There just seems to be so much ‘wrong’ in this image and yet it was the pinnacle of motor sport, the real professionals.

I expect in Formula Ford they’d all have been smoking as well.

Fittipaldi does have a bit of a worried look in his eyes, it has to be said.

Is that a milk churn!!

Is that a milk churn!!

the more you look the more wtf it gets 🙂

it was the pinnacle of motor sport

Speed yes, safety no. Just think of some of the horror stories around the rally Group B cars and some very dubious fuel tank placements etc.

The size of the fire extinguisher!! Imagine the size of the fireball if that lot ignited!

they didn’t do it much differently in the 1930’s.

Note flame proof overcoat deployed.

Nomex tweed, I notice.

The most flammable substance in the second photo is the hair gel.
No premature baldness those days, either.

Not even a seat belt in the 1930’s. Milk churn 🙂

Remember 1994 German GP – Jos (Max’s dad) Verstappen pit stop.

Tabloids ran the headline: “Ignited colours of Benetton”

The FIA investigation “revealed Benetton had been using an illegal fuel valve without a fuel filter that allowed fuel into the car 12.5% faster than a legal fuel valve.”
Wiki

Is that a clown standing two pits down in the original picture?

I like the 1930’s driver issue safari hat.

Going back, even after seat belts were available, they weren’t popular with drivers. Thinking was it was better to be thrown clear in a crash rather than being strapped into a burning wreck 😯

Is that a clown standing two pits down in the original picture?

That’s not just any clown. That’s Ronald himself!

The world’s tallest man is in the pit next door to Ronald.

Is that a clown standing two pits down in the original picture?

That’s not just any clown. That’s Ronald himself!

Enlarging the image, it appears to be a person in a red t-shirt and beige trousers attempting to s(h)it on someone else’s head. HTH 🙂

A lot not to like about that era – the danger, chiefly. But also a lot to admire and enjoy – great-looking cars, fantastic racing and some real characters, before the cold winds of commercialisation blew too strongly for them to remain.

I would have thought in the 30s/40s a quick fag during the refuelling stop would be de rigeur.

Some motorsports still do it…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtQPJTjNpOI[/video]

It’s hard to separate the danger from the thrill.
I find the snooker gets my heart racing more than F1 these days.

Mid 80’s Lotus?

Its probably running on 80+% toluene which is quite hard to ignite outside of a hot engine so not that dangerous.

Jos the Boss was in a 90’s Benneton that ran on pretty standard (relatively speaking) petrol. Much more volatile at lower temps and easier to ignite.

Engine tech from the early turbo era is absolute fascinating, some designs were injecting so much fuel in to the turbo stage that they were effectively gas turbines.

Most of the designs were about as reliable as a hand grenade though

Mid 80’s Lotus?

Emerson Fittipaldi, Lotus-Ford, 1972 Italian Grand Prix, Monza.

Good to see one of them wearing the supplied ppe…

Engine tech from the early turbo era is absolute fascinating, some designs were injecting so much fuel in to the turbo stage that they were effectively gas turbines.

injecting fuel into the turbo stage??

really? combustion happens in a cylinder physically sealed from the turbo at the point of ignition.

hydrocarbon combustion aside I’m struggling to see anything even remotely similar

The anti-lag systems injected fuel into the turbo to keep it spinning. Basically a small turboshaft engine to drive the compressor.

I see, thanks for explaining.

injecting fuel into the turbo stage??

really? combustion happens in a cylinder physically sealed from the turbo at the point of ignition.

hydrocarbon combustion aside I’m struggling to see anything even remotely similar

Have a read of this Cosworth Turbo Engine

The Cosworth engine didn’t use a lot of this type of “ant-lag” but Ferrari were suspected of using it to massive effect.

Think of it as an afterburner for an F1 engine. Its absolutely horrendous for both fuel consumption and engine life but that didn’t really matter when you want 1300hp out of 1.5 litres during a qualifying run. If the engine lasted 6 laps they were happy!

Interesting read, thank you. I would say that BMW’s inline four was allegedly the most powerful of them all (they know it made 1500 on the dyno, but that’s as far as it goes up to, so they never knew how much it ultimately made!), so you didn’t necessarily need a six for the power.

I had a book about the turbo era cars, one of the few things I remember from that was that the fuel was effectively a cooling agent, they were forcing that much of it through.

I read a magazine article years back by a journalist who visited the BMW team back when they were using cast iron road car engine blocks for their F1 turbo engine. The story claimed the cylinder blocks were cracking so they aged them in a tank of urine. Basically the mechanics would all just wizz in the tank. They’d leave the cylinder blocks in there until they had a layer of corrosion and then take them out and machine them. Apparently relieved stress from the casting and allowed nitrogen to permeate the iron. Always wondered if it was a true story.

I’d heard they used old high-mileage road car blocks, not heard about wazzing on them. 🙂

That first image brings to mind Nigel Mansell’s debut race, when they accidentally spilled fuel down his back. Properly nasty, corrosive stuff – in one of his books he describes having to have the blisters cut off his backside after the race. Given the timber he carried they must have been big blisters too.

Properly nasty, corrosive stuff…

I dunno, he was harmless enough. 🙂

I’d heard they used old high-mileage road car blocks

this, they used to go cruising the taxi ranks looking for high mileage 3 series beamers, drivers would be offered a new car in a straight swap. Then they had detonation issues, that were finally solved by some old WW2 era engineering bod digging around for some Luftwaffe fuel recipes as he remembered the me109 had the same issues…

they know it made 1500 on the dyno,

Dynos were only accurate up to about 1000 or so and the very last M12 version (1987) put out an “estimated” 1400, in qualifying it ran at about 850 and race trim it was routinely run at about 650 , otherwise it would lunch itself, still good enough for over 220mph though…

In race trim the Turbo cars of Mansell’s era had an overtake boost button that injectected small fixed doses fuel into the turbo, he apparently melted the pistons on one race to get back the lead by pressing the button repeatedly.

For your ears..

*this* is an F1 engine sound worth listening too…

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umO3iqac_4c[/video]

This auto played afterwards and is brilliant.

I can;t believe how much air they got off the bumps (just after 4:30 mins).

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaYZQi8wtQA[/video]

wwaswas that last vid was superb!

Talking of F1 ‘air’, this has always been one of my favourite F1 images…

BRM V16 really was a special engine; 1.5 litres and IIRC revved to around 9,000 rpm back in the 1950s!

The story about the turbo era BMWs using iron blocks is bang on. Originally they wanted to use alloy for lightness and cleverness and to have something in common with their top-end engines, but in the end, the only block that would take the enormous pressure was the ‘cooking’ four-pot for the 318.

Personally, I’ve never witnessed much of a greater spectacle than hearing the V10s downshift at the Variante Alta at Imola in 1996. Brutal.

^^ The Flying Finn ^^

Come on, someone had to say it…