30 replies to this topic

[cabianca]

The term "podium finish" is now sometimes used by historians regarding races held long before the use of an Olympic-stlye 1-2-3 podium came to motor racing. Can anyone identify the first use of a proper podium in Grand Prix racing and when one was first used in Sports Car World Championship racing. Next question - should historians use the term podium finish to denote results that came before the actual use of podiums? It is, after all, incorrect historically in that until the use of podiums began, second and third places were not recognized in this way.

Many thanks.

[Michael Ferner]

Just the other day, I found an old report saying that driver A won, B placed and C showed. Now, you tell the the kids of today that Kimi Räikkönen hopes to show again in the next Grand Prix, and chances are they won't understand you. Language changes, whether you like it or not, and if you don't follow those changes you run the risk of being shut out. SImple choice.

 

About when was a podium first used, I clearly remember discussing that on this board many years ago, but I'll be damned if I recall the outcome. Maybe a sign of age, maybe indifference. :shrug:

[Vitesse2]

A quick trawl through the Motor Sport archive suggests that the term wasn't in use until the 1980s. Apart from what DSJ describes as a 'portable podium' onto which Clark drove his Lotus at the end of the 1963 Dutch GP for what would now be called a photo-op and a mention in a 1977 rally report, it first appears in a June 1981 review of Endurance racing.

 

These are the first three in Formula 1 reports.

 

DSJ at Long Beach, 1983:

 

Watson, Lauda and Arnoux up on the winner's podium which seems to be hidden away in the pits where no-one can see it.

DSJ again - Detroit, 1983:

 

It was an interesting trio up on the winner's podium ...

More DSJ - Belgian GP, 1984:

 

As the last car received the chequered flag and before Alboreto mounted the winner’s podium to hear his National Anthem, a Diners Club International helicopter landed on the starting grid and whisked Mr Ecclestone and his briefcase away into the sky. The Belgian commentator suggested over the PA that “little Bernie was scuttling off with all the money”.

... etc etc

 

However, it seems to have really only gained traction in the 1990s. Even in 1991 the word only occurs seven times in the magazine, but then increases steadily to hit 67 (more than five times per issue!) in both 2013 and 2015.

 

So presumably at some point in the late 80s or early 90s BCE - in his quest for standardization - decreed that there should be an Olympic-style podium at every race (except Monaco, of course!) Before that - as with so much which made every GP different and interesting in its own right - presumably each club had its own policy. Like - for example - the RAC using a tractor and trailer to parade the winning driver round Brands or Silverstone when what they probably really wanted to do was sit down with a long cold one. Still, it did give the Lotus mechanics a chance to sit on the wings and bend 'em back down ...

[Michael Ferner]

Podiums were used much, much earlier. DSJ probably didn't like the word, and kept from using it until he couldn't help himself any longer, but I doubt there were many GPs without podium celebrations in the 70s. Earliest probably fifties, maybe even before WW2.

[RA Historian]

Times and conceptions change, and recent practices tend to get "back dated" in time as if they existed forever. But more annoying than the use of 'podium' before there was one is the occasional faux pax of using that word as a verb. "So and so podiumed twice". Oh, the humanity!

 

A couple similar instances, of what I am sure are many, is the use of the term "F-1 World Championship" to races before 1981, which is when I understand that 'F-1' was first formally introduced into the title. Along the same lines is the application of the term F-1 to the 1952 and 1953 World Championship, which is simply wrong for reasons which all on here should know.

 

Tom

[Michael Ferner]

And don't forget the NASCAR {insert nom de jour} Cup, which was once properly called the Grand National Championships. NASCAR made sure the historians were foiled by calling its second tier Bush series Grand National, so that any reference to its original name would be misleading. Now, any historian refering to a fifties Grand National race has to recall the current series name sponsor to find an audience. I'm glad I don't follow touring cars, as I wouldn't have any idea how to properly name these races, having lost interest in current affairs more than fifteen years ago!

Edited by Michael Ferner, 13 May 2016 - 14:16.

[Allen Brown]

And don't forget the NASCAR {insert nom de jour} Cup, which was once properly called the Grand National Championships. NASCAR made sure the historians were foiled by calling its second tier Bush series Grand National, so that any reference to its original name would be misleading. Now, any historian refering to a fifties Grand National race has to recall the current series name sponsor to find an audience. I'm glad I don't follow touring cars, as I wouldn't have any idea how to properly name these races, having lost interest in current affairs more than fifteen years ago!

 

Ah yes, much like Manchester United winning the European Cup in 1968.  We now have to pretend they won the Champions League to make it relevant to today's audience.

 

Football commentators refer to teams winning "the top tier" to allow for all the names the senior English league has had over the last century.  If talking to an American, you have to call it "the EPL".  In the same way, we have to suffer "F1" being used as the name of the top tier of motorsport from the 1980s back to 1950 despite it not being in 1952 or 1953, or at Indy. 

 

I think it's ok to refer to a podium finish meaning top-3, but it really depends on your audience. 

[Vitesse2]

Well, we could tackle the question from the other direction, of course. According to this Chinese (!) website, the Olympic podium was only introduced in 1932, copying the Empire Games at Hamilton, ONT two years before:

 

http://www.ebeijing....gin/t944420.htm

 

This picture, showing the first three in the 3 miles at Hamilton would seem to confirm that, with a rather 'agricultural-looking' construction, which might even be someone's school woodwork project. The second-placed man is actually the Australian chap on the English winner's left, rather than what we'd expect today - and that salute to the crowd probably wouldn't have gone down so well a few years later:

 

 

This is the 1932 Olympics, with the silver medallists now on the winner's right.

 

 

Berlin 1936, silver medallists again on the winner's right. Front (rowing eights):

 

 

And back (men's long jump):

 

 

The podium seems to have been regarded as a dangerous Canadian innovation by the English and Australians, as I can't find any evidence that one was used in either the 1934 (London) or 1938 (Sydney) Empire Games! Maybe somebody got a splinter off the handrail?

 

Finally, in 1948, the British had the bright idea of putting numbers on it! Front and back.

 

 

The Swiss weren't that innovative for the winter games, though!

 

 

The only custom-built 'podium' I can recall in pre-war motor racing was at the Nürburgring, but - like the one at the rebuilt Monza, which wasn't used until the circuit re-opened after the war (at least for racing - General Mark Clark used it to review troops in 1945!) - it wasn't really a 'podium' as such. More like a raised verandah.

[TerryS]

And don't forget the NASCAR {insert nom de jour} Cup, which was once properly called the Grand National Championships. NASCAR made sure the historians were foiled by calling its second tier Bush series Grand National, so that any reference to its original name would be misleading. Now, any historian refering to a fifties Grand National race has to recall the current series name sponsor to find an audience. I'm glad I don't follow touring cars, as I wouldn't have any idea how to properly name these races, having lost interest in current affairs more than fifteen years ago!

It is interesting that NASCAR do not have a podium at all. They just celebrate the winner, and second and third place getters just disappear back to the garages.

There is so much hoopla around the winner, including the winner firing pistols into the air at a race I went to last year.

[Ray Bell]

And with title points back to sixth place or tenth place...

Of what relevance is the term to the result?

An interesting array you've dug up there, Speedy, by the way.

[Oneandhalf]

1949

[Michael Ferner]

There is so much hoopla around the winner, including the winner firing pistols into the air at a race I went to last year.

 

A dangerous place, then, this NASCAR crowd. No need for me to go there, thankfully...

[Eric Dunsdon]

I remember that in the 1950's,  Prize giving took place on the track at the end of the day, at Silverstone at least, though it seems to have  been done on some kind of podium after the 1951 British Grand Prix.. Those Podium chaps shown in the various photos all look pretty glum, maybe thats why they introduced Podium Girls?.

[D-Type]

Put the other way round, when was the last race without a podium (Monaco excepted)?

 

As well as "Podium" what about "Front row"?  We haven't had a front row, ie two cars next to each other since 1979, or a 'proper' one with 3 cars since Zandvoort in 1973, but commentators still use the term.

 

[Ray Bell]

You're right...

A front row isn't fair dinkum if there's still room between the cars for someone on the second row to get through.

I have pics with up to six, I think. A couple here:

Edited by Ray Bell, 14 May 2016 - 18:26.

[E1pix]

A dangerous place, then, this NASCAR crowd. No need for me to go there, thankfully...

Never fear, Michael, they use blanks to symbolize the thought behind the concept.

[scheivlak]

 

 

About when was a podium first used, I clearly remember discussing that on this board many years ago, but I'll be damned if I recall the outcome. Maybe a sign of age, maybe indifference. :shrug:

Some earlier threads:

 http://forums.autosp...cle/?hl=+podium

http://forums.autosp...hes/?hl=+podium

http://forums.autosp...ems/?hl=+podium

http://forums.autosp...art/?hl=+podium

[Allan Lupton]

I think this post from one of those threads by an esteemed member of the time (with names updated as necessary) says it all.

 

This question crossed my mind recently since "podium finishes" have become one more -- groan -- statistic by which drivers are "measured" or "evaluated" or whatever the hell people claim to do when they generate those godawful lists where everyone in placed in rank order on some listing having to do with some superlative.

What Michael is asking, I believe, is when did it become comonplace or a requirement or mandatory for the top three to be paraded about and placed on a podium? This ignores -- rightfully -- the occasional times when an organizer did it on its own perogative, something which a bot chaotic and added to the flavor of proceedings once upon a time. At any rate, why is this applied retroactively and bantered about as if it were a real "statistic" by the number geeks? The same numbers geeks who, incidentally, seem unable to fathom that much of the data they stole from one source was modified from the original "format" -- if you will -- to make the data fit the then current parameters when the books were developed and published.

It -- the "podium" -- would seem to something that came in with the creation of the either the current authoritarian regime (Ecclestone & Mosley) that runs formula one or the previous authoritarian regime (Balestre) after the Secret Protocols were set in place in 1981, which in time placed the emphasis on stalinist palaces for the perfumed princes and the strict adherence to timetables which would have made the fascists smile. But I digress..

Edited by Allan Lupton, 04 July 2016 - 07:46.

[Doug Nye]

What I cannot, cannot, cannot stand is the conversion of the noun 'podium' into a verb as in 'he podiumed'.  

 

Well - if he has then he can bloody well clean it up too...

 

DCN

[Sharman]

Hadn't we also used to say "he finished on the rostrum"?

[RA Historian]

What I cannot, cannot, cannot stand is the conversion of the noun 'podium' into a verb as in 'he podiumed'.  

 

After he podiumed, he was gifted a meal, and he then lunched.

 

Barbarians.

Edited by RA Historian, 07 July 2016 - 13:23.

[Allan Lupton]

It's US-english where any noun can be verbed.

Whether we like it or not, there are more of 'em than there are of us in the UK so, little as we like the trend, we cannot alter it.

[Michael Ferner]

If I may chime in, as a non-native speaker, personally I find (most? some!) of the verbed nouns quite endearing.

[BRG]

he then lunched.

I agree that 'podiumed' is an ugly expression (as is the term 'medalled' now common in athletics) but the use of 'to lunch' as a verb is perfectly correct and has been in use for centuries.

[Vitesse2]

I agree that 'podiumed' is an ugly expression (as is the term 'medalled' now common in athletics) but the use of 'to lunch' as a verb is perfectly correct and has been in use for centuries.

Well, maybe just over two. The OED's first citation is dated 1823:

 

She is now old enough, she said, to have lived to hear the vulgarisms of her youth adopted in drawing-room circles. To lunch, now so familiar from the fairest lips, in her youth was only known in the servants hall.

Surprisingly, their first citation for luncheon as a verb is as late as 1885.

[BRG]

Down 'ere in the servants' hall, we was using it fer centuries, guv.

[Jon Saltinstall]

I seem to remember there was a permanent podium in the pits complex at Reims?

[Jon Saltinstall]

I agree that 'podiumed' is an ugly expression (as is the term 'medalled' now common in athletics) but the use of 'to lunch' as a verb is perfectly correct and has been in use for centuries.

 

There is a school of thought that says one can take any noun, add the letters "ed", prefix it with the word "absolutely" and one comes up with a description of being inebriated. "Absolutely wishboned", for example 

[Michael Ferner]

What, in heaven's name, is a "wishbon"?

[Jon Saltinstall]

Alright Michael - maybe I shouldn't have chosen a noun already ending in "e"....

 

How about "absolutely podiumed" then     ?

[Michael Ferner]

Great!

I'll try that when next I'm on a Kneipentour here in Germany! I can't wait to see the faces!