100 replies to this topic

[BiggestBuddyLazierFan]

Mandela Effect is interesting phenomenon where masses remember things that never happened. Sort of collective false memory.


I can think of two examples in motorsport


1) Galmer chassis won only one race, the 1992 Indy500

2) Al Unser Jr. never won an oval race befroe 1992 Indy 500


I am sure there are more simmilar examples of false collective memory

Edited by BiggestBuddyLazierFan, 27 November 2020 - 01:17.

[Collombin]

The Brabham fan car was banned.

There was an enormous crash on the opening lap of the 1964 Indy 500.

Prost retired from more races than Lauda in 1984.

Pole position at the 1990 Japanese GP was moved to the dirty side of the track after Senna had secured pole.

[Tim Murray]

Four drivers were still in contention for the title going into the last round of the 1956 WDC.

The V16 Auto Union was difficult to drive on the limit because the driving position was so far forward.

F1 began in 1950.

[Michael Ferner]

Ettore Bugatti was an innovator.

 

Ralph de Palma was a US Champion.

 

The '500' was the only race run on the IMS before the Brickyard 400.

[Collombin]

Four drivers were still in contention for the title going into the last round of the 1956 WDC.

Wow, I had heard 3 for that one which I assumed meant people had just forgotten that Behra would have had to drop a 3rd place, but 4 takes the mickey.

[2F-001]

Ettore Bugatti was an innovator.

 

Some people might (and, indeed, do) question Chapman’s legacy in the same way.

 

But should we not make a distinction between things which people believe (because they have seen reported thus so many times, regardless of their truth) and events which people claim (and thus, presumably, believe) they have actually witnessed? Or are they, somehow, inextricably linked?

[Michael Ferner]

Alan Jones lost the 1979 WC because of the dropped scores rule.

 

Ronnie Peterson was faster than Andretti in 1978 and only lost out because of Lotus team orders.

 

Andrea de Cesaris destroyed many McLaren chassis during 1981.

[Tim Murray]

Wow, I had heard 3 for that one which I assumed meant people had just forgotten that Behra would have had to drop a 3rd place, but 4 takes the mickey.

I’ve seen it written many times that ‘Peter Collins stopped Moss from winning the championship by handing his car over to Fangio’.

[RCH]

Enzo Ferrari got the 1964 Coppa Inter Europa cancelled just before it was due to run to prevent Cobras from winning the GT Championship.

[dolomite]

Senna would have won the 1989 WDC if he hadn’t been disqualified at Suzuka

Edited by dolomite, 27 November 2020 - 10:33.

[Vitesse2]

Ronnie Peterson was faster than Andretti in 1978 and only lost out because of Lotus team orders.

Hmm. More a matter of interpretation of what 'team orders' are, that one. Ronnie did tell Autosport - shortly before that fateful day at Monza - that there was an agreement he would support Mario's campaign, in effect being number two driver.

 

"We had a discussion before I signed and we talked heart to heart about how best Mario could win the championship and how I would not interfere with that aim."

...

"I agreed not to interfere when I joined," he says. "That was the deal and that is what I must do. What happens in the races that are left depends on the team. If they want me to stay behind Mario, I will. It might be the chance of a lifetime for me, but there is nothing I can do about it."

...

"I have not helped Mario to get his points," he says. "Team orders haven't come into it because the situation has always worked itself out. In the races where I finished second I could not have beaten him anyway - it would hardly have made any difference who was number one and who was number two.

"We have been lying first and second several times when one of us has run into trouble. So in that way it hasn't been at all difficult for me to carry out the agreement."

 

But as the article points out, despite what he says himself, Ronnie probably could have won at Zandvoort - had he been willing to break that agreement.

 

https://www.autospor...to-the-f1-crown

 

Whether Ronnie was faster than Mario is open to debate, of course. I reckon he was. YMMV.

[Roger Clark]

Hermann Lang drove a Mercedes W163 with the paint scrapped off in the fixed Tripoli Grand Prix and so won the European Championship.

Edited by Roger Clark, 27 November 2020 - 11:38.

[Glengavel]

Jim Clark leading the 1966 RAC Rally.

[D-Type]

Jack Brabham had to push his car to the finish at Sebring to clinch the 1959 World Championship

[Collombin]

Jack Brabham had to push his car to the finish at Sebring to clinch the 1959 World Championship

I think that one undoubtedly holds the record for being wrong for the most different reasons.

[rl1856]

Hmm. More a matter of interpretation of what 'team orders' are, that one. Ronnie did tell Autosport - shortly before that fateful day at Monza - that there was an agreement he would support Mario's campaign, in effect being number two driver.

 

"We had a discussion before I signed and we talked heart to heart about how best Mario could win the championship and how I would not interfere with that aim."

...

Snip

 

https://www.autospor...to-the-f1-crown

 

Whether Ronnie was faster than Mario is open to debate, of course. I reckon he was. YMMV.

 

 

Has anyone analyzed qualifying performance ?

[2F-001]

How about winning an endurance race whilst being still drunk (or, at least, hungover) from the night before?

[2F-001]

Has anyone analyzed qualifying performance ?

I did some while back, amid another discussion/argument elsewhere. It's not so easy - just as an example, when only Mario had the 79 it was still under initial development and a less certain proposition; there are not so many times they had the same equipment, conditions or problems and setbacks. - so the sample is very small. And I don't think it would be so easy to sandbag so precisely in qualifying, would it? I don't know if I kept the notes I made, but I came out overall (considering as many practice and race details as I could find) slightly in favour of Mario. 

Edited by 2F-001, 27 November 2020 - 14:08.

[absinthedude]

Jack Brabham had to push his car to the finish at Sebring to clinch the 1959 World Championship

 

Probably widely believed due to the newsreel footage "Jack Brabham, out of petrol, pushes his way to the motor racing championship of the world". 

 

Regarding Ronnie, I was five and it was my first year watching F1 on the telly...but as much as I am and always will be a Mario fan....Ronnie looked faster. Even at that young age I got the impression it was a case of "This is Mario's year, Ronnie will get his next year"......

[Rob Miller]

The fuel tank in John Love's Cooper T79 Climax was not large enough to complete the full distance in the 1967 South African Grand Prix.

[helioseism2]

[ensign14]

Has anyone analyzed qualifying performance ?

 

I looked at the races where you could compare them...

 

Argentina: they both had 78s.  Mario led every lap.  Peterson spent most of the race in 6th and was never in 2nd.

 

Brazil: they both had 78s.  Mario was 2nd by lap 8.  Overtook Peterson to get there.  Peerson was running 4th when he retired a few laps later. 

 

South Africa: they both had 78s.  Mario led from lap 1 to lap 20.  At which time Peterson was 11th.  Mario had problems and dropped back, but got back up to 2nd when he retired.  Peterson was only following Mario on lap 52.

 

Long Beach: they both had 78s. Mario ran 5th early on, got to 2nd by lap 62.  Ronnie was 7th when Mario was 5th, 6th when he was 4th.

 

Monaco: they both had 78s.  Mario was 4th for two-thirds when a stop put him a lap down.  Ronnie was 6th and 7th throughout that time.

 

Spain: they both had 79s.  Mario led nearly ever lap.  Ronnie didn't get to 2nd until 54 out of 75+.

 

Sweden: they both had 79s.  Mario led until lap 37, then ran 2nd until retirement.  Ronnie only got to 3rd after Mario retired.

 

France: they both had 79s.  Mario led every lap bar 1.  Ronnie got up to 2nd on lap 9.

 

Andretti led 451 laps that year, the next highest was Reutemann on 183, Ronnie led 49; and 44 of those led laps came when Andretti retired at the start.  And Andretti led twice as many laps as those in which Ronnie ran second.

 

In fact there were only 2 races in which Ronnie followed Mario for the majority of the race.  Zandvoort (where Mario had a problem) and Paul Ricard.   In both of those Mario out-qualified him (in fact, Ronnie's 3 poles were the only times when he out-qualified Mario, who had 8 poles) - plus in France Mario had cars between him and Peterson before Peterson made it up to second.

But isn't this logical?  Peterson's slidey style was surely anathema to the precision required by skirts.

[D-Type]

The fuel tank in John Love's Cooper T79 Climax was not large enough to complete the full distance in the 1967 South African Grand Prix.

You live and learn.  I always thought that was the case.

[Emery0323]

Senna would have won the 1989 WDC if he hadn’t been disqualified at Suzuka

Good example - This one is no doubt propagated, at least in part, by Asif Kapadia's tendentious documentary "Senna".

[Doug Nye]

Having long-since committed at least some of the above examples to print...

 

Consider - that the front-engined 2 1/2-litre 4-cyl BRM F1 car is "a P25".

 

That the late Nigel Moores ('Willie Eckerslyke') was heir to the Woolworths fortune.

 

That the Hockenheim German GP punch-up was between Nelson Piquet and Emilio Salazar.

 

And as all here already appreciate, that this year marked the 70th anniversary of Formula 1.

 

DCN

[Glengavel]

Re the Andretti/Peterson discussion, reminds me of another "myth"; supposedly, Lotus's lack of team orders robbed Fittipaldi of the 1973 World Championship, and this led to the 1978 situation.

[nexfast]

Robert O'Brien was a CIA agent

[Richard Jenkins]

Richie Ginther was a hippie.

 

 

Automobilsport, a supposed authorative magazine, were still peddling that bulls**t many months AFTER the book came out.

Edited by Richard Jenkins, 28 November 2020 - 22:21.

[cpbell]

Having long-since committed at least some of the above examples to print...

 

Consider - that the front-engined 2 1/2-litre 4-cyl BRM F1 car is "a P25".

 

 

DCN

What actually was it, Doug?

[ensign14]

Senna breached the agreement with Prost by overtaking him at the San Marino GP 1989.

[68targa]

Ron Dennis being blamed for Jochen Rindt's 1970 BGP win.

Edited by 68targa, 29 November 2020 - 14:52.

[Eric Dunsdon]

Mike Hawthorn stopped on the last lap of the 1958 British Grand Prix to buy himself a pint of beer.

[F1matt]

Markku Alen won the world rally championship. 

[Antti Salmi]

Henri Toivonen setting a lap time around Estoril in Lancia Delta S4 which would've been good enough for sixth place for '86 Portuguese Grand Prix starting grid.

[Ross Stonefeld]

The biggest Mandela Effect is people not remembering what the Mandela Effect is. Most of what's listed in this thread is people being misinformed. 

[Collombin]

The biggest Mandela Effect is people not remembering what the Mandela Effect is. Most of what's listed in this thread is people being misinformed.

That's why I didn't mention something like the Villeneuve 11 seconds at Watkins Glen story.

Having said that, I have never heard anybody I know say that they thought Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s, so it's a rubbish name for the phenomenon anyway. It should be called the Moonraker Braces Girl effect.

[NewMrMe]

Fangio frequently changed teams to ensure he always had the best car.

 

In line with the previous couple of posts, I don't think that is the Mandela Effect though. I think that is just a myth that has built up over time by people just looking at the headline results and drawing incorrect conclusions from them.

[2F-001]

The biggest Mandela Effect is people not remembering what the Mandela Effect is. Most of what's listed in this thread is people being misinformed. 

Well, I did say something of the sort in an earlier post!

 

I had never heard of the so-called Mandela Effect until the advent of this thread. And, like Collombin, I have never come across anyone who thought that Mandela had died in prison - although I have since read that the term was coined by an individual in relation to her own false memory (this was someone whom Wikipedia calls as “a self-described paranormal consultant”).

 

However, in most of the instances ascribed to this effect (here or elsewhere), most will be the result of some kind of third hand misinformation: whether a single instance from a source trusted by the individual, or repeatedly quoted in a wider context - and not from a belief of witnessing the event or falsely remembering a contemporaneous account. I cannot believe that a multitude of people imagine such specific things independently of one another. (Perhaps, if I were a paranormal consultant I could.)

[Ross Stonefeld]

It's mostly things like misremembering the spellings of things or logos of products from your childhood. It's much more false memory than simply being wrong about who did what went. 

[Doug Nye]

What actually was it, Doug?

 

BRM Type 25 (for '2.5' litres).  Strictly speaking the ENGINE was the P25 - the chassis was the P27.  The combination, bodied and runnable, was more correctly the BRM Type 25 ... as in 2.5-litre Formula 1 car.

 

Simples?  By BRM standards - very.

 

DCN

[ensign14]

Having said that, I have never heard anybody I know say that they thought Mandela had died in prison in the 1980s, so it's a rubbish name for the phenomenon anyway. It should be called the Moonraker Braces Girl effect.

The British Gas Advert effect.

 

Whenever I ask people if they remember the Creature Comforts adverts, if they say they do, I ask them what they were advertising.  And without fail they reply "British Gas".

 

Nuh-uh.

 

[helioseism2]

[jcbc3]

 

Could you elaborate?

[Risil]

It's mostly things like misremembering the spellings of things or logos of products from your childhood. It's much more false memory than simply being wrong about who did what went. 

We are probably the wrong people to ask about misremembered or false memories in motor sport, as we probably return to and revisit the public records of motor sport a lot more than most racing fans, and were probably paying more attention to begin with. So no one here is likely to falsely remember, say, Lewis Hamilton winning the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix on aggregate times or Nelson Piquet having a big accident at Tamburello in a Camel Lotus. But I bet people do.

 

The other part of the so-called Mandela Effect is the way people double down on their misremembered memories and insist that they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. Which admittedly sounds more familiar.

[absinthedude]

It's interesting to read about the comparative performance of Ronnie and Mario.

 

Methinks there is need to get my VHS tapes out....wondering how much of an impressionable child I was in 1978, perhaps willing the chap in second place to win? Or perhaps preferring his sublime driving style to Mario's?

[LittleChris]

The comparative race performance doesn't tell the whole story though. 

 

For instance, at the start of the season, Ronnie had to spend the Friday practice session using the problematic Getrag gearbox rather than the well honed Hewland box Mario had so lost time and consequently started further down the grid than expected ( South Africa being a good example from memory ) .

 

In a number of the races Ronnie had problems and had to fight his way back up the field, probably the best example being Sweden where he got a puncture very early in the race and dropped to 18th or so  but then fought his way up to 3rd, which would've been second but for Patrese's blocking on the last couple of laps. Similar in Spain ( his first race in the 79 ) and Belgium where he had the 78 and Mario the 79 .

 

At Hockenheim he let Mario through after being quicker off the line and I guess would've done so in Austria if Mario hadn't pulled a daft move on Reutemann and stuffed his Lotus at the 2nd corner !.  

 

Ultimately Mario deserved the championship but never really had to fight for it in my opinion.

[ensign14]

He fought for it when taking Lotus from the last row to winning in 1976.

[blackmme]

I think I have one...

 

The first primarily Carbon Composite F1 Car to take part in a Formula 1 event was the McLaren MP4.

 

Regards Mike

[PayasYouRace]

It's difficult to draw the line between simple myths or oversimplifications and actual misremembered stuff. I also agree with Risil that us as big fans tend to look into these things in detail quite a lot and tend to get things mostly right, so when we do fall into problems its inevitably myth.

 

I do have one proper example. My dad had said he could remember Nigel Mansell winning the Monaco Grand Prix after being stuck behind someone for many laps.

 

After a bit of digging the conclusion was that he was conflating 1991 and 1992. We all know how 1992 went, but in 1991 Nigel passed Alain Prost late in the race for 2nd place. Both years he was driving an FW14 in essentially the same livery. So you can see how the false memory would form.

 

I'm sure I had an example of my own, possibly related to CART in the late 1990s, but I can't remember what it was.

[Risil]

Alex Zanardi winning the PPG Cup in 1996 after passing Bryan Herta at the Corkscrew? I've heard that one before.

 

When of course it was Jimmy Vasser who clinched the title at Laguna Seca that year (spoilers) with a more conservative fourth.