rec.autos.simulators

It's a 50 minute documentary from the Ford special film unit which follows
the 1967 Grand Prix season. It shows a lot of things that can be related to
GPL and there is loads of race footage from Spa, Silverstone, Nurburgring,
Mosport (wet), Monza, Watkins Glen (narrow) and Mexico.

To see all the cars and drivers blasting round with opposite lock and
jumping fully off the ground it made me realise that there is no
exaggeration in GPL -  I just wish I'd been around to see it live.

Andy.

I was around in 19679 i was 12 yrs old) and remember Jim Clark and the others
very well. He was, and still is, my favorite driver. I did a little research
today just to see how much of the hype about the dangers of 1967 were in fact
correct.

There was one fatality that year - at Monaco. The Italian Ferrari driver
Lorenzo Bandini  died after his car crashed and flipped at the chicane. I
remember watching a replay of the race on Wide World of Sports. The tragic
thing was that they didn't have adequate equipment to put out the fire when it
started.

They couldn't get him before he was burned quite seriously. He died a few days
later. However, until that day there were two years running where no drivers
were hurt or killed in Formula1. In fact, the start of the "safe" era as game
promoters put it, saw a rash of many fatalities.

 The early 1970's were particularly bad, with a number of deaths in F1. The
most notable was the death of Jochen Rindt at Monza. He was killed after having
built up an insurmountable lead in the championship. In sum, 1967 wasn't nearly
as dangerous as the years following.

   Actually, independent Brit Bob Anderson also died that year, but it
was testing his F1 car at Silverstone, not at a race.

   It wasn't a matter of flipping a switch, and suddenly there were no
more fatalities.  In general, there were 1-2 fatalities in F1 through
1975, after which there was a significant drop off.  Rules and
procedures and attitudes were changed (starting around 1967), but the
results didn't happen overnight.  That much is just part of the
advertising hype.

"But in a way, fear is a big part of racing, because if there was
nothing to be frightened of, and no limit, any fool could get into
a motor car and racing would not exist as a sport." -- Jim Clark

It seems that the main causes of fatalities/injuries in F1 then were
two-fold. Firstly the tubular spaceframe construction crumpled and
trapped/crushed the driver's legs. Secondly the risk of fire was extremely
high in an impact. Couple these together and you get a highly dangerous
sport.

What makes me sad is that the cars are so safe now, as shown in the multiple
pile-up in Spa, but we still end up with F1 on emasculated circuits.

With today's car construction and good helicopter safety coverage, you could
even have a safe race on the old Nurburgring. Not much chance of that
happening though. I think we're going towards stadium circuits like the
proposed Indy infield circuit.

- Michael

Actaully every car but the Brabham even in 1967 were monochoque chassis.
Chapman  orgininated this a few years before.  Brabham and Maybe Ferrari
were tube chassis cars.  Ferrari was always last on new stuff, last guy to
go to rear engine, disc brakes and so on.  The problem actaully was guys
like Chapman built cars so light the offered very little crash protection
and I am not sure but belts were not used till some point in the 60s so in
a shunt a driver could be thrown from a car and killed.

True, but still made from deformable metals such as aluminium alloy. I'm not
sure when the first carbon-fibre tub was, which was the real advance.

Yes, because of the danger of being trapped in a fire, most drivers
preferred to take their chances being thrown out.

- Michael

Paul Berry

FYI, in 1967 Jacky Stewart was the first one to use belts. I saw this in a
movie about the 67 German GP.

Harald

Carbon fiber was starting to be used in the early 80s.  They still use
aluminum for crush boxes, since deformable structures of carbon fiber don't
work.  Carbon fiber does not deform it shatters.

Yes that is true, during this time it was a problem since fule bladders
were not used during this period.

Dave

Indeed it does shatter, but IIRC they use it on the nosecones of F1 cars for
the impact structure - I suppose even though it shatters it still dissipates
energy in the process. The aim is to reduce the decceleration to acceptable
levels and keep the driver's brain intact.

I think Indy (Champ) cars use more aluminium in their structure?

- Michael

Yes and also some accidents have happened where the carbon tub has
shattered like the one I think that Zanardi had at Spa.

Cart uses a carbon upper with a aluminum lower tub and it seems to work
very well.

Dave

Yes Cart uses a carbon upper tub and a aluminum lower tub.  They wiegh a
bit more to give better crash protection due to running ovals at very high
speeds.

Dave