern Shore to finally belt up, something that had been a requirement in American racing for some time. If you recognize the cars at the 1947 thru 1953 Indy 500's as pukka "F1" cars -- 4.5-litre engines -- then there is your answer.

However, didn't the Scarab have seatbelts for Chuck Daigh and Lance Reventlow in 1960?

Again, full points to Jackie Stewart for setting the example and not only wearing seatbelts, but actually going to the full harness in his Matras in 1968.

[PDA]

As the Indy 500 was a points scoring race in the FIA F1 world championship from 1950-58, I think it is safe to assume that one of those drivers was the first to wear a belt in a WDC event.
Interesting that harnesses were being used in Rallying from the early 60s

[FlatFoot]

Excuse my ignorance on the subject...but what were drivers thinking by *not* belting up? Was it thought to be safer to be thrown from a wreck rather than to be strapped to a car that could potentially catch fire and burn with the driver in it? Or was it just a macho/ego thing?

Just curious.

[AyePirate]

If you look at a lot of the older cars closely,
you'll see that driver's best chance was to
be thrown clear due to the decided lack
of rollover protection. Kinda like wearing
seatbelts on a motorbike.

I wonder how long before Joe Fan weighs
in with a Masten Gregory story.;)

[PDA]

Never mind Masten gregory, di you all see the start line crash at Good wod in which Neil Corner's ferrari looped and he was thrown out on the uproll, flew, and landed on the tyre barrier. remarkably without serious injury (couldn;t say the same about the Dino)

[Joe Fan]

Masten Gregory didn't like seatbelts for protection, he only liked them because they kept him from moving around in the seat while driving.

[Ray Bell]

Michael Henderson put out a book, released in May, 1968 in Europe entitled Motor Racing in Safety - The Human Factors.
He was living in Australia by the time of its release, having taken up a post with the AMA Journal. He is, naturally enough, a doctor. He currently races in a Formula Atlantic car in Historics.

The point?
In Racing Car News of May, 1968, he has an article entitled 'A Matter of Survival.'
In this he reveals that he investigated every single 'damaging' accident in British motor racing in 1967. The principal finding was this:
"Every driver who was ejected from a single seater was injured to some extent; many severely. No driver who stayed inside as the car overturned was badly hurt.
Most cockpits finished up pretty well intact and undistorted (so the occupant would have been all right inside); only one driver, out of a total of 78 open car accidents, could be said to have been lucky to have been thrown out. These are facts, not half-remembered incidents and oft-repeated myths.
He goes on to relate that the recently-badly injured John Harvey had been injured at Bathurst at Easter (1968) despite the fact that he usually wears a harness. This car had not yet been fitted with the harness (I seem to recall in the Tuckey/Brock downfall book that Harvey said he was quite upset that the belts handn't been fitted). Leo Geoghegan suffered some injuries the same day when he was partly ejected at the end of his crash on the same circuit.
At Bathurst that weekend Fred Gibson already had a harness in the Niel Allen Brabham and Bartlett had one fitted between practice and the race.
So it's obvious that they were not only available but also being used.
In a later article in which Henderson anylised the survival of Niel Allen when he comprehensively destroyed the M4A at Lakeside, the part of the harness in his survival was obvious.
I saw the crash and can vouch for that, but that's beside the point. What happened next was the true answer to the question posed in this thread.
From this point on there was an immediate move to instal 6-point harnesses in everything that moved, not just in Australia, but Internationally. They were very soon mandated after this point.
Niel Allen's crash had proved their worth to the world.

There is somewhere, I feel sure, a mention of Stewart or somebody else recommending a harness to Allen, which led to the fitting of the 6-point harnesses to both the Brabham driven (using the term loosely) by Gibson and Allen's own McLaren, and also his sports car. There was also an International driver mentioned, I'm sure, who said not to do it! A caption with the story implies that this was Clark.
But there is no mention, I feel sure, of anyone of the International drivers in Australia that year wearing them at all. I'll keep looking....[p][Edited by Ray Bell on 01-24-2001]

[UAtkins]

Just reading a August 10, 1962 Autosport. The classified ads have a section for Safety Belts:

"Bob Staples for Autosafe Safety belts ex stock. B.S.I. approved. Lap straps, full harness and diagonal types available."

Not sure what this indicates other than that they were available in 1962? Reading the ads for cars, safety belts were mentioned in the rally/touring cars but none mentioned in any of the formula cars.

Reading the ads is great:

"The Chequered Flag offers:

Three Famous Aston Martins

DB4 G.T. Zagato special built for Le Mans 1961. This is a very potent 300 b.h.p. ex-Essex Racing Stable car, works maintained from new and in faultless condition both bodily and mechanically. Undoubtedly one of the fastest G.T. cars in the country. 3,985.00 pounds.

DBR1 The ex-Stirling Moss World Champion sports car. First Nurburgring in 1959 and fourth in 1962. Maintained by the works and in perfect condition throughout. 1,750.00 pounds.

DB3S Ex-Peter Collins works car, now fully equipped as an ultra-fast road car. Twin plug head engine, full hood, tonneau, sidescreens, etc. 895.00 pounds."

Wouldn't you like to have answered one of those ads and kept the car?

[david_martin]

Less than £4000 for a DB4 GT Zagato! Aston Martin lineage is not my specialty, but they only built 19 of them, so I would one with verifiable Le Mans history would have to be worth upwards of 50 times that. I know that the famous 1962 Project 212 car changed hands last year for more than £1,000,000. Anybody have a time machine I might borrow for a few days

[UAtkins]

I was watching the Barrett Jackson auction this weekend on Speedvision and wishing I had just one of my Dad's cars. The 193something Bentley, one of the 300 SL lightweight Gullwings, the AC Cobra, the E-Type.....one thing about my Dad he really had good taste in cars. A couple of years ago, I received a letter from Rob Walker in response to an inquiry about my Dad, in his letter he mentioned going to the factory to pickup the lightweight gullwings together and then driving back with them. As he said, a similar one had sold for 750,000 pounds recently, he was wishing for a time machine too.

[oldtimer]

Back to Aye Pirates posting. At the 1956 Easter Goodwood meeting I was thoroughly sickened to see Hawthorn's BRM cart-wheeling nose over tail after the rear transmission seized. And then we were all relieved to hear of no injuries to the Farnham Flyer after being thrown onto a freshly ploughed field.

Different times - much slower cornering speeds, exposed drivers, little strength around the cockpit area etc.

[Megatron]

I remember in the early NASCAR days, one driver brought a rope....