Just hours after Lewis Hamilton’s great victory in Canada, you can read all about the Montreal weekend, with reports, opinions, gossip and great photography.
We have an exclusive Lewis interview…
An appreciation of Roy Salvadori…
The history of the Canadian Grand Prix…
We visit the Gilles Villeneuve Museum… and remember Riccardo Paletti
Plus the backward-looking Hack…
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Wow. I drove back to St. Hyacinthe. Had some wine and dinner (and wine) and then checked the internets. And you have published already! You deserve some of what I’ve had.
Thank you for your history of the Canadian Grand Prix. I hope you won’t mind if I add some recollections of one you didn’t mention, but which remains the strangest race I ever saw: the Canadian GP of 1973, at Mosport.
The race began on a very wet but gradually drying track. In these treacherous and changeable conditions, a young driver whom hardly anyone rated just disappeared into the distance; it was one of the first times that Niki Lauda showed that he might be something much, much more than just another pay driver (Pastor Maldonado, eat your heart out). As the track dried, the realities of driving a BRM caught up to Lauda, and he was swallowed up by the pack. Then two things happened.
Francois Cevert’s dice with with Jody Sheckter ended with both cars off the track in very dangerous positions. This resulted in the deployment of the pace car – standard practice today, but almost unheard of in 1973. So novel was it, in fact, that the car took its place in front of Howden Ganley – a lovely man and a fine driver, but emphatically not the leader of the race at that moment. Once the pace car was out, virtually everyone dove into the pits for dry tires – again, standard practice now, but unheard of then. This was the days of the hand-kept lap-chart (of the type that Joe still keeps); between the wrongly-placed pace car and the sudden swarm of pitstops, nobody knew what the hell was going on. We weren’t even sure who was in the lead. I was in the ‘tower’ between the race announcer (my dad), and his chart-keeper, a man named Mike Wall. Mike was tearing his hair out, but finally figured he’d got it sorted, and had Fittipaldi in the lead. A quick survey outside the announcing booth seemed to confirm this. Then, after 80 laps, Emerson came by – and no flag. Finally, the chequered flag was waved – for Peter Revson.
Pandemonium. Lotus was livid. McLaren, it was said, quietly put their lapcharts away and accepted the trophy. To this day, I have no clue who really won. Rob Walker suggested that the win be given to Hunt, because Lord Hesketh was sure to throw the best party.
Time has given added poignancy to the farce. It was the final victory for Peter Revson, who would die early the next season. It was the final start for the great J. Y. Stewart, and also for his dashing young teammate, Francois Cevert, who would be gone in less than two weeks. It was a watershed in ways that none of us realized at the time.
Apologies for the windy post, but I felt that no history of the Canadian GP was complete without some account of this edition from the twilight zone!
No need to reply for a mildy wordy message when it contains a gem of a story like that. There is so much F1 history and I barely know anything about it so little tid-bits like this are fascinating reading for me.
On a side-note, though the last couple of years in F1 have been a little more up-beat and interesting, I still find it tricky to think that people will look back to this era with a sense of awe like we do now with the decades past.
While I’m all for technology and modernism, I do think sometimes it can ruin something. I’d give real money if we could roll F1 back a few decades whilst keeping todays safety mechanisms. Hardly an aspiring business model for the manufacturers, I’ll admit. But it would make a helluva-show!
Well, I enjoyed your “Blast from the Past” Peter.
You are clearly a man of great tact, purposely omitting the driver’s NAME of the infamous prototypical use of the Safety Car.
It was of course the unforgettable Eppie Wietzes (who was not named after a chronic skin disease.)
Eppie, we all salute you Sir!
http://www.f1rejects.com/drivers/wietzes/biography.html
Eppie was actually a very competent driver, and a super person. But human error can strike at any time – at least it used to, before we had technology to cover it up!
Wow! Wonderful insights. Thank you. “Windy” posts are troublesome only when there is no content worth remembering.
Wow, I had no idea that a Safety Car had ever been used prior to the 1990s (1993 apparently, so Wikipedia tells me). So why at this particular race? Had they decided to try an SC in Formula 1 but the bungling at this event put them off for 20 years? Or was it always just due to be a one-off due to the fact it was in Canada?
In any case, thanks for the wonderful story.
Viewing figures were atrocious in the UK for the Canadian GP.
BBC lost about 4 million viewers compared to 2011, and even the BBC’s 2011 qualifying beat its 2012 race by about 1.6 million.
Sky didn’t fair any better, getting less than half the BBC’s 2011 qualifying figures for a live peak time race.
Interesting, but possibly skewed by a major concurrent event in Europe. Something to do with men kicking animal bladders around a field.
Are you the “karen” who works for Bernie?
Of course the figures were attrocious. Who is going to commit time to watch highlights of an event at 22:30 when it finished a lot earlier and most would know the result.
Of course figures on Sky are low. Much smaller viewer base.
The Sky deal may bring in some short-term cash but was always going to reduce viewer numbers, therefore overall interest and longer term, potential market for F1 in the UK. A short-term decision to chase moeny to the detriment of the sport.
On the other hand, F1 is a business, up to it how to sell its wares. Equally, I can see why in these difficult times, the BBC may struggle to justify pouring massive amounts of money down Mr E’s throat. And no reason why we should have a right to free F1 coverage. However, I think that F1 in the UK will suffer because of the decision.
What do you think is the right time, then, to show highlights of a race that finished just before 9pm? It’s not difficult to avoid the result, particularly if you’re into football at the moment.
I enjoyed the highlights show. They gave the race lots of time, so it “felt” live. There was decent analysis and interviews, and none of the bit-of-a-character presenters the BBC producers (but not necessarily the viewers) usually love so much.
Yup, with no Jake and no Eddie, I enjoyed it very much. The only sour notes were the juvenile captions summing up qualifying such as “Mal-Doh-Nado” and “Button Undone Again”, and the strange random musical interludes.
Presumably all done to target a younger audience, and I’m not going to complain too much about that…just brought back memories of the tackier end of ITV’s coverage, that’s all.
You can watch F1 free on wiziwig.tv but BARB don’t measure ratings there.
I thought Sky’s coverage was great at thus race. I saw the BBCs coverage of Monaco and was bored senseless with the commentary. I understand you are disappointed with the viewing figures Karen but it is to be expected when the race isn’t available free to air and the extended highlights on at 10.30pm on a Sunday night when people have work next morning. I think if you are disappointed with the viewing figures the people you need to question are the ones who sold the tv rights and not the ones who bid for them!
Joe, do you have any background on the photograph on the “parting shot” page? It appears to be a Williams crew member aiming a kick at a press photographer who is taking a picture of what I assume to be Bruno Senna’s car.I can’t make out if it is a good natured ‘nudge’ or a full blown attempt to prevent some element of the car’s design from being photographed, in which case, I have to opine it’s pretty poor form from the Williams guy. Thanks
You are correct it is a Williams team member kicking a photographer. One must presume that this was because he felt that the photographer was not taking news photographs but was rather engaged in doing espionage work for another team. This sort of stuff goes on a fair bit, but it is not often photographed.
Considering the lens, angle and distance to the car, the photograph definitely suggests the photographer isn’t there to get a nice photo of a folorn car. The photographer in the background doesn’t appear to be taking happy snaps either, though there’s less visible information on him.
extreme perspective compression on display here, check how those girls appear to be next to eachother, cheeck by jowel, but are a hundred feet or so apart:
http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/recollections/r16_e/index.htm
sadly that high refraction glass had now banned rare earth elements, and nastier organochemistry baths. or the pigs (glass crystals) take too long to grow. About a year to grow the lens pigs for the current telephotos. Which are nothing like as awesome as we used to have
I took the picture of Williams chief mechanic Carl Gaden kicking my colleague Russell Batchelor. No matter what Russell was taking pictures of (in a public area and officially accredited by the FIA): VERY poor form from Mr. Gaden!
I’m surprised he didn’t come after you as well Peter, for catching him “In the act”. Great shots, by the way, throughout all editions!!