34 replies to this topic

[James Page]

I apologise if this infringes any copyright/hotlinking areas, but I found it on YouTube and thought it might find an enthusiastic audience here:

http://www.youtube.c.....=jochen rindt

[2F-001]

I don't think I've seen that since the race was shown on tv at the time!

[David M. Kane]

Mega...my favorite race of all time!

[2F-001]

I guess that photographer at Mirabeau got some good close-ups...

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by 2F-001
I don't think I've seen that since the race was shown on tv at the time!

Nor me. Thanks James! I'd forgotten just how much Black Jack overcooked it on the last corner, but as I recall the BBC commentator (Roland Thaxter?) still called him as the winner! Notice how the flagman (Toto Roche?) fails to drop the chequer?

[Sharman]

"The Governor's dropped the flag ! Or at least, the Governor's dropped and the flag's dropped with him."
Toto Roche must have been in Ustinov's mind.

[Gary Davies]

I just can't recall reading if Blackie spoke about what happened. It looks from the pictures as though he got into two minds as to whether and/or where to nip past Hulme's McLaren, took the dirty inside line and ....

I wonder if a current German driver has seen that footage recently and filed away an idea for implementation if required. :

[hyperbolica]

Wonderful...

[fuz]

I heard that there was previously unseen (colour?) footage of this race unearthed in Scandinavia, any news on this?

I really felt for Black Jack watching this the first time around

[f1steveuk]

Isn't the Gasworks Hairpin so much better than the Mirabeau, much quicker. Having worked in F1 and tv for years, that little clip proves my point that lower camea angles make it look much better, trouble is, you need better camaramen!!

[Bruno]

I saw this GP on line at the time; one was on line with the cameraman who was "les gazomètres". I would always remember the Brabham which draws straight and plants itself in front of us. then the director of race which forgets to lower its flag, because it awaits Black Jack.

the photographers at that time, was not afraid. but there which chance they had to be.

[f1steveuk]

Originally posted by Vanwall
or where to nip past Hulme's McLaren, took the dirty inside line and .... :

I thought (without looking) that is was Courage's De Tomaso??

[f1steveuk]

and I just looked and it was a McLaren!!!

[Gerald Swan]

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful:clap:.

Two of my motor racing heroes together, I was gutted when I saw it on TV as I supported the Brabham Team but was happy because Jochen was my favourite driver. I was a very confused teenager .

Gerald.

www.lolaheritage.co.uk

[JamesPage]

Originally posted by f1steveuk
and I just looked and it was a McLaren!!!

He'd gone past Courage's 'Tomato' a second or two before coming across the McLaren, about halfway between Tabac and the Gasworks. I read Jack somewhere complaining that "Piers was tooling around in the middle of the road", but it looked like he moved well out the way, and that Brabham was comfortably past him before he made a complete Horlicks of the last corner.

It's the first time I'd seen the footage, although Dad (having watched it on TV at the time) has always raved about the angles at which Rindt was coming through Casino Square. Great stuff.

[Huw Jadvantich]

Interesting how what you see might differ from what the driver remembers.
I remember it being covered by the BBC live.
A few decades later he remembers it thus. Jack is a straight forward sort of bloke not given to blaming others or making up stories to cover his mistakes. He didn't descibe the back marker as tooling around in the middle of the road, and didn't blame the back marker at all.
"I came across Piers Courage and went to lap him. Unfortunately in doing so I got onto a dirty line and I locked up, ruining my braking point"
There was a certain amount of rumination that he possibly did not even need to lap Piers, and a good deal of irritation that there was a photographer involved who did something (either damaging the car as he pushed him out, tripped over him or something -I don't remember).
However a McLaren was never mentioned in Jack's version.

[brooster51]

The end of the story as I understand it is:
1) a marshall assisted Brabham by pushing him out and back while Brabham is looking for reverse, 2) the marshall then trips sprawling over the front of the car at about the same time Brabham finds reverse,
3) Brabham revereses out from under the marshall, thumping him rudley and solidly down on to the track right in the vicinity of where race cars pass, and oh by the way Black Jack has just found 1st and the marshall is now between him and the flag, not anywhere a human wants to be at least by choice (he is Black Jack after all),
4) marshall proceeds to do a very decent imitation of crab in competition with a Formula 1 car and just gets out of the way in time.
I don't think there are movies of this but I've seen B&W snaps.
Sir Black Jack was also aknowledged as the champion rear wheel rock tosser. Don't want to follow too close you know.

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Huw Jadvantich "I came across Piers Courage and went to lap him. Unfortunately in doing so I got onto a dirty line and I locked up, ruining my braking point"[/B]

Well pity the poor historian as D.S J. said some years ago! Jack's joined by Mike Lang ("Just after lapping Courage, Brabham left his braking too late for the Gasworks hairpin..."), Roebuck - in his book GRAND PRIX DE MONACO, with Michael Turner paintings, ("...only metres separated the Brabham and the Lotus and between them and the chequered flag lay Courage. Brabham lunged past him, left his braking too late...") and Jenks, (Motor Sport Vol XLVI, pp577) "... as he approached the Gasworks hairpin he passed Courage and just in case Rindt tried any tricks like driving through on the inside of the hairpin he took a line for the apex, to shut the door, rather than the normal line swinging out to the left. He braked really late, locked his wheels and slid helplessly straight on into the barriers."

None of those accounts mentions the presence of Hulme and from the film clip, I still contend that his (conventional) position was most likely the primary factor.

From the film it is apparent that Hulme laps the 'tooling around' Courage somewhere between Portier and the chicane. Brabham and Rindt come upon Piers on the run down from le Tabac and both pass him quite safely well before the Gasòmetre. Whilst it is not possible to be certain, I'm seeing Brabham as getting past Courage only a little after half way along that section, ie well before any braking point. Looking at the very first couple of frames from the hairpin camera, Brabham seems to have well and truly resumed the racing line after getting by Courage. Only then does he appear to go for the inside line. Because, in my view, Hulme is now potentially in the way, if not through the corner, but such that he might slow his exit and thereby allow Rindt to steal it on the finishing line.

Well that's my take on it.

And in case anyone doubts it's Denny at the Gasòmetre, the final results show Hulme as 4th, 1:28.3 behind Rindt, just the right distance away to place him at the hairpin around the same time as Brabham and Rindt on the last lap.

[Eric McLoughlin]

That footage was originally broadcast in full PAL quality colour. What a pity that clip seems to have been recorded in B&W by the receiving TV ststion (Finnish TV?). Great to watch. The movement of the car is so obvious compared to today's stiff skateboards.

Maybe the solution today is to insist on soft springs and higher ride-heights.

[Bjorn Kjer]

Allthough one of my saddest moments in motor racing : Absolutely fantaboulos!
Thanks!!!!!!

[Huw Jadvantich]

What is then exactly about that film that makes it such exciting viewing? The cars look like they are going incredibly fast, yet we know they are lapping slower than what we see today. Is it because we can tangibly see them losing grip or is it the camera angles or type of cameras? They look like they are going faster even when they are not cornering.
Magnificent stuff.
As is mentioned above, Courage was well and truly passed by the time Jack got into trouble, and whilst it is true that he was not on the same line as he and Rindt used the lap before, it looks as though it would have been possible to resume the normal line after lapping Courage.
It looks as though Hulme being on his racing line was more of a distraction for him, even though he was not close enough to pass him.
Simple answer is that Rindt had him rattled! Whatever, it is a fabulous and classic piece of footage, and it looks like both Jack and Jochen were driving out of their skin.
How is that we somehow knew the same wasn't going to happen when Mansell tried to do the same thing to Senna years later?

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Huw Jadvantich
How is that we somehow knew the same wasn't going to happen when Mansell tried to do the same thing to Senna years later? [/B]

Ha! One of two things, probably both:

• Lack of braking distance.
• Lack of decorum.

[f1steveuk]

and of course I meant "isn't the Gasometer hairpin better than Rascasse". If fact it always bugs me when the GP is on, Martian (yes I meant Martian, he is not of this earth) and the other bloke (can't bring myself to type the idiots name) ignoring the history of the whole Monaco GP. Comments like "up the hill", don't they mean "Beau Rivarge", etc etc That got that off my chest.

I always recall the name Courage coming into Black Jack's outbraking move, and was very surprised to see Hulme there. I have seen some colour footage of this, just need to remember where!

[Eric McLoughlin]

Wider cars = less room.

Modern F1 cars are too planted into the road. So, although they are moving more rapidly, they are obviously less on the edge than a pre-huge downforce era car was.

Downforce is the ruination of motor sport. As a ten year old, I thought that the appearance of those hideous tall wings in 1968 was a sign of the beginning of a slippy slope. We have now arrived at the bottom of that slope.

[Ralliart]

Originally posted by David M. Kane
Mega...my favorite race of all time!

Mr. Kane, we agree on this. I remember watching it on ABC's "Wide World of Sports" on their same-day basis. I vividly remember Rindt going up on the curbs - not the conventional curbs of today's circuits but actual street curbs. It's interesting to note that, in 1968 at Monaco, Rindt tried to pass Surtees on lap nine between Casino Square and the Mirabeau hairpin, broke very late for the corner, got two wheels off line and on to the oily surface alongside and went straight into the barrier. I didn't realize, until I dug out Rob Walker's report in the August issue of R&T, that John Miles drove the 72 in Saturday's practice briefly, thereby becoming the first to race it during a GP weekend, I guess. Always thought Rindt was first. I thought that Servoz-Gavin's shunt was his final drive before he retired but he actually got in the spare and was out in it when he experienced the gear lever jumping out of the gate and that was what spoiled his chances of qualifying. In re-reading it, it turns out that Courage finished 57 out of 80 laps so, at 23 laps down, what was he doing running at the end? In any event, Walker wrote ( and that was how I remembered it, that Siffert was weaving, and wonder if any of that was captured in this current footage of the race), "(Five laps from the end) an incident occurred that altered the whole situation. Jack had a lead of nine seconds when he came upon Siffert (running seventh) weaving his way up the hill, trying to swish his remaining fuel from side to side( as he was running low as a fuel line had cracked). He forced Jack almost to come to a halt and over onto the footpath at the side of the road with the result that he lost 4.5 seconds to Rindt...With one lap to go he was just 1.5 seconds behind...when they arrived at the chicane there were some backmarkers (10 left out of 16 starters), which slowed Jack so that Jochen got within three lengths of him. As they approached the Tabac curve, Jack came upon Piers Courage (running 23 laps down), who was in the middle of the road, and Brabham had to make a lightning decision as to which side to pass him. He chose the pit side, which held him very close inside for the last turn and he told me that this put him rather in the dirt. Somehow he also missed his braking point by some six yards with the result that he locked up all four wheels and went straight on into the straw bales...Jack was pushed out of the straw bales by the gendarmes (which, in fact, should incur disqualification) but I am sure that no one would have wished to deprive Jack of his 2nd place after losing such a magnificent race...(he) had no clutch and rather poor brakes for most of the race. I also have the feeling that possibly tires may have played quite a large part in the result."

[WHITE]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
Wider cars = less room.

Modern F1 cars are too planted into the road. So, although they are moving more rapidly, they are obviously less on the edge than a pre-huge downforce era car was.

Downforce is the ruination of motor sport. As a ten year old, I thought that the appearance of those hideous tall wings in 1968 was a sign of the beginning of a slippy slope. We have now arrived at the bottom of that slope.

We know modern cars are moving more rapidly thanks to timekeeping, but, at least in my case, I do not have the sensation that they are going as fast as times suggest. In the pre-huge downforce era, it was a delight to see the cars sliping at the corners and drivers fighting to keep them going. IMHO, F1 is not only a matter of pure speed.

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Ralliart
As they approached the Tabac curve, Jack came upon Piers Courage (running 23 laps down), who was in the middle of the road, and Brabham had to make a lightning decision as to which side to pass him. He chose the pit side, which held him very close inside for the last turn and he told me that this put him rather in the dirt. Somehow he also missed his braking point by some six yards with the result that he locked up all four wheels and went straight on into the straw bales...

Sorry to be picky but the still from the video (below) clearly shows that Brabham came upon Courage not before Tabac but after.



Whilst the film misses the actual moment of Brabham getting past Courage, Courage appears to be on the normal line out of Tabac, to the right of the track, and it appears that Brabham passed on the left, that is, on the harbour side, not the "pits" side.

Certainly, the second still seems to support that analysis, with Brabham either on or nearly on the normal line approaching the Gasòmetre.



I still contend that, as Huw put it, "Rindt had him rattled" and the presence of Hulme, in just the wrong spot and at just the wrong moment served to tempt him to get out onto the dirty side approaching the Gasòmetre. Courage seems to have been well and truly dealt with before all this.

[scheivlak]

Originally posted by Ralliart
I didn't realize, until I dug out Rob Walker's report in the August issue of R&T, that John Miles drove the 72 in Saturday's practice briefly, thereby becoming the first to race it during a GP weekend, I guess. Always thought Rindt was first.

Both Rindt and Miles already raced the 72 at the Spanish GP three weeks earlier.

[Buford]

Thanks for the clip. I remember seeing that live in a garage at Indy and everybody was laughing their asses off at Brabham. It wasn't that they didn't respect him. They very much did. But anybody who has ever been on the inside of racing knows how mean it really is and how much they enjoy when somebody screrws up so bad and looks like a fool.

[911]

Classic footage! Even the fellow who had the checkered flag was fooled as he was waiting for Sir Jack to come around.

[2F-001]

He'd have had a long wait -- nearly nine years, I think!

[JacnGille]

Originally posted by Eric McLoughlin
We have now arrived at the bottom of that slope.

I'd be willin to bet that we haven't yet.

[eigar]

Originally posted by fuz
I heard that there was previously unseen (colour?) footage of this race unearthed in Scandinavia, any news on this?

I really felt for Black Jack watching this the first time around

I do not think that there is any colour footage of the race in Scandinavia, at least not in Norway. Colour TV transmissions were not started in 1970.

The footage must be taken from a 40 min. coverage of the Monaco' 70 race I managed to purchase from the Norwegian broadcasting company (NRK) last year, on behalf of "nigel red5". He is the host on "RC's Live Forum" and has collected loads of stuff (races and documetaries).

The coverage is with Norwegian commentary.

If you are interested to buy a copy you can contact "nigel red5" on this mail address: emlyn@crewe5377.freeserve.co.uk. You should also ask for lndex lists for his complete collection. You will be astonished when you see the amount of material he has collected, and available for sale.

[nmansellfan]

There is colour footage hanging around somewhere, there was 30 seconds of it shown on "Grand Prix 500 on Boxing day, 1990 on the BBC. Its the same camera as what's been posted here, only in colour.

Heres a clip of the last couple of laps of the '73 Brazillian GP.



I dare say the picture quality was no better when it was transmitted live!

[Rockford]

It's definitely worth sniffing round youtube for racing footage...

1963 - Imola



Tom Sneva accident, 1975 Indy 500