The Tragedy of Francois Cevert
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 มี.ค. 2024
- WARNING: IMAGES OF ACCIDENT AFTERMATHS WHICH SOME MIGHT FIND DISTURBING. Only the second Frenchman to win a Grand Prix, Francois Cevert only survived three and a half seasons in F1; but in that time he learnt his craft from World Champion team-mate, Jackie Stewart. The two became close friends and Cevert was being prepared to lead the championship challenge after Stewart's retirement, when an accident claimed his life in the most brutal of ways, even by 1970s F1 standards.
I spent an evening with Sir Jackie and lady Helen. This was at Beaulieu and Murray walker was there. Jackie gifted me a signed copy of his autobiography which I will always treasure and spoke in depth about Francois death and this era of the sport. Sir Jackie is a true gentleman,ambassador and legend of motor sport and has done so much to raise the safety of F1 and the lower formulas.
What a great story and an amazing gift. So many drivers owe their lives to Jackie’s war on unsafe cars, tracks and procedures.
Not a fan of racing but Stewart is everything you say.
Merci pour cette évocation d'une autre époque de la F1 qui n'est plus que l'ombre d'elle-même.
Enfin un reportage qui sonne vrai.
Expérience, passion, nuance, et pondération y font merveille.
Qu'elle différence avec autant de prétendus jeunes érudits qui sont inévitables autant qu'ils sont simplement incompétents.
Le plus dramatique est que cette sensation qui vient des tripes est incommunicable.
Rien, absolument rien ne l'etaye ni ne l'explique.
Pas plus la raison que l'analyse.
Pourtant elle est là, palpable et vraie.
Merci encore pour cette réussite.
@@WhenF1WasRealStewart openly told Dale Earnhardt that driving without a HANS device is insanity.
That was during the 24 hours of Daytona, just weeks before Earnhardt died at the Daytona oval race because he didn’t wear a HANS device.
It’s such a shame, if je just acquired on like Jackie told him Earnhardt would be alive to this day!
Maybe a controversy figur, calling out the travesty modern NASCAR is.
That’s at least what I’d imagine him to do.
Doing the Podcast together with his son, voicing his unfiltered opinions on what’s wrong with today’s NASCAR and how amazing the golden era was.
They died like flies in those days. Car, motorcycle... From the perspective of today's, nearly sterile standards, the races of the day seem almost suicidal. Great storytelling, thank you.
Thank you. Yes, looking back at the speeds of the cars and the limited safety measures, I sometimes wonder how more drivers didn't die. The proximity to WW2 and its horrors perhaps made violent death feel more commonplace than it does today.
@WhenF1WasReal Good point. I never thought about that angle. I'm sure they wanted more safety, but pushing tech obviously had priority. In any case, the idea of safety was so underdeveloped in comparison with the present - enough to seem alien to us. Of course, they didn't have a death wish - in your story, Stewart wanted to and did get to walk away. Double the hero!
The drivers knew this, hence they were decent guys. Not like todays prima donnas.
Certainly the only thing like those days still in existence, in terms of "acknowledged danger", would be the Isle of Man TT.
@@UncleKennysPlace ...or driving around Chicago on the the Tri-State.
As gruesome as Cevert's death was, it was instantaneous. The accidents of Piers Courage and especially Roger Williamson (both, coincidentally at Zandvoort) were worse because the drivers did not die immediately but instead were consumed by fire.
Add Bianchi
@@huwgrossmith9555Cevert's accident was 1000x worse than Jules (no disrespect to him)
Sadly, Roger Williamsons one is the standout.
Marshall’s stood and watched while David Purley stopped his car and tried in vain to help.
Another being Roland Ratzenberger, being almost overlooked by what happened the following day.
But its not a competion to compare ones who died instantly, or suffered. All were lost doing something they loved.
Williamson's story is an interesting one, which I have considered doing a video on, but which has been well covered elsewhere.
David Purley's efforts to save his friend rightly won him the George Medal. But his fireproof race suit and military training gave him an advantage over the Marshalls who were little more than boys in very flammable suits. Had Purley managed to flag down one of the other drivers, they may have been able to right the car and extract Williamson, but I suspect he was long dead of asphyxiation before that could have happened.
Like Elio de Angelis, 23 years later, this was a ghastly way to die.
It is believed that Courage died instantly from a broken neck, as one of his front wheels hit him in the head, tearing off his helmet. Jack Brabham said he knew it was bad when he saw Courage's helmet rolling across the track in front of him.
Man Jackie Stewart is a legend in every sense of the word, the survive that era being one of the fastest men in the world and winning races while he lost so many colleagues and friends.. it must’ve seemed hopeless at times for him.. helped so many young drivers and seeing them die in such horrific ways before their careers could get going must’ve been one of the hardest things to be a part of.. he is one of the most important people in motorsports history.
"[Jackie Stewart] is one of the most important people in motorsports history."
Amen, brother. Amen. What are they going to name after him when he's gone? There damn well better be a statue of him somewhere.
@@ralphaverill2001 name a racetrack after him.. or maybe change a corner of Silverstone to the Jackie Stewart corner, as a Scotsman I’d love a f1 race in my country and for that track to be named after Sir Jackie Stewart but I doubt we’ll ever build an f1 standard track in Scotland
He's also the driver that keeps pushing safety to become a priority for years even when he doesn't race anymore. His interview on Legends of Speed documentary was amazing too
Jackie Stewart - Class
Jackie Stewart was a true soldier, imagine the trauma he goes through every day...
I lived in France then and shortly before his death Francois Cevert was a guest in the biggest Sunday variety show. He was a great pianist and that day he played part of Beethoven ' s Pathetique. It was a very very moving moment. My first reaction when I heard about his death was to remember him playing the piano that day. He was a wondeful man and driver.
I was a young boy when I started following Formula 1. In short order, we lost Clark, Rindt, Cevert, Revson, and Williamson which was on live television. The following year, poor Helmuth Koenigs would die at Watkins Glen in an equally gruesome manner as Francois Cevert for almost the same reason: poorly mounted Armco barriers!! I still think about Cevert and that day. RIP
Exactly,I feel the same
The tragedy is these deaths occurring at all but for negligence.
Not forgetting Tom Pryce
@@chrisfitmrye ofc but that one in particular was by far the most avoidable
even without the poor barriers, those cars were death traps once they got out of control.
I was at the Glen that weekend, but thankfully missed the crash. I've followed F1 pretty closely in the years since, but somehow that weekend was the day a lot of the music died for me.
i too was at the glen that weekend, with my dad. that was a very sad weekend to be sure i later spent 40 min with sir jackie in the pits and paddock in montreal in the mid '90s. that was a weekend to remember
I used to go to the Glen for SCCA races in the 80's; a couple times as crew for friends who raced, and once as part of a flag crew. The old guy who headed our turn crew was in the crew that tried to put out Courage's car. They covered it with dirt and sand, and 2 hours later, when they removed the dirt, it re-ignited. A truly horrible accident.
I was at Imola in 1994. On the Saturday morning I was with some mates at Tosa. We moved to Variant Alfa for the afternoon.
For the Sunday I was with some Italian friends sitting at Rivazza. It was a bad weekend for F1 with Reubens having a bit accident on the Friday.
I was there too as a 10 year old boy, my first race of any kind, let alone F1
It is true that the safety that is in F1 can be attributed to Sir Jacky Stewart I don’t think anyone can argue that point he was the one champion of safety!
without Jackie Stewart F1 would probably not exist anymore. The administration was way behind the technology and speed of the cars. Jackie was able to turn the tables regarding safety BECAUSE he was a 3 time winner. I don’t think a driver without a championship could have convinced everyone as he probably would have been driven out of the sport no pun intended. It’s absurd that he doesn’t own a chunk of modern F1. I’m sure he’s fine for cash but still. It was all him, anyone who argues otherwise doesn’t know anything about F1. His push for safety has saved probably 100 lives by now. The only exception being those horrible intermediate slicks they put on the cars after Senna’s death. They made the driving actually more dangerous.
And Niki Lauda too.
Stewart and lauda are heroes for many forms of racing. They knew that racing was dangerous but they also knew it didn't have to be deadly. They also gave a voice and inspiration to other motorsport competitors to become proactive in pushing to promote safety as a Top priority. Thanks to you both 🙏.
Now that's a voice over to tell a story , Bravo Sir Bravo
Thank you for your encouraging words
@@WhenF1WasRealhe speaks for many that agree with him and are yet silent. Well done. Thank you for using your voice.
What a sad sad story. Nothing but respect for Sir Jackie.
Cevert couldnt have asked for a better Mentor than Jackie Stewart ..Good vid.
I attended the USGP for many years, in my youth. I was present at the Glen for his victory there, and also for his last event, two years later. The weekend took a somber turn after news circulated that he had been killed.
Denny Hulme didn't pronounce his name "Hume". He pronounced it with the L. His father, Clive Hulme VC said, "You can't knock the L out of a Hulme".
Plus it's Chris Aymon not Ahmon!
Good thing you clarified that important fact!
These are computer voices, the poor pronunciation is a dead giveaway. The guy that made this video likely doesn't have English as his first language, thus resorting to computer generated voices. Unfortunate but a sign of the times.
@Slakass55 Sorry to disappoint, but definitely not a computer generated voice - and English is very much my first language, born and bred in the East End of London.
@@Slakass55 It's a dead givaway that this is a London accent, and nothing like some of the piss poor AI voices that are infesting more and more videos on youtube. So in this instance matey you are very wide of the mark.
A very well put together documentary.
Maybe it’s just me but I feel it’s more disrespectful not to watch content like this .
It keeps their accomplishments alive for future generations .
No words can express the admiration these drivers and many like them deserve.
RIP ❤🇬🇧
Thank You v.m. For this comment as well as thanks for this memorial film! I think it is the best possible and best designed and spoken memorial contribution I haver ever seen to one of the heroic F1 racers with all their racing passion.
So sad. In the documentary “1” Francois Cevert had such personality and looks. He seemed like a great guy and it was clear why Sir Jackie loved him so much.
Thank you for recounting this story. I was there at the track that fateful day in October 1973, I still remember it with sadness.
One of the best, if not the best storytelling I have ever listened to. I have seen and listened to lots of documentaries on F1. This was so sensitiv and respectful, though clinical in details and pictures. Thank you for all the work you put into it!
Thank you for such a brilliant telling of such a sad and horrific story.
It blows my mind that F1 left Piers Courage's charred body in his car with a sheet over it as the race continued (6:30). That shows how barbaric morals were in racing in the 1970's. It is barbaric enough to continue the race at all, but it is mentally depraved for F1 to casually toss a sheet over his remains as cars zoomed past his corpse for another 2 hours with women and children in the audience staring down at the scene of death. That's an ethical standard one would expect in a Roman Gladiator event thousands of years ago.
Brutal times for so many F1 drivers! The only way to keep going was to keep going😣😣
Indeed with fatal crashes in recent years in various racing series, the races are terminated at that point.
Even more telling is how F1 has lost so much popularity since it has become safer. Many people preferred it as a death sport. Much like fans of American football who criticize rule changes meant to reduce brain damage.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piers_Courage……….. didn’t die in the fire , a wheel that came off hit him on the head, dislodged his helmet, broke his neck causing fatal injury
David Ward
Wednesday June 1, 2005
The Guardian
The body of a motorcyclist who died during a practice race in the Isle of Man TT races was left in a body bag in a couple's garden on the island for 90 minutes until all other practice races had finished.
Marjorie and Iain Forrest saw the motorcyclist die outside their home on Monday and yesterday called for a new approach to safety during the island's famous TT races.
Mrs Forrest said she and her husband ran out of the house when they heard the crash. "The medics were with Mr Karlsson but he died relatively quickly. Officials dismissed the helicopter and put the body in a body bag. They then asked: 'Do you mind if we put the body bag a little further up your drive?' The alternative was to put him on the road."
Mrs Forrest drew the curtains so that her twin 14-year-old sons and a 14-year-old friend would not see the body. "The helicopter could not stop to take the body away because it had to be available for the next crash."
Been a huge F1 fan and follower since forever but I have to confess that I had never heard of Cevert. Incredibly tragic and sad story. Reminiscent of Senna's story, except Cevert never got that far seeing how time was cut short. Being a protege of Stewart there's no doubt in my mind that he was set for great accomplishments in this sport. Sure he and Senna are now good friends.
This was my first time watching one of your videos. It was very well done. A very interesting and tasteful treatment for a difficult subject.
Same here. Now subscribed.
Thank you
Thank you for this piece of F1 history.
A very sad story but told with the respect that it deserves.
Just won a new subscriber to the channel.
Congrats.
Cheers.
Appreciate you kind words, thanks
Just found your channel, excited to see more of your storytelling going forward. Excellent so far, time to binge watch your other videos.
Thank you
Watch at 1.25 speed
One of the most helpful posts on TH-cam 👍
1.75 works very well to
That was an extremely thoughtful and measured video. Thank you.
Thanks for your kind words, glad you enjoyed it
RIP François Cevert...tu avaos tout d'un grand pilote avec une magnifique carrière.
Tu restes dans les pensées des fans de F1 pour toujours.😢
Thank you for your moving narration.
Thank you for your kind words
It ain't his narration, it's a computer generated voice. Nonetheless this was a well written piece and a nice way to pay tribute to a great driver.
Thank you for telling this tragic, but nevertheless, important story of a past warrior.
A fitting, and somber, tribute to a great driver and likely an even better human being. I've been an avid follower of F1 since the early '60's. The carnage of the '60's and '70's nearly had me turning my back on the sport. The death of Jim Clark was particularly devastating. Then came Stewart and his enigmatic protege. To this day, the death of Francois Cervert is as upsetting as the first instance that I became aware of it. There is a photograph of Jackie, his wife Helen, and Francois. Helen is looking at Francois as if she were madly in love with him. I suspect that in a way she was. But so was Jackie and the three of them were as close as any family ever. Jackie and Helen's children adored Francois. I can't imagine the pain they all suffered and to this day, I have to suppress a tear when I recall the life and untimely passing of Francois Cevert.
Thank you for your words and thoughts on F1 in the 60s and 70s. Looking back now it seems amazing how matter of fact reporting of driver's deaths was back then.
@@WhenF1WasReal Similar to air accidents, in the 60's it seemed a major crash happened twice a month. It was certainly reported in the news on page 1 but quickly fell to the back pages as it was "just another crash", everybody knew there would be another crash somewhere in the world next month.
Really interesting and a story I didn't RIP Francois. It's incredible to consider that Jackie is the last surviving Formula One World Champion from the 1960s, as well as the oldest living F1 winner.
ABSOLUTELY 💯 BRILLIANT 👏, but a very sad result (RIP) one great video and voice over 😢 🙏 💔 💙.
Thanks so much
First video I've seen from your work. You are an excellent script writer and voice actor in my opinion therefore ... I have subscribed to your channel.
You are very kind to say so, I hope you’ll enjoy future videos too
I saw my first F1 race in 1970, in 1971 I started watching every race and soon I was a fan of Francois. I was so sure he would be a champion, he oozed class and style and was a damn good driver. I was 11 when I found out he'd died and I cried for days, Years later I did a lot of research into him and his fatal crash and it was utterly heartbreaking and horrific. I still have a photo of Francois on my wall and I'll never forget him. RIP Francois, you would have been champion for sure. I do wish you hadn't shown the gruesome images though.
Thanks for the great storytelling of a tragedy. And sharing the photos of the young men and their machines.
Thank you for your support
Excellent video, great sounding voice over . Amazing two kiwis in f1 then, we are hoping Liam Lawson will fly the flag for NZ 🤞🏽I didn’t hesitate to subscribe.
Thank you for your kind words, there are a couple of videos in the pipeline for fans of Kiwi drivers
A top quality and thoroughly professional account of this young man's time in F1. Well done.
Thanks so much for your kind words
Total respect for the men who raced in that era. One thing's for sure is that none of them would have had any hair on their balls because hair doesn't grow on steel. There's not much I can say about Sir Jackie that hasn't already been said, true F1 royalty. Perhaps the security guards at the Miami GP should watch a few of these clips just so they know who they're dealing with.
The drivers in that era in of F1 were incredibly brave
Indeed they were… of the drivers who took part in the 1970 World Championship, five died in a Grand Prix car, seven died in sportscast racing and one was paralysed in Grand Prix car. Those who raced back then must have had ice in their veins!
Subscribed. Did you just start? You should have a lot more than a thousand subscribers!! Very good job!
Thanks so much, glad you’re enjoying the videos
very good vidéo ! thanks from france !
Merci
A beautiful man, great driver, lovely person. Too sad for words.
The pace of your narration is perfect.
You say exactly what you want to say, in a way that allows the listener to absorb and appreciate every detail.
Time slowed down for me as I listened to you tell the story - and the backstory - of a tragedy that occurred at 150 miles per hour.
I appreciate the pace too. Great work
Likewise. Too many narrators absolutely blast through it, and I simply can't retain any information when it is shoved down my ears so fast.
Pity you can't pronounce drivers and circuits name correctly. Very poor.
@timbrown4576 yeah he is speaking english with an english accent how terrible of him. LOL.
An excellent production, on a sad story.
Thanks so much; there were certainly too many of these sad stories in the 70s
Excellent video, TY! I was at WGI that day. Thankfully, as a HS teenager, the car was covered by the time I reached the site on the circuit's lower road. I remember Francois' victory at WGI. It was my first ever F1 GP. Following, I had seen the 1-2 finish at WGI; a driving clinic by Team Tyrell. My hopes were with Sir Jackie for his 100th GP race, but I was a huge fan of Francois. I hitchhiked home after the crash.
I was at Mosport for the 1973 Canadian GP, which would be the last starts for Stewart and Cevert.
The photo of Courage mid crash is a new one to me, had always kind of wondered the mechanics of how that crash happened. Was a horrible one, Ceverts being one of the few worse. What a horrible time of F1 that was.
This was a really well done video, subscribed and look forward to seeing more!
New photo for me too
Hi, I'm not sure it's of the fatal crash - it's always been reported that Piers went straight into the bank with his helmet torn off immediately by a tyre. In the photo, his helmet appears to be still on (though I'm far from certain about that) and of course he's facing in the opposite direction to the impact.
I think (again not sure!) that Courage had an incident at the same spot the previous day - maybe it's that??
Thanks, finding artefacts from a period when cameras were less common can be time-consuming, made worthwhile by kind comments like this. For Courage, there's a small consolation that he was probably either killed, or at least rendered unconscious when his head was hit by either the loose wheel or one of the fence posts; and thus didn't suffer the same terror of Roger Williamson a few years later
@@ysgol3certainly possible it is yes. Unless it was just after he'd ridden up the bank. Still not a photo I had seen before either way. Definitely a small mercy he was likely dead before the fire.
To me that was a great time, a golden era of gladiators. No pussification of the sport like today.
excellent work.
Thank you
Thank you for telling these people's stories and how does Sports have evolved and how people made them safer
I remember these races I've been watching racing since I was a little girl
Thanks for you kind words, I hope you'll continue to enjoy future videos too
Jackie Stewart told Francois to drive through the corner before, that in a higher gear, so the car would be more stable. It's on video. That actual conversation. Jackie never thought it would be the last time he would talk to Francois. Francois was loved by many people. His death really got Jackie Stewart angry about all the dying in auto racing and the ridiculous acceptance of it. To this day, Jackie Stewart remembers the young man fondly and it's clearly a painful memory for him to talk about.
i was there at "The Glen" when the crash happened in 1973, camping with friends.. we were on an elevated location, west of the track..a lot of fire and smoke ...Team Tyrrell and Stewart pulled out afterwards..
Several years ago I spotted Sir Jackie Stewart's autobiography in a local charity shop - i couldn't believe my luck when I found it was a signed copy.
Aside from being probably the best autobiography I've ever read, it's also extremely sobering.
The sheer number of horrifying accidents during this period is almost beyond belief.
What a great find and a something to treasure! Hearing Jackie talk about the friends he lost in racing does make you wonder how those men climbed into their cars knowing there was a good chance of never returning. Helen, as well as other driver’s wives and families, must have suffered incredibly through the years their husbands / fathers / sons piloted high speed death traps
Yeah but youd be thrown clear of the wreckage so there was that. We could say those that died just werent very good at flying.
@@batvette @batvette I get the salty, edge lord routine, but these drivers died in unimaginably horrible ways, often in front of their friends, colleagues and family members.
There really isn't anything funny about this - being decapitated, cut in half, or incinerated in a magnesium blaze, simply isn't funny at all.
Very few drivers were ejected from their vehicles, and those that were suffered terribly.
I get it - you're 14 years old, and think you're the original edgy shithead - sorry but you're decades too late.
It's all been done before.
Why not try to be original?
Why not try a bit of humanity?
@@WhenF1WasReal Why does TH-cam do this?
Guy posts a shitty, distasteful, sick comment, and it stays up.
I post a response questioning his humanity and mine gets taken down.
Is this the way TH-cam wants to go?
@@WhenF1WasReal That's three comments I've had removed criticising 'batvette's' attempt at humour.
It would seem that I've misinterpreted the content of this channel, and that it's all about laughing at the horrifying deaths of F1 drivers.
I suppose I should look elsewhere - a channel where drivers and their loved ones are treated with some respect.
If I want a comment to remain I should probably post a joke about a tragic incident.
Can't beat a magnesium blaze for laughs eh?
I don't think having fewer safety features both on the tracks and in the cars made F1 any more real in the '70s than it is today, just more deadly, which is cryptic measure of how real racing is.
And it's still deadly today if we take a look at Grosjean's crash in Bahrain. He was very lucky to survive the impact due to safety systems like Hans and Halo and that he could free his food by himself quick enough and got away with a burned hand "only".
Thanks for a great story. 👍
Thanks for your appreciation, makes the effort worthwhile
What an interesting and tragic clip. Such a promising star, but like many other amazing drivers taken far too soon. RIP 🙏
Powerful video. Man it was dangerous back then. My older brother was a huge Jackie Stewart fan so of
course I am too! Thought the narration was well done too. 👍
Thanks so much… JYS achieved so much on and off the track, he is an absolute legend
Denny Hume passed away many years later, suffering a heart attack while racing at the Bathurst 1000km race in Australia. Ickx also raced a few times a Bathurst
Brilliant video mate, hope you have more to come.
Thanks, definitely more coming
Those roll bars back then were a joke " Designed only to save weight, Not lives ☠️
Vackre Frasse, en av min barndoms stora hjältar...
Thanx for sharing...
Love from Sweden 💖
Stewart referred to the 70's as "The killing years".
Excellent video. Horrible accident. Race In Paradise, Legend.
brilliant documentary, what a sad story, RIP francois
One of F1's greatest up and coming drivers.
Over the years seeing his driving, i think he was one of france's best drivers ever to of lived.
Life tragically cut short, no one deserves what happened to him, cars were so dangerous then, you had to have balls of steel to drive them hard like they did in the 80s and pre 80s cars.
Even those who were last were still heros to of even drove cars like this, they were some of the best drivers ever to of lived, no matter where they were placed, purely because the cars were a handfull, manual gearbox, manual set up of suspension etc.
To HAVE lived!
saw the doc “the quick and the dead” which featured stewart and cervert. at the end of the doc it gives a tribute to all F1 drivers who died and it mentions Cervert. no safety at all. these guys were essentially test dummies out there on the track.
Oh, I remember him so well. I was in my teenage years then and a great fan of his. Not because of F1 which never interested me but because I was in love. To me in those days he was the best looking man. That's why I never forget the day he died 😢
beautifully done,,,, nice one,,
Jackie Stewart’s words about Francois are just heart breaking.
Perfect narration ❤️
May they rest in peace ❤
There have been many brutal deaths in F1. Helmuth Koinigg and Tom Pryce come to mind.
So horrific and sad.
I recently saw a documentary with Sir Jackie Stewart, and he was visibly shaken when the topic of this day came up.
Those extremely fast accelerating cars were so dangerous in the past. No in car fire extinguishers, no fire suit. Extremely volatile fuels and no fuel cell. It is not really apparent until you had attended one of those races back then. I go to CART and NASCAR races occasionally in Northern California now and even though these cars are so much safer, the speeds are unbelievable.
they had fire suits by the late 60s. many layers... they just were not as efficient as modern ones.
I can remember doing the research on this crash nearly 10 years ago and it still haunts me. I often wonder if track marshals and paramedics had PTSD just from being the first responders to that scene. At least it would've basically been a near instant death.
History would repeat itself when Mario Andretti won the championship, and his understudy died in the same race.
I raced at the Glen a lot in the 80s and 90s in SCCA events. I can confirm that the curbs all the way around the track are brutal, and it's vital to stay off them because they'll throw you across the track if you hit them. Contrast those curbs to rumble strips that are used at most other tracks. Added to that is the fact that the ARMCO barriers are only a couple of feet off the track in most places. I crashed there in 1994 at the last corner before the front straight. I hit the barrier backward at around 90mph and bounced back onto the track, causing a red flag. There was no energy-absorbing material there at that time, although when I went back a few years later I noticed that they had installed material there and down into the entrance to the Boot. Those are the only places I remember that had it.
Those guardrails are brutal.
Thanks for that info - I always suspected the unforgiving curb to be a factor, it’s great to have that confirmed by someone with experience of racing there
@@WhenF1WasReal Thanks for your kind reply. I remember particularly the sharp left hander coming up out of the boot (the place where the NASCAR course rejoins) as being particularly unforgiving--I see the curb in my mind's eye as being not quite sharp enough to bend a steering link but way sharper than a rumble strip--and sharp enough that if you hit it when you're at the limit to bounce the car off of it and toward the guard rail on the other side of the track. I hit it once in 1994 IIRC, and had that result...I never did it again.
With that said however, I just watched "A Lap Around Watkins Glen International" on YT. It's a guy driving a GT3 Porsche and was posted around 5 years ago. I watched the video and it looks like all the curbs are gone and have been replaced with rumble strips. I think that makes the course markedly safer than it used to be, although IMHO it removes a little of the "Separates the men from the boys" aspect of the course. On the other hand, the guard rails are still only a few feet from the edge of the track so there's still very little room for error.
And finally, now that I think about it I may have some in-car video of a WGI race in around 2002. I'll see if I can find it. If I do find it I'll post it on my YT page.
Apologies for writing a book about this...
Update: I just found a video from around 2000. It's not the one that I was thinking about but it does illustrate a few things that I'll touch on in my description-and you can definitely see the curbs that were all the way around the track at that time. I'm just about to upload it.
Okay, last one, I promise. I just uploaded it to y YT page. I made it private, so it's not publicly available. Leave me a message on my page and I'll send you the link.
This piece is very well researched and written. I was a teenager during this time and access to information was every 30 days in print media.
Everyone talks about the good old days and they were, (Im 61) but we couldnt imagine the free and instant access to so much information that we have now.
A very sad video, narrated with total respect. You've got a new subscriber.
Thanks so much, hopefully you will enjoy future videos as much
Gruesome stuff. I'm almost certain that they wouldn't have wanted to go out in any other way. Cool upload.
The past 3 french race winners were all one offs. It goes back almost 30 years!
Your right. Gasly, Ocon & Panis. Considering how successful French drivers were in the late '70's & early '80's they've all but disappeared from the winners rostrum.
@@GBURGE55Actually more than that
Before Panis was Alesi, who also only won race
@@MrSniperfox29 I'd forgotten him totally. I watched that race live too.
Sadly the 1970s claimed the lives of too many great drivers, the work of Jackie Stewart and also Syd Watkins is invaluable.
If memory serves I recall see a picture of an F1 crash, involving double armco barriers, in Motor Sport Magazine. The car had split the barrier and the car stopped at about the steering wheel of the car. The photo was taken from the other side of the barrier showing the shocked face of the driver. I seem to remember the driver as Jody Scheckter and the circuit as Kyalami. I've tried multiple searches without success making me think time has clouded my memory.
EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RIP French legend - would have won (with Stewart mentoring at races) the following WDC champion - one of France's finest.
I was at the Glen when this accident occurred. Rip
Yes i subscribed also. So many comments below or above this one. It's hard to put a tick on those comments, not because there bad, there not, it's because of the sad demise of a human being. So many F1 drivers gone, thirty years ago Senna went to drive with these deceased legendary driver's, the word dead is too permanent, i prefer the word deceased. I watched Senna"s last race on TV, it wasn't a happy weekend. LEST WE FORGET. 😢🇦🇺🏎️
I really appreciate the somber respect with which this tragic story is told. We live in a different world today from that of 1970s Formula racing. I doubt many of us could take that sort of carnage as a requisite for sport.
Thanks for your kind words. I do think the world was different back then, WW2 was something many had lived through and the Vietnam War was still a thing - so violent death was more part of everyday life.
16:03 is that an arm at the bottom right of screen?
6:40 Piers Courage"s De Tomaso 505/38 had an aluminium monocoque and was not made from magnesium. The wheels might have been magnesium though. It was the Honda R302 from 1968 that had a magnesium skinned monocoque. Jo Schlesser was killed in one when it caught fire at the French Grand Prix that year. Even so, aluminium burns (obviously not as ferociously as magnesium and doesn't react adversely to water like magnesium does). It was the amount of fuel that was in the car when it crashed that caused such a large fire.
Several sources say the De Tomaso had magnesium used in parts of the chassis - but I have never seen definitive evidence either way; so you're probably right.
In consecutive years, two horribly deadly crashes at the very same track and exactly with the same killing factor. Car racing often meant carelessness in those years, at least in that respect a lot has been improved, fortunately
Younger vieweres may not appreciate those were the days of armco barriers almost all around the track, dangerous for cars but incredibly so for bike riders. Today they have been replaced with wide run-off areas.
Magnesium car? You can't even put water on magnesium.
I was at the Glen that weekend. When no one came around during practice, everyone knew something bad had happened, which was verified by loudspeakers announcing, in French, "Cevert et mort." Later that day, I joined the crowds walking the track. At the point of the accident, people were picking up bits of blue fiberglass lying along the track, as goulash souvenirs.
Hi, very interesting, thank you - subscribed.
Just one thing, there's no film of Stewart advising Cevert on gearing (or anything else) on that day at the Glen in 1973. The clip you show is from Monaco in 1971, there's another clip too, wrongly dated as 1973 by some, but in fact from earlier.
Cevert had been injured in the previous race in Canada when he went straight into the barriers after a bump with Scheckter. His ankles were very badly hurt, he tried to recover during the holiday with the Stewarts to which you refer, and there's long been speculation that he still wasn't 100% at the Glen and that this caused or contributed to his fatal crash.
The constructors' title was still up for grabs, hence Amon being used as a third driver looking for a point or two, of course the team withdrew letting Lotus in to win it. He also knew that Scheckter was joining Tyrrell in 1974 and, (as Jackie Stewart still insists all these years later) didn't know that Jackie was to announce his retirement and Francois's elevation to No 1 in the team immediately after the race. He may have overstated his recovery and insisted on driving to try to 'prove' something to Ken Tyrrell, or to other team bosses for 1974, if he thought Scheckter was going to force him out of Tyrrell.
There's another Scheckter connection (allegedly). Cevert crashed at the esses soon after the start/finish line and the pit exit, and it's long been argued that Schecker exited the pits in front of Cevert, causing Francois, on a flying lap as you say, to change his line slightly, so he wasn't quite right at the esses a few seconds later, hence the crash when he tried to power through them. (It wasn't the end of practice BTW, he could have tried again in the afternoon.)
Jackie Stewart recalls the conversation with Francois in an interview with Motor Sport a few years later, I suspect because he perhaps felt he should have pushed Francois to follow the gearing that Stewart and Amon were using through the Esses. The injured ankles theory has been floated before, and the affect of Sheckter’s pit exit timing can’t be ignored. But I feel that in those final laps, Jackie established to his own satisfaction, that Francois decision to take third gear was the main cause of his crash.
@@WhenF1WasReal Hi, thank you for replying. Indeed, but we'll still never know whether when the skittish Tyrrell, in 3rd, got into trouble in those esses, Francois's ankle damage delayed his 'saving' reaction just fractionally, but enough to kill him.
I witnessed the crash between Cevert and Scheckter at Mosport. It was on the short straight between corner 1 and the top of corner two. Both cars came to rest on the outside of the track next to the Armco barrier. Cevert exited his car quicker then Jody. Cevert then ran back to Scheckters car and began hitting Scheckters helmet with his clenched fists. Cevert was not a happy camper at that moment. Two weeks later, Cevert was killed at the Glen.
@@Canadianshaker1234 Hi, thank you very much for that information. I read about Cevert getting very annoyed - I didn't know he punched Jody's helmet!
I reckon Cevert strongly believed he could win that day - for the first time that year of course - partly explaining his reaction. Whose fault do you think the crash was? Scheckter certainly had 'form' in 1973 didn't he.
(I read recently that they shook hands about it at the Glen.)
It's been a long time ago but I remember thinking that Cevert was justifiably pissed off at Schecker at the time. Jody was a wild driver back then with a lot of oversteer.
A phenomenal and extremely dangerous era
Never knew any of the details of Cevert's tragic death.
What was the issue with the car being unstable in 3rd gear? The car was running a Cosworth DFV, right?
The car’s weight transfers from the rear to the front when lifting off the throttle - that behaviour happens more quickly the closer you are to peak power - meaning snap oversteer as the unloaded rear wheels start to slide. In fourth gear the car would be lower in the rev range at the same speed and further from peak power so changes in throttle input wouldn’t destabilise the car as much. JYS was convinced this is what caused Francois to lose control.
I watched the 1973 Argentinian GP live. Cevert took the lead over Regazzoni (who didn't last long) followed by Stewart, but a tire in Sir Jackie's car began to slowly lose pressure, and at that time teams were not prepared to change them quickly, so he stayed on track allowing Cevert to take the lead while focusing on blocking Fittipaldi who had a horrible start. To be honest Sir Jackie's tactics were pretty debatable, causing Emerson to drive the entire main straight with his fist raised to see whether the stewards took action (they didn't). Eventually Fittipaldi managed to get past Stewart, chased Cevert and passed him with ease to win the race. Amazingly, Stewart finished 3rd on what at that point was a noticeably flat tire.
Great story thanks. But for appalling reliability, either of the Lotus drivers could have won the Championship that year, Peterson didn’t score a point in the first five races but won three of the last four when it was too late to make a difference
Stewart told two people he was going to retire; Ken Tyrell and the man in charge of Ford's motorsport division.
Great storytelling. I recommend playing at 1.25x speed.
Please shift gears so we can continue listening!
It is always the 'big' names, the superstar drivers, team owners, wives, organizers that get the spotlight in these stories; but give a moments thought to the poor old volunteer marshals who had to live the rest of their lives with what they witnessed a close quarters. They didn't go back to their Monaco residents and meet with physiatrists.
They didnt die in a burning wreck either.
Beyond Tragic. GodSpeed, Francois ... ^v^