61 replies to this topic

[jtremlett]

I'm not sure exactly when it was decided that a Formula 1 race needed three blokes with a rule book to intervene every time there was any danger of anytihng that looked like racing.  Nor quite how they managed to do without them for more than 50 years.  But Sunday's events in Canada did set me thinking about other occasions where the driver who crossed the line first wasn't the winner. I'm not talking about post-race disqualifications but rather where some penalty had already been applied.  Off the top of my head I can think of the1980 Canadian Grand Prix where Pironi crossed the line first but had a minute penalty for a jumped start and Andretti winning or rather not at Monza in 1978 for the same reason.  Equally, I can't immediately recall jumped start penalties from back in the day when half the skill at the start was in avoiding mowing down Toto Roche as he waddled across the road flag in hand.  Or maybe it was all a bit more laissez-faire back then.  Anyway, can anyone recall other occasions where the first to cross the finish line was not the winner and any reasons other than jumping the start?  I guess there may have been races stopped part way through with the aggregate result used but I can't immediately think of one where the winner was not the first across the line.  Although I am immediately thinking about Formula 1 because of what prompted this in the first place, I'm not necessarily meaning only in F1.   

[Felix Muelas]

Mmm...I don´t remember exactly how they finished "on the road" but I have a nagging memory of the first win by Alain Prost (his home soil, 1981) as the race was stopped and then continued with the results being the combined times. I somehow remember that it was horribly confusing and that maybe the final results were not the ones that we were seeing. Am I right or just I better have a coffee?

[Afterburner]

Not a TNF regular, but poking my head in from the rest of the forum as I saw this on the 'new topics' list: the finish of the Edmonton Indycar race in 2010 is one instance I can recall, due to a similarly dubious stewarding call. The post-race drama was pretty funny, too.

[chr1s]

Gerhard Berger had a one minute penalty for a jump start (I think) and crossed the line first but didn't win,  ironically in Canada, in 1990.

[Bloggsworth]

Hamilton - Spa - Kimi

[Collombin]

Howden Ganley at Mosport in 1973?

[Collombin]

I guess there may have been races stopped part way through with the aggregate result used but I can't immediately think of one where the winner was not the first across the line.

Piquet and Mansell in the 1987 Mexican GP would fit this category.

[Charlieman]

July 1894, Paris to Rouen, the "first" motor race. The fastest overall was Jules-Albert de Dion in a De Dion-Bouton steamer but the prizes were awarded to petrol Peugeots and Panhards.

 

Or June 1895, Paris-Bordeaux-Paris. Emile Levassor in a Panhard et Lavassor won by six hours but did not qualify because the car was a two seater.

[jtremlett]

Not a TNF regular, but poking my head in from the rest of the forum as I saw this on the 'new topics' list: the finish of the Edmonton Indycar race in 2010 is one instance I can recall, due to a similarly dubious stewarding call. The post-race drama was pretty funny, too.

That's bonkers.  At least I have now learned where the stewarding nonsense came from.  Imported from Indycars.

 

Gerhard Berger had a one minute penalty for a jump start (I think) and crossed the line first but didn't win,  ironically in Canada, in 1990.

Ah yes, forgot that one.  Must be something about Canada.

 

Howden Ganley at Mosport in 1973?

Yes, definitely something about Canada!  Of course, the famous race where no-one quite knew who had one.  Or does someone want to tell me they do know for sure?  I know Peter Revson went into the books.

 

July 1894, Paris to Rouen, the "first" motor race. The fastest overall was Jules-Albert de Dion in a De Dion-Bouton steamer but the prizes were awarded to petrol Peugeots and Panhards.

 

Or June 1895, Paris-Bordeaux-Paris. Emile Levassor in a Panhard et Lavassor won by six hours but did not qualify because the car was a two seater.

That's priceless.  Thank you!

[Vitesse2]

Manfred von Brauchitsch - first on the road in the 1938 Coppa Ciano. Disqualified for 'outside assistance' after a spin and push start. Fair enough, you might think. Except that in the voiturette race which preceded the GP class Francesco Severi had also spun and been push started and was subsequently classified seventh ...

 

[This no doubt had a bearing on Seaman waving away spectators who wanted to push start his car at Donington later that year.]

[Collombin]

AAA Champcar race, Sacramento 1950 - Bill Schindler takes the chequered flag but the win is given to Duke Dinsmore as the scorers had missed one of his laps.

[Perruqueporte]

July 1894, Paris to Rouen, the "first" motor race. The fastest overall was Jules-Albert de Dion in a De Dion-Bouton steamer but the prizes were awarded to petrol Peugeots and Panhards.

Or June 1895, Paris-Bordeaux-Paris. Emile Levassor in a Panhard et Lavassor won by six hours but did not qualify because the car was a two seater.

 

Perhaps not quite coincidentally, the centenary re-enactment of the Paris-Rouen "race" which was held on 6th June, 1994 also ended with no clear "winner" on the road, in many respects having degenerated into an administrative farce.  My chum Roy Fisher and I were invited to take part, in Roy's 1900 De Dion Bouton.  Rather than entrust event organisation to one of France's excellent and highly experienced car clubs, Rouen's town council assumed responsibility and made a mess of just about everything, often in comical fashion.  

 

The reason why there was no clear winner might well have been a motor sport first, in that nobody knew which car had arrived in Rouen first, because not every competitor had been given the same route, and also possibly because various police motorcyclists who comprised the official escort had enjoyed lunch as much as the rest of us.

 

Christopher W.

Edited by Perruqueporte, 11 June 2019 - 12:41.

[D28]

Howden Ganley at Mosport in 1973?

According to him in this 2017 story, definitely Emmo Fittipaldi was the winner. I was present but hadn't a clue, or cared really so wet cold and miserable it was.

 

https://www.wheels.c...prix-of-canada/

[Sterzo]

Earlier on the same day as the Canadian GP, a British F3 race at Silverstone ended with both first and second placed drivers over the line penalised 5 seconds for "exceeding track limits".

[Lee Nicolle]

I have seen it several times in most levels of Aussie motorsport. Touring cars down. Jumped starts the usual reason.

Happened to me once but I finished just over 10 sec ahead so the penalty was still not a problem. But I did not even know until I got a results sheet 20 min after the race!

No radios or even telling my signaller. What happens in state level events!

[Lee Nicolle]

According to him in this 2017 story, definitely Emmo Fittipaldi was the winner. I was present but hadn't a clue, or cared really so wet cold and miserable it was.

 

https://www.wheels.c...prix-of-canada/

Pity the poor drivers then,, they are in a heavy shower with the water from the tyres. And you struggle to see.

I once pulled off at a speedway event with the r/f tyre simply filling me in. And the rest of the field followed me!

[Tim Murray]

Mmm...I don´t remember exactly how they finished "on the road" but I have a nagging memory of the first win by Alain Prost (his home soil, 1981) as the race was stopped and then continued with the results being the combined times. I somehow remember that it was horribly confusing and that maybe the final results were not the ones that we were seeing. Am I right or just I better have a coffee?

The race saw the return of Goodyear after their self-imposed sabbatical. Brabham and Williams switched back to their old supplier while the rest of the front runners stayed with Michelin, who brought along a variety of different compounds, unlike Goodyear.

Heavy rain caused the race to be halted after 58 laps, when Piquet’s Brabham was some six seconds ahead of Prost’s Renault with Watson’s McLaren third. For the restart over 22 laps the Michelin runners were able to bolt on softer rubber. The Goodyear teams had no such option. Hence Piquet could only finish fifth in the second part, dropping to third overall in the aggregate results. So, Prost the overall winner did finish first on the road.

It’s amusing re-reading the race reports in the British mags. They portray the scenario as a gallant British team (Brabham) cruelly robbed by a fiendish French plot engineered by Renault, Michelin and Balestre to enable Prost to gain an unfair advantage by fitting softer tyres for the restart. They conveniently ignored the fact that most of the top Michelin runners also fitted the softer tyres, including Watson’s McLaren which finished a close runner-up to Prost.

[Cynic2]

One of Big Bill France's principles when he founded NASCAR was that the driver that finished first in the race was the winner.  Fans weren't going to be told on Tueday that the driver they saw winning, who was the winner when they went home, who kissed the trophy queen and got the trophy, well, he wasn't really he winner.  It was the driver who finished third who really won.  The promoter or protest committee decided that on Monday.

 

Apparently this was not all that uncommon at short tracks in the Southeast.

 

Remember Richard Petty's 200th win at Daytona in front of President Reagan?  Engine illegal, tires on wrong sides, perhaps more.  Everybody at the track saw him win, and he kept it.  He was fined all the prize money, all the points, and possibly a bit more so the win really gained him none of the prizes.

 

I think this is absolutely the right way to handle this.  You cross the line first, you won.  You may receive some VERY heavy penalties, and future tech inspections for your car may take a little longer, but the fans/spectators watched a race and watched a winner. In Canada on Sunday fans didn't to watch the Stewards decide who would win.  They could have called it just a racing accident with no penalty, or given Vettel a different penalty but let him take the win he earned.  They didn't have to ensure he didn't win the race.  (I've been an FIA Steward for the World Rally Championship years and years ago, so I'm somewhat familiar with the options. ) 

 

In this case if we decided Vettel should have received some penalty we could have fined him the difference between first and second place points toward the drivers' championship.  He still gets the win, which he earned and which the spectators saw, but not the additional points over second place.  The spectators see him take the flag first, and be declared the winner.  There doesn't have to be a change to the results afterward.

 

Unless the rules have changed substantionally in the past lots of years, the stewards still have that option.

 

I'm sorry they didn't take it.  In the US the Canadian GP was on a major, free, over-tht-air network.  IndyCar had run on Saturday night, and NASCAR was rained out.  Lots of racing fans looking for something to watch.  Some of those people might have watched and stuck with F1.  I doubt that now.

 

I just don't want to be the one to tell some of the hardcore F1 fans that they should really be doing what NASCAR does.

[Ray Bell]

It sounds like a perfect situation for someone 'racing under protest'...

Perhaps something about their car didn't suit the scrutineers and they lodged a protest, then raced and lost their protest after crossing the line first.

It's a common thing, of course (and I know the thread's not about that) with jumped starts. Two Australian Grands Prix went that way, 1961 and 1978 IIRC. It is possible, by the way, to win despite having a 60-second penalty and not building a lead that long during the race.

But only on a circuit where the lap time is less than 60 seconds and you lap the second-placed car.

[Mallory Dan]

Ricardo Zunino, Mallory AFX 1979

[ensign14]

I'm not sure exactly when it was decided that a Formula 1 race needed three blokes with a rule book to intervene every time there was any danger of anytihng that looked like racing.  Nor quite how they managed to do without them for more than 50 years.

 

To be fair, the Grim Reaper tended to handle that side of things.
 

[ensign14]

Scott Goodyear, Indy 500 1995.  They stopped scoring him after he whipped past the pace car a bit too sharpish and refused to attend the consequent stop & go penalty. 

 

Elio de Angelis at San Marino 1985.  Prost was DQ'd for being underweight.  Sunday Grandstand put up a graphic suggesting Boutsen had won as de Angelis had been DQ'd as well.  I've never seen any reference to that anywhere else, so I assume it was crossed wires rather than an actual DQ that quickly got reversed.

[D28]

A variation on the theme perhaps, at the 2002 Brazilian GP, Pele missed the Scumacher brothers (1 and 2) and waved the checker at David Coulthard in 3rd.  This in a BBC report, others claim the it was lapped man Takuma Sato. Official results ignored this, F1 got it right this time.

[D-Type]

What happened at the first Daytona 500?  All I can recall that the result was reversed days later.

[ensign14]

Lee Petty crossed the line first, but the officials gave the win to Johnny Beauchamp.  They reversed it when shown better footage, including a photo, showing Petty had really won. 

 

Possibly confused because Joe Weatherley, being lapped, was crossing the line at the same time.

[PCC]

According to him in this 2017 story, definitely Emmo Fittipaldi was the winner. I was present but hadn't a clue, or cared really so wet cold and miserable it was.

 

https://www.wheels.c...prix-of-canada/

Oh come on, it wasn't that bad - well, come to think of it, I was indoors in the tower...

 

The opinions I valued the most at the time were unanimous in thinking Fittipaldi had won. But I don't want to begrudge Revson his last win; dodgy as the circumstances were, it's a privilege to have witnessed it.

 

I guess you could say that the first across the line at Dijon in 1979 wasn't exactly the 'winner', if only because so many have to pause to remember who it was.

[E1pix]

One wonders if racing is still racing anymore.

[Henri Greuter]

Billy Boat in Texas IRL race 1997!

But the story was much more about what happened once he crossed the finish lane.

 

Boat was driving for all-time USAC beneficiart AJ Foyt in Foyt's home state....

Problem was, somehow the signals of the transponder on Arie Luyendijk's car were not identified and registered while on the pit lane during his two pit stops so he was scored 2 laps short...

 

Angry Arie heading for Victory Lane to claim his victory and Foyt getting loose on him for spoiling `his` moment and knocking Arie out....

Boat being hailed as the winner..

Few hours later, USAC has to concede that Arie's claims were correct and that Timing&Scoring had missed two laps by Arie and that he was indeed the correct winner....

 

Foyt never returned the winner's trophy to be given to the right winner, Arie has got a replica instead......

Story goes that the real trophy was on display two years ago in the IMS Museum in the AJ Foyt expo......

 

Another result of this race was that, since this was one week after the Indy 500 in which USAC also had made some embarrassing mistakes and decisions, IRL had enough of USAC as sanctioning body and `dumped` them.

[Risil]

Another one in Canada: the 1985 CART race at Sanair was due to finish behind the pace car following a collision between Jacques Villeneuve and leader Bobby Rahal. Johnny Rutherford inherited the lead but owing to some imp of the perverse the pace car pulled into the pits at the end of the last lap, instead of leading them across the line. Pancho Carter jumped J.R. on the "restart" and took the chequered flag. Rutherford was eventually declared the winner on appeal.

[Rob Ryder]

One wonders if racing is still racing anymore.

 

It has been very ill for quite some time... and died last Sunday.  

[D28]

Oh come on, it wasn't that bad - well, come to think of it, I was indoors in the tower...

 

The opinions I valued the most at the time were unanimous in thinking Fittipaldi had won. But I don't want to begrudge Revson his last win; dodgy as the circumstances were, it's a privilege to have witnessed it.

 

I guess you could say that the first across the line at Dijon in 1979 wasn't exactly the 'winner', if only because so many have to pause to remember who it was.

A good place to be. Certainly Colin Chapman thought Fittipaldi won, and many agreed. As for Dijon .. it was the French guy looking so forlorn on the podium, but I'd have to look him up. A sad reality of F1 history and the current video age.

[PCC]

A good place to be. Certainly Colin Chapman thought Fittipaldi won, and many agreed. As for Dijon .. it was the French guy looking so forlorn on the podium, but I'd have to look him up. A sad reality of F1 history and the current video age.

Yes, I seem to recall that he threw his cap into the air as per his tradition... and then we all gradually realized that Wally Branston hadn't waved the chequered flag!

[ensign14]

It has been very ill for quite some time... and died last Sunday.  

 

Weirdly I take the view that I'm glad that someone had the testicular fortitude to call out Vettel's anti-racing for what it is.  There's no skill in forcing someone off track because they have had the temerity to pressure you into making a mistake.  So I take it to be a kiss of life.

[jtremlett]

..Elio de Angelis at San Marino 1985.  Prost was DQ'd for being underweight.  Sunday Grandstand put up a graphic suggesting Boutsen had won as de Angelis had been DQ'd as well.  I've never seen any reference to that anywhere else, so I assume it was crossed wires rather than an actual DQ that quickly got reversed.

I was at that race, watching from Aquae Minerali.  Lots of the locals had bought portable TVs and radios and were still cheering Stefan Johansson having just taken the lead for Ferrari, a couple of laps from the end, as he trundled slowly past with flames licking the back of the car.  We were still in the traffic jam trying to leave the circuit when we heard Prost had been disqualified.     

 

A variation on the theme perhaps, at the 2002 Brazilian GP, Pele missed the Scumacher brothers (1 and 2) and waved the checker at David Coulthard in 3rd.  This in a BBC report, others claim the it was lapped man Takuma Sato. Official results ignored this, F1 got it right this time.

You have reminded me of the Brazilian GP the following year which ultimately doesn't fit the theme but nearly did as Fisichella crossed the line first and did eventually get given the win but initially Raikkonen was announced as the winner having lost the lead just before but with an issue over which lap counted as the last when the race was actually stopped.  

[Vitesse2]

Does the 38.907 seconds that Felipe Massa thought he was 2008 World Champion for count?

[jtremlett]

Weirdly I take the view that I'm glad that someone had the testicular fortitude to call out Vettel's anti-racing for what it is.  There's no skill in forcing someone off track because they have had the temerity to pressure you into making a mistake.  So I take it to be a kiss of life.

I guess this is a discussion for somewhere other than the Nostaligia forum but I absolutely disagree.  Racing is and should be about the men and the cars not the stewards and the lawyers.  Sometimes someone will pull an iffy move on track and get away with it or hit an innocent party who comes off worse.  But that's racing and it should be left to the racers not the suits on the side-lines.     

[Vitesse2]

I guess this is a discussion for somewhere other than the Nostaligia forum ...     

Indeed. We already have a very fractious 2000+ post thread in RC ...

[E1pix]

The problem, Richard, is we TNFers sometimes like to discuss other things without being exposed to the pit of vipers RC and TPC are.

[Sterzo]

Went home from the 1970 British GP not knowing who had won. First saw Brabham trundle past out of fuel on the last lap, losing the lead, and watched Rindt appear and take the win. Rindt was disqualified for a rear wing infringement, which meant Brabham had coasted over the line to win after all. Some time later in the evening Rindt was reinstated, so the first over the line did win, then didn't, then did.

[ensign14]

Sometimes someone will pull an iffy move on track and get away with it or hit an innocent party who comes off worse.  But that's racing and it should be left to the racers not the suits on the side-lines.     

 

That's not racing.  That's crashing.

 

In TNF terms, that's Farina on Lehoux.

[D28]

Went home from the 1970 British GP not knowing who had won. First saw Brabham trundle past out of fuel on the last lap, losing the lead, and watched Rindt appear and take the win. Rindt was disqualified for a rear wing infringement, which meant Brabham had coasted over the line to win after all. Some time later in the evening Rindt was reinstated, so the first over the line did win, then didn't, then did.

Sir Jack covers that very succinctly in When The Flag Drops. On being apprised of the news Chapman was meeting with the scrutineers he said..."I didn't take it seriously, because I didn't think for a minute that anybody could talk Chapman out of those 9 points. Not at any stage did I think there was even a possibility of my being made the winner" "While he was in there fighting I just resigned myself to the fact that nobody else stood a chance".  

[Dave Ware]

In this YouTube video, Peter Windsor states his opinion that the excess of regulations started with Schumacher weaving back and forth at Canada one year.  Then after that spread like a virus.

 

 

He also suggests that if Senna were driving today he'd probably never get out of the garage for all the fines and penalties for his on-track behavior.

Edited by Dave Ware, 12 June 2019 - 03:32.

[Cornholio]

I was at that race, watching from Aquae Minerali.  Lots of the locals had bought portable TVs and radios and were still cheering Stefan Johansson having just taken the lead for Ferrari, a couple of laps from the end, as he trundled slowly past with flames licking the back of the car.  We were still in the traffic jam trying to leave the circuit when we heard Prost had been disqualified.     

 

You have reminded me of the Brazilian GP the following year which ultimately doesn't fit the theme but nearly did as Fisichella crossed the line first and did eventually get given the win but initially Raikkonen was announced as the winner having lost the lead just before but with an issue over which lap counted as the last when the race was actually stopped.  

 

Although one thing I realised when re-watching Brazil 2003 recently is that it is a rare example of none of the official top 3 standing in the appropriate podium place, aside from when the winner was DQ'd post-celebrations and everyone else got moved up, such as that Imola 1985 race.

 

Fisichella - 2nd step

Raikkonen - 1st step

Alonso - ambulance/medical centre(?)

[E1pix]

In this YouTube video, Peter Windsor states his opinion that the excess of regulations started with Schumacher weaving back and forth at Canada one year.  Then after that spread like a virus.
 
https://www.youtube....h?v=0j3yxNJDV3o
 
He also suggests that if Senna were driving today he'd probably never get out of the garage for all the fines and penalties for his on-track behavior.

Thanks for posting that Dave, Peter's always a voice of reason -- as here again.

[Lee Nicolle]

In this YouTube video, Peter Windsor states his opinion that the excess of regulations started with Schumacher weaving back and forth at Canada one year.  Then after that spread like a virus.

 

 

He also suggests that if Senna were driving today he'd probably never get out of the garage for all the fines and penalties for his on-track behavior.

Senna and M Shumacher were fast but totally unsporting drivers. And did not think the rules applied to them.

Senna was starting to become human when he died wheras Schumacher never did. 

[E1pix]

As unpopular as that might appear Lee, I agree.

 

I, too saw a very different Ayrton in 1994. Damned sad we never got to see where he'd have taken this emerging side.

[Doug Nye]

The outcome of the 1955 Sebring 12-Hours is yet another memorable balls-up...though not due to some arbitrary time penalty having been applied.

 

Re last Sunday's Canadian GP the high-angle replay of the Vettel/Hamilton incident is - for me - compelling evidence that (within the current Formula 1 environment) some kind of penalty was not only justified but necessary.  

 

Despite his protestations of total innocence Vettel simply could not control The Racer's instinctive reflex to defend his position and to deny his pursuer space to pass.  Schumacher displayed that identical reflex.  So did Senna.  And so, I am sure, in the same circumstances - after having made an identical error - would Hamilton.  

 

The Racer just cannot help himself.  

 

He is also programmed to blank out any possibility whatsoever that he was in the wrong.  

 

That's what makes them as good as they are.

 

While on an ego trip one will occasionally lose the way... It's no big deal.  C'est normale.      

 

DCN

[Michael Ferner]

Re last Sunday's Canadian GP the high-angle replay of the Vettel/Hamilton incident is - for me - compelling evidence that (within the current Formula 1 environment) some kind of penalty was not only justified but necessary.

That only goes to show that the "current Formula 1 environment" is completely out of whack. If a racer is not allowed to race, using his racer's instincts, then what good is it to have them race at all? "Formula One" is digging itself deeper still into its own hole - you know, the one where the sun don't shine!

[Doug Nye]

Exactly!  "Aber regeln sind regeln?"

 

DCN

[PCC]

And so, I am sure, in the same circumstances - after having made an identical error - would Hamilton. 

In fact, Hamilton himself said:

"What I can say is if I was in the lead and I made a mistake and went wide, I probably would have done the same thing. It happens so quick, and you're just trying to hold position. And when I say I'd do the same, I would have tried to squeeze him too."