29 replies to this topic

[Formula-1]

I keep on hearing about this crash but I've never seen any footage of it, can anyone tell me where I can get some footage of it? What year did this crash happen and how? And who was the driver and was there any injuries?

[El Tapatio]

Driver: Alberto Ascari (the most underrated champion of all time, IMO)
Car: Lancia D50 (later, these cars were taken over by Ferrari)
Date: May 22, 1955

On lap 81, Ascari (so the story goes) was so distracted by the crowd waving at him (unbeknownst to him, he had just assumed the race lead as Stirling Moss's Mercedes called it a day) that he screwed up the chicane after the tunnel and went through the barriers and straight into Monaco's harbor. He was pulled out right away and suffered only a broken nose. Alas, he was killed four days later testing a Ferrari sports car at Monza.
I don't know of any links to sites with footage of the Monaco accident, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

[Paste]

I'd post this bad boy over in the Nostalgia Forum if I were you. You're bound to find a few dozen people who were there to see it!

[Rob29]

The only film I have seen,you just see a splash in the distance,followed by the car being hauled out of the water after dark.
Exactly 10 years later,on the same lap 81,Paul Hawkins had the same accident,was also unhurt,but killed in a sports car a year or so later.

[stephwh]

It's like some dude named Paul Stottard....this other dude named James Garner is his team mate and he is slower and he is missing gears and stuff and this Stottard dude ends up crashing into the harbor...then James Garner gets fired, but later he gets even by sleeping with Stottard's wife...

[Scudetto]

Originally posted by stephwh
It's like some dude named Paul Stottard....this other dude named James Garner is his team mate and he is slower and he is missing gears and stuff and this Stottard dude ends up crashing into the harbor...then James Ganer gets fired, but later he gets even by sleeping with Stottard's wife...

Ah, but Pete Aron (Garner) and Stoddard's wife, Pat (Jessica Walker) never really did sleep together. In the end, the world resumes its rightful rotation after Pat and Scott are happily reunited and Pete and Scott bury the hatchet atop the Monza podium while watching the smoke rise from the burning wreckage of Jean-Pierre Sarti's (Yves Montand) Ferrari.


Queue music, roll credits.

[Sphinx]

Actually, it was Pete Aaron (Garner) who had the gears stuck and wouldn't let Stoddart pass him. They touched wheels, Garner flew into the harbor and Stoddart went into the hillside made of solid rock. Great movie.

[rolando]

You can find in this URL http://www.jmfangio....95502monaco.htm an excelent race report with photos included, the only problem is that it is written in spanish only.

[karlcars]

Ascari's crash was owed to erratic brakes, a problem that was still hampering the D50.

[Ivan]

Originally posted by Scudetto


Ah, but Pete Aron (Garner) and Stoddard's wife, Pat (Jessica Walker) never really did sleep together.

Humm, They stayed up all night and then she just had a bath in the morning?

[McRonalds]

A picture that tells more than a thousand words - Asracri diving into the harbour. If you'll ask me - it looks like Ascari was waving with his hand...

Maybe a reflex?

I'm searching for a picture of the Hawkins crash too...

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by McRonalds
I'm searching for a picture of the Hawkins crash too...

May 1969 at Oulton Park in the Lola T70 coupe?

[McRonalds]

Originally posted by Ray Bell


May 1969 at Oulton Park in the Lola T70 coupe?

Ray:
I'm searching for all kinds of motorracing pictures - but this time I'm looking for Paul Hawkins crash at Monaco '65. I own 3 pictures, but two of them show the car being heaved out of the harbour and the third one shows the crash, but it's really blurred - I wonder if there is a better one.

[Marcor]

Hervé Regout also jumped in the sea at the same place, but it's pure fiction ... in the comic book 'Panique à Monaco". He drove a F3 Vaillante !!!!

[AdrianM]

I know Ascari went in because of a brake problem but what caused Hawkins to crash into the harbour

[Bernd]

It was relatively easy to make a mistake and end up in the harbour Adrian. Remember back then the race was 100 laps! and fatigue was a big factor. All you had to do was clip the haybales at the chicane get flung across and hopefully miss the bollards then swim time!. Unfortunately poor Bandini hit one of the hard parts.

The picture of Ascari above I think that he is merely getting his arm up to protect his face as he goes in. Or it simply could be the force of the accident flinging him about.

[AdrianM]

Thanks.
IIRC fatigue played a part in the Bandini accident

[Dmitriy_Guller]

How fast was the corner? In GPL, you take it flat in 5th, it's kind of fun threading 60 inch wide car through 70 inch hole for 50 or 100 laps. However, everyone says that GPL's chicane is bogus. My question is, how do those cars have enough energy to go through the barriers, or in Bandini's case, severely damage the car, in such a slow hairpin corner?

[Bernd]

It isn't bogus Dmitriy it is quite good not perfect but quite good. The real cars went through in 4th gear from memory as they weren't up to top yet after the tunnel.

[stevew]

Originally posted by Dmitriy_Guller
How fast was the corner? In GPL, you take it flat in 5th, it's kind of fun threading 60 inch wide car through 70 inch hole for 50 or 100 laps. However, everyone says that GPL's chicane is bogus. My question is, how do those cars have enough energy to go through the barriers, or in Bandini's case, severely damage the car, in such a slow hairpin corner?

It wasn't a hairpin; it was a quick left-right flick through a chicane. It was not at all like the "corner" they have today.

[dmj]

Hawkins supposedly died exactly 4 years after his Monaco accident - and Ascari died exactly 4 days after his one. It is another myth connected to Ascari, like all these supposed similarities betweeen his and his father's death.

[LittleChris]

A friend of my Mums was one of the marshalls at Esso Bend at Oulton when Hawkeye met his unfortunate end in the 1969 TT. He showed me a photo from The Motor to prove it and told me that there was no way that they could've saved him.

[McRonalds]

That's the best I can offer about the Paul Hawkins' crash '65. The crash itself (picture above) looks more spectacular than the Ascari crash 14 years before. Though the picture (taken from an old German newspaper - don't ask me which) is blurred it seems the car crashed in a more spectacular way throwing its driver out of the cockpit (on the other hand: if you don't know it's a crash picture it might well be something else). The picture below shows the saving of the car from the harbour - a well known picture - but I post it anyway.





I always hoped some day I will find a better picture. Maybe someone can help...

[Doug Nye]

This is becoming addictive. You're right - do NOT confuse either the Monaco harbourside chicane of 1955 or the 1965 variant with the current stop-go-swerve-squiggle idiocy. It used to change positions and severity with great frequency year upon year, but was in essence a 95-110mph wiggle-woggle following a 140-150mph approach and braking accuracy and stability plus driver timing and placing were certainly essential as Karl has inferred. If you stand on that quayside today and look down into the blue-green water of the harbour the bottom is clearly visible with its rocks and weed and discarded cans and junk. Evidently after the '55 Ascari incident his Lancia was clearly visible, sitting on the bottom some 15 to 20 feet down - with bubbles of oil detaching from it and wobbling heavily to the surface... Presumably the same would have been true with Dickie Stoop's Lotus - the car 'Hawkeye' had been driving. As for Ascari's flailing arm - 'I'm not waving...I'm drowning' springs to mind.

Paul Hawkins with his heavily pocked face and gravelly Oz voice was an utter hero. He and Brian Redman - I believe - were having a heavy conversation about the Targa Florio - Brian, that most civilised of near top-drawer racing drivers, was concerned at the spectators' exposure around the Targa course, "you could find yourself having to choose between a stone wall or people" he confided. Not in the least bit fazed, Paul growled in his gravelliest gravel "Nah mate - if I had to choose between a stone wall and people, I'd choose people every time. People are mushy!".

So sadly, in his case, this proved to be so. Now here had been another great Racer.

DCN

[Sergio Sultani]

Originally posted by McRonalds
That's the best I can offer about the Paul Hawkins' crash '65. The crash itself (picture above) looks more spectacular than the Ascari crash 14 years before. Though the picture (taken from an old German newspaper - don't ask me which) is blurred it seems the car crashed in a more spectacular way throwing its driver out of the cockpit (on the other hand: if you don't know it's a crash picture it might well be something else). The picture below shows the saving of the car from the harbour - a well known picture - but I post it anyway.





I always hoped some day I will find a better picture. Maybe someone can help...

Hi Mr. McRonalds.

May you (or another friend) show (or send) the pictures above ?

Many thanks,
Sergio.

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by dmj
It is another myth connected to Ascari, like all these supposed similarities betweeen his and his father's death.

A mate of mine, Kevin Desmond, wrote a very good book based on these "myths" and funnily enough a lot of them proved to be very accurate. From memory, "The man with two shadows". I got mine at the superb book shop in Monza when I was supposed to be watching "proper" F1 cars. The book shop had far more appeal!!

[Gary C]

the booshop which is now long gone, Steve!

[ensign14]

Originally posted by Gary C
the booshop which is now long gone, Steve!

Oh bugger. Where can I get my boos now?

The Desmond book lists a bunch of stuff which is purely coincidental (dying on the 26th of each month, 2+6 = 8 and the numbers 26 and 8 were the last cars they drove and so on) but there's a lot more that is not coincidental, e.g. dying in different marques in different countries in different circumstances. You can demonstrate all sorts of nonsense with numerology. It's still a good book though and perhaps the best source for the life of Antonio.

[Sharman]

As a lawyer you should not have to go far to find them

[Piston Broke]

I didnt actually see this point recorded in this thread but beside the common act of both Hawkins and Ascari ending up in the harbour at Monaco, it was not the only thing they shared.

Their deaths also both occured on the same day of the same month, Ascari on 26th May 1955, Hawkins the 26th May 1969.