The best thing about being a fighter pilot? Having an ejection seat.
Modern F-1 driver may have reflexes of a fighter pilot but they also have a fairly high survivability rate. Note all the recent major shunts where the driver walks away unhurt.
Put your current Looey Hamsterton in an old skool F-1 car and he may be able to wheel it as well as Fangio did, until he wrecks....... and dies.
Balls of steel have nothing to do with ability. Today's overpaid, pampered and babied F-1 driver couldn't come close to doing what those cats did back in the day, week in week out. Not even close.
@Uncle Bo, runnin' shine down Hwy. 9: Week in, week out: that's what made 50s and 60s racing so downright mad. These guys got out of their F1 cars and did hillclimbs, F2, endurance racing, then when the season was out, they got down to the Southern Hemisphere to race in the Tasman Series.
Hey Peter, Do you find much interest in the races of Nuvolari? I always figured that those pre-war races had a bit more fantasy to them, not that these articles are anything less than brilliant. Now I just have to start dreaming up new additions to Hyperleggera.
@voodoojoo: Oh, Nuvolari was just beyond brilliant. Especially when you consider that for most of the 30s, he was racing in Alfas outclassed by the Silver Arrows. And he still beat them at time-like here in Budapest in 1936:
Hay bale "protection", sand on the tarmac (always on Zandvoort), narrow tires, brute engines, no protection in car. What could go wrong, or better what could go right?
These men were real heros, not like todays, fly by wire and radio signals, playstation pilots.
Seven whole days! I love this stuff. Wish I had speakers at work.
I'm sure you've seen Un homme et une femme (?) by now, but if you haven't it's an excellent film. I completely forgot why it was in my Netflix queue, but then I'm greeted by a great story with a guy who races with Ford Europe--in a GT40. Awesome.
As much as I love the W196 ... why don't you guys do an article on the 1957 Nuerburgring race ..... Fangio's biggest momement .. and probably also the 250F's biggest victory.
@Peter Orosz: Then do Jack Brabham pushing his broken car across the finish line to clinch the Grand Prix championship! Then Nuvolari beating the Nazis! Then some vintage rally action!
Honestly, I can't wait to see what you give us next. Keep up the good work!
Awesome photos. Definitely the biggest deal about the W196 is the direct-injection I-8.
The use of Elektron was not really that remarkable except that it was obviously dangerous and probably expensive. The first VW Beetle prototype used 20kg of the stuff in the drivetrain, and many 1920s race cars used it. Magnesium use today is tremendous.
"The car was wrapped in sheets of Elektron, an ultralight and very flammable alloy of magnesium."
So both the chassis and bodywork were Elektron? No wonder Levegh's SLR torched so badly.
@SCROGGZILLA!!!: I have some old footage of it which I'm editing in the coming days. Yakking in Hungarian with English subs and driving to see the Uhlenhaut in a 34-year old diesel Benz.
Of course it should be borne in mind that Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, supplier to McLaren, Force India and Brawn GP are in fact what used to be Ilmor, based in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, England and acquired by Daimler-Benz in 2005.
That's a British engine that took the 1-2 (almost 1-2-3) on Sunday.
@philibuster, Peter Orosz: A little-known provision of the German-Soviet nonaggression pact (which divided Poland between the two countries) was that Stalin had to share the USSR's secret nesting doll technology with the Nazis. Since Hitler was interested in keeping German car companies on the cutting edge of technology, Neubauer was one of the first Germans to learn the secrets of these Russian dolls.
@Armand Bengle: I am now enlightened. Perhaps the men inside him are his racing drivers from the Thirties. Caracciola inside von Brauchitsch, with Hermann Lang as the chewy center.
@nhubbell84, morphing to ThreeLitre: While the Carpocalypse certainly doesn't help matters, I think the main reason they haven't tried sportscar racing in the last decade is 1999's CLR, more specifically it's tendency to leave the ground.
04/03/09
Modern F-1 driver may have reflexes of a fighter pilot but they also have a fairly high survivability rate. Note all the recent major shunts where the driver walks away unhurt.
Put your current Looey Hamsterton in an old skool F-1 car and he may be able to wheel it as well as Fangio did, until he wrecks....... and dies.
Balls of steel have nothing to do with ability. Today's overpaid, pampered and babied F-1 driver couldn't come close to doing what those cats did back in the day, week in week out. Not even close.
04/05/09
04/03/09
04/05/09
[en.wikipedia.org]
04/03/09
These men were real heros, not like todays, fly by wire and radio signals, playstation pilots.
04/03/09
I'm sure you've seen Un homme et une femme (?) by now, but if you haven't it's an excellent film. I completely forgot why it was in my Netflix queue, but then I'm greeted by a great story with a guy who races with Ford Europe--in a GT40. Awesome.
04/03/09
04/03/09
perfect for my fangio obsession :)
04/03/09
Balls of steel or pure insanity, you decide.
04/03/09
04/03/09
04/03/09
04/03/09
Both Fangio in the 250F and the Uhlenhaut Coupé are coming very soon.
04/03/09
Honestly, I can't wait to see what you give us next. Keep up the good work!
04/03/09
04/03/09
04/03/09
The use of Elektron was not really that remarkable except that it was obviously dangerous and probably expensive. The first VW Beetle prototype used 20kg of the stuff in the drivetrain, and many 1920s race cars used it. Magnesium use today is tremendous.
"The car was wrapped in sheets of Elektron, an ultralight and very flammable alloy of magnesium."
So both the chassis and bodywork were Elektron? No wonder Levegh's SLR torched so badly.
04/03/09
Excellent line.
Road legal 300SLR?
Awesome. What would that be worth if it was still around I wonder.
04/03/09
04/03/09
Ah. Didn't know that. Unlikely ever to be sold then.
04/03/09
04/03/09
04/02/09
Of course it should be borne in mind that Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines, supplier to McLaren, Force India and Brawn GP are in fact what used to be Ilmor, based in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, England and acquired by Daimler-Benz in 2005.
That's a British engine that took the 1-2 (almost 1-2-3) on Sunday.
Nick
04/02/09
04/02/09
04/02/09
04/02/09
04/03/09
04/02/09
They make so many damned cars and have so much damned these days, I wish they would send a team back to GP or Le Mans with something really radical.
Bring back the Silver Arrows I say!
04/02/09