18 replies to this topic

[Racer.Demon]

There was always the chance of us being not entirely right - or perhaps even completely wrong - in the results of one of our monthly 8W games, and in the past we as a team have been known to make mistakes. And with such fine players taking part, we are bound to be confronted by these mistakes one way or another.

In our latest July game, we seem to be having another one on our hands. But whereas in the past we were always able to solve these problems by ourselves, we need your help in solving this particular mystery, which alas has run past the winners' announcement on August 5, and could even change the outcome of the game.

First, take a look at this picture: http://www.racer.dem.../8w/605-72k.jpg

To us, this is what you should have seen: Michel May in the Scuderia Colonia Lotus 18 about to retire from the race with a broken oil line (clearly visible...) while he is being lapped by Cooper driver Bruce McLaren. All at the 1961 Monaco GP of course.

While there were several players who were convinced it was in fact Jack Brabham following May (including our respected Forum Host), they had to bow to our explanation that the lap chart would not allow for this to be the case, as Jack had long since retired at the time this picture was (supposed to have been) taken. The Autocourse lap chart leaves absolutely no doubt about that. And it could be Bruce all the same, since Bruce and Jack used similar helmets at the time and the starting number isn't really that visible.

But now one of our players, Alessandro Silva from Rome, has stumbled on a huge blow-up of this picture in an Italian book, where he says the starting number is shown to be a clear 24, whereas Jack's facial expression is also recognizable.

Our question: does anyone of you have a logical explanation for this? Our first thought is that this might be a practice picture and that we have been fooled by the sight of that broken oil line, which was exactly the cause of May's retirement in the race. In that case it must be Thursday practice, as Brabham flew to the States on Friday to be present on Indy 500 Pole Day on Saturday. But we have no record at all of May running into this sort of trouble on Thursday...

In other words: can you help out the 8W Team? There is some importance to this matter, as the absolute proof of the Cooper driver being Brabham would mean a sensational "courtroom" debut victory for Marc Ceulemans, a.k.a. Marcor. However, one of our other respected Forum members would stand to lose his win and thus his unequalled four-win streak. So, a potentially tough decision lies in waiting.

To our players: our apologies for the mess. To our other Forum members: we hope you can solve the puzzle.

Thanks in advance,
Mattijs @ 8W

[Marco94]

Well, well,

Maybe we should rename the game to "FIA Internet Equivalent of Formula One Detective Game." Sorry, couldn't resist.

Have you been able to post a scan of the picture in the Italian book, so that the rest of us can have look as well. "Present the evidence" if you will. Who is the photographer, he should be able to say a thing or two about it. If he/she is still alive that is. What about the drivers involved. I would think that that would eb the best way to go. First hand experience.

Marco.

[Ursus]

Just a thought: Could it be one of the older Coopers also running in that race? (assuming they have the same paintscheme) Looking the helmet it may be Surtees.

[Huw Jenjin]

Was there a Cooper running with the last number being an eight or six? The driver looks to be wearing a white helmet with gold band (a la Hailwood)not a brabham/mcLaren style I would have thought.

Also, note that the Cooper is kicking out its own smoke too.......

[Roger Clark]

Brabham retired after 38 laps, May after 42. On lap 36 Brabham made a pitstop and took 9' 25.7" which would have lost him about 6 laps. May took 38' over his 40th lap, so this was presumably when the picture was taken. So Brabham could well have been right behind May when the Lotus retired, and just about to retire himself.

[Marcor]

Roger, you have the solution.

The starting number isn't really that visible. In my research, I saw the same picture in Motor Sport, July 1999, page 13. I used a magnifying glass but I’m sure, it was 24, the Brabham’s starting number.

[Flicker]

Another copy of this pic (cutted)
http://retro.vsni.net/61mon08.jpg
... the number is nearly... visible...please compare with Bruce's Cooper in the same race
http://retro.vsni.net/61mon26.jpg

[Marcel Schot]

Marcor, I looked up the picture and it's indeed number 24. Too bad I didn't look for the picture there, it would have saved me ages of research (and I probably wouldn't have forgotten to enter the second car)

[Barry Lake]

Autocourse for that year has the lap times of every car for every lap. If someone had the time, they could add them all for Brabham and May and then see where they were relevant to one another on the track at the time.
Unfortunately I don't have that much time available. Looking through the times, my inclination is to go along with Roger Clark's explanation, but it could be and should be confirmed by addition of the times.

[Ray Bell]

Sounds logical to me... he could have dragged some smoke along for a few laps.

[Leif Snellman]

Originally posted by Barry Lake
Autocourse for that year has the lap times of every car for every lap.

That was in the good old days when Autosport gave raw information to their readers instead of Alan Henry's self-righteous s**t. Looking back it must have been those lap tables in the 1965 edition at the library that really got me seriously interested in Formula 1.

[Racer.Demon]

Everyone,

Thanks for solving the matter in such swift fashion. It's Jack alright!

Revised results will be published tonight.

Our apologies to those who have been dealt wrongly, and of course also to those who have been given "false hope". We will try our hardest to avoid this kind of mess in future but the risk of running of an F1 detective game which attracts such quality competition is that the players turn out to be better detectives than the organizers!

Marcor: they're quite overdue, but congratulations all the same.

Roger: thanks for providing the explanation.

Marco94: the thought crossed our minds too! But then the analogy isn't entirely fair, since we are not about to hand a victory to someone breaking the rules, nor are we taking away a win from someone else who cheated. It's the jury themselves who take the blame, and I can't see the FIA doing that!;)

[Don Capps]

A Word from the Prodigal Host:

When I first saw the picture, my initial gut instinct cried out, "Brabham!" It just LOOKS like Jack Brabham.

Then, the results came out and I was miffed -- however, since I also missed the total no-brainer of Guy Moll at Pescara because I looked and did not see, I figured okay, I was incorrect, but golly it sure looks a bunch more like Jack than Bruce....

I later said as much in an email exchange while conceding that it may very likely be McLaren after all, just eyeballing the charts and all. But, it sure still looks like Brabham...

When this first popped up on the Forum the other day, I didn't have the means to check my data (being on the road). Last night I finally sat down -- during a break while working on the next RVM, Bira, which goes out tonight -- and looked at the lap charts again while also eyeballing the pix more closely than before. While I was semi-successful in convincing myself on the number, I was left with no doubt that it was Brabham simply but just looking at him in the cockpit. However, after doing the calculator work using the lap chart in Autocourse, it became clear that it was very possible for the two to be in close quarters when the Climax lost its oil line in front of Black Jack. That was such a Blinding Flash Of The Obvious that until Roger led me in that direction I had not thought of doing it.

It is this sort of thing that makes me appreciate that there are others out there who have this sort of commitment and passion to find out the answer. Even if it had confirmed that it was McLaren, I would still be applauding this effort simply because it was done for the same reason: the need to make sure...

Here is a great quotation that fits the bill:

When I get new information, I adjust my position accordingly. What, sir, do you do with new information? John Maynard Keynes

[Racer.Demon]

Don,

True words.

Sometimes you need to trust your gut feeling, don't you? To me, the posture of the driver just said Brabham to me, but the (presumed) facts led me to mistrust my own bearings.

Anyway, I'm glad the matter is solved and that this exercise hasn't been fruitless.

The revised results are on the 8W website now. We've tried to be fair to everyone, so we have chosen not to deduct points but only hand out extra points to those who came up with Brabham in the first place.

Oh, in case you got worried: we are not planning to have this happen every time...

Thanks,
Mattijs @ 8W

[Barry Lake]

This - and the Masten Gregory/Portuguese GP result are examples of how a simple lap chart can be misleading.
I have been writing race reports and doing lap charts since I did it as a teenager for bicycle racing in the 1950s and I learned this early on. I evolved a method of lap charting a race in which I write down each car (or bike) as it passes me, regardless of what lap it is on.
Cars on the lead lap are recorded as a larger number, others, who have been lapped, as a smaller number (or driver initials instead of number, which I often do). For the purpose of writing a story - particularly when it comes to a tangle of several cars, or cars being held up by lapped traffic, etc - it tells me which cars were near each other on the track at the time. That is something a normal lap chart can not do.
We had a ridiculous situation in the Australian GP of 1957, at the end of which, no one really knew who had won the race! It was run in intense heat, punctuated by numerous pit stops, and even driver changes and most people's lap charts became a mess.
Now I come to think of it, there is still dispute over one of the early Indianapolis 500 races. How ridicuous is that?
Most old lap charts were done from pit row. It is too easy to tick someone off twice or not at all when they make a pit stop, or to be distracted by the pitting car and miss someone going past. Race crews have no real choice, but a reporter can, and should be either before or after pit row to avoid this confusion.
Another major trap, and I remember two such instances in Australian major races alone, where a car has made a pit stop and resumed racing one lap down in exactly the same position in the field. The lap scorers think, "Oh, must have missed him last lap"...
All of this is worth remembering when studying history and relying on these old lap charts for guidance. They are not always correct.

[Ray Bell]

My method is a little different... as the lead car goes by the next time, I put a line in so that there is a line between the last car and the first lapped car. There are then two lines if there are cars lapped twice, three if three times etc. So a lap in a long race might look like this:

13 17 21 4 / 5 9 18 35 23 // 8 1 6 /// 54 //// - ///// 24

At a glance, you can see how many laps a car is behind. I do further complicate it with distances between cars and indications of dices or changes of position on that lap (noting where it happened where possible), but I won't bore or confuse you with that. In the sample above, you can see that there are four cars on the lead lap, five one lap down, then three two laps down and one three laps down. No 24 must have pitted or spun, he's all alone five laps down, with nobody in view at all.
On successive laps, you can also see when the leader lapped each car for the first, second or third time, and I might note when second place laps other cars as well.

[Flicker]

Ray!
Your method is one of the best, but...
unfortunately You don't know when the car in the lead lap was near (before-after) the car on the lap down...
Hmm... perhaps it's possible to write one more little digit near (before-after) the number of overlaped car...
Just an idea...
BTW I understand that its nearly impossible...

[Barry Lake]

Ray
I also have codes for indicating dices, how close cars are to one another, whether one is going away from another, or gaining - and I often put in times for the gaps lap by lap if someone is catching someone with a real chance of changing a major result.
As Flicker says, your method doesn't tell you where cars on the lead lap are relevant to lapped cars on the track at any given time.
Of course the only real way is to have all the times and have it on a chart as I described. Easy these days, virtually impossible in past decades.
Having the full length video from every camera at a GP wouldn't hurt, either.

This reminds me of something else that is worth bearing in mind for researchers and historians. Don't trust old movies of races; they can be badly edited and have portions of the race put in where they don't belong.
In the early 1970s I was involved in the production of a movie of the Bathurst "Great Race" and I was horrified at the lack of care for accuracy.
The film was thrown together in a way that made it look exciting, with scant regard for reality - a little like some books that have been written on Australian motor racing.

[Ray Bell]

I did say I didn't want to confuse or bore... I also have my 'codes' and record time or distance gaps. As to the relative position of lapped cars with the leader, you can see that from the lap on which they are lapped, and if they stay with the leader after being lapped I show that. I also show if the leader is about to lap someone as he passes me.
I think Barry might remember when I wrote a race report with a different winner to the official one... and it was published that way because my lap chart showed it that way.