To translate the memorial: 'Fe gurodd y goreuon heb gefnu ar ei gynefin' 'He beat the best without forgetting his roots/home' The fastest man from Wales. We've never had a Welsh F1 driver since. Tom very much was one of the biggest 'What might have been?' questions for me with F1.
To explain the translation, Tom was a proud Welshman who spoke our native tongue of Cymraeg/Welsh and wore our national animal, the 'Ddraig Goch' (Red Dragon) proudly on the side of his helmet. In such an international and glamorous sport as Formula 1, that was something very special to represent our oft forgotten nation.
On a brighter note, Elfynn Evans looks like a bright prospect in WRC, he even won his home event, only the third Brit to do so after Colin McCrae and Richard Burns!
I think I understand why those two men ran out onto the track that day. I've been involved in junior level motorsports in just about every role, from driver to mechanic to trackside marshall, and it is incredibly difficult to stand by when you see a driver in distress, even when you know it's the right (or only) thing to do. We tend to take a dim view of our fellow humans, and even a cursory examination of historical or current events justifies that, but I also know that there is a depth of compassion in the human heart that will drive a person into harm's way to relieve the suffering of another, even in defiance of all good sense. Those men tried to do the right thing. They were willing to give their lives to save a man from burning, and in my view, that's heroic, even if the effort was wasted. Two lives were lost that day that need not have been, and that is a crushing tragedy, but they weren't lost to vanity or in a fit of rage. They were lost because two guys saw someone who needed their help, and they could think of nothing else but giving that help. I somehow doubt the biggest mistake I will ever make will be half as noble.
It would seem likely that Williamson’s fiery death the year before was fresh in everyone’s memory and had motivated 1976 Marshalls to be much more proactive in putting out fires to prevent a repeat of that ridiculous farce.
Yea, people can be so awful to each other. But time and time again, when the chips are down, people are willing to to do anything to help one another. Its like a different mode that has to be engaged or something, to shake us oput of our day to day lives, but for most people its there.
Tom was from Ruthin in North Wales where I lived at the time. He was a hero of not only mine, but so many Welsh fans of the sport. In later years I had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Jackie Stewart for a local radio show segment and he was unequivocal in stating that Tom would have been a World F1 Champion. His death can never, and should never, be forgotten.
Unfortunately, I have seen this footage & I really don't recommend it. I remember reading that they found the fire extinguisher buried in the side of a spectator's car in a car park on the other side of the grandstand. Can't remember where I read that or if it's true.
@@AidanMillwardIn terms of emotion, I would say Roger Williamson because as his girlfriend at the time said that his biggest fear was being burned alive in his car. You take that, you take into account the whole thing with Purley being a heroic madman brave enough to try to help when everyone else is frozen solid in fear and it just breaks the heart. Pryce's...Jesus, that's one that just makes you yelp "Fucking hell" and look away afterwards.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have been for a spin in Tom Pryce’s MGB GT. It was owned by a lovely bloke called Dave Jones, who I knew from work, and who was a friend of Tom’s family (Dave said that Tom was always known as Maldwyn to friends and family). Tom’s parents had stored it after his death, and Dave had restored it. It was a beautiful car; Dave had added a small Shadow F1 sticker to the tailgate, which was really cool. He also introduced me to Fenella, Tom’s widow. It was just before camera phones, so I don’t have any photos, which I regret, although there are loads of pictures of the car online. The thing which always stays with me is this: in the glovebox was an MGB handbook; in it was a diagram of an MGB, and Tom had drawn in his car’s registration number into the blank number plate of the car in the diagram. I sort of thought of Tom Pryce as some glamorous racing driver until that point, the playboy who drove the real version of the UOP Shadow Scalextric cars I had as a kid; seeing that made me realise that he was also just a young bloke from the hills of north-east Wales who was into his motors, much like I was. Cwsg mewn hedd, Maldwyn La’.
Mr Millward, Thanks for your fine, detailed and compassionate posts about F1. Until recently, drivers had a 50/50 chance of a race being their last. My first love for racing was Indycar, and, as I am 69 yrs old, the horrific crash in the '63 Indy 500 really sensitized me to the risks of racing. Thanks from Idaho!!
Saw the video 24 years ago when the press conference after Schumachers 41st win led me down the rabbithole of deaths in F1. I don't need to watch it again to see it.
I was a kid when this happened and thankfully it wasn't live back then (or at least for me in Britain). But it didn't make it any easier to see one of my early new heroes go out like this. It was one of the most cruel and awful situations in motorsport to my mind. Just a sad and horrible state of affairs.
Once again I applaud you for expertly balancing the line between being straightforwards in your description of factual events and sensationalizing it with gory detail. There is no 'pretty' way to describe this incident, but there are definately details (and footage) one doesn't need to see. Your ability to convey the gruesome in a soberly factual way is commendable. I saw footage from this incident 24 years ago, and I do not need to view it again to see it.
This was one race I was glad I didn't see. I've since seen some video of it which fortunately stopped moments before the actual accident. I wasn't really paying too much attention and hadn't realised that the race they were talking about was _that_ race. It was a series of clips from every season of F1. I wish I hadn't seen as much as I did because as tastefully as they edited it - and I feel for anyone required to watch such things to edit them - I didn't need much imagination to picture it in my head, no matter how hard I tried to not do it. Tough story for you, Aidan. You have my sympathy and admiration for getting through it. And thank you for talking about Tom. To most people (of those who know his name) this is the only thing he was known for, but if he'd ended up in a decent car (and survived, of course) who knows how far he could have gone. He was certainly very talented.
The other thing about this is that when Pryce hit Laffite, Laffite was furious and was going to remonstrate with him until he took one look at Pryce, with his partially severed head as the straps of his helmet had actually cut into his neck, and the fact that his car still revving and immediately felt that things didn't matter at that time. I mean of all the tragedies of F1, this one just wipes you out cold.
Thank you for the look back into this tragedy. The whole incident (filmed) was utterly grotesque. Tom Pryce could have and would have gone far in racing success were it not for this. The pitiful course worker had no concept of how fast an F1 car would come over the crest and had no chance of outrunning it. This incident was an awful reminder of how car design and track design still require organizational safety with trained course workers who follow a disciplined plan.
Tom Price? I was there that day, somewhere between the the point of impact and the corner where the car ended up in the catch fence. It is worth noting that it wasn't just a hump that the cars went over, but also a dog leg to the right, which the cars at that time could take flat out - zero visibility. The thing which struck me most was how long it took to get to the car. It was wrapped in multiple layers of diamond mesh wire. If the driver had been alive and there was a fire, that would have been an instant cremation. Those were dangerous times. At that time I was a volunteer marshal at another track. I had just had a close shave during a bike race. 2 riders fell at my corner and after checking that the flags were being waved, I and a colleague went out on the track to clear the debris, only for the leaders coming around and completely ignoring the flags. The leader ripped my shirt sleeve with his handlebar. I stopped marshaling.
Virgin Racing, one of the new teams for 2010, did their first year on a British license, then switched to a Russian one when they took on Marussia, a Russian sports car company, as their main sponsor for 2011. After Marussia took over entirely in 2012, they ran with that Russian license for 3 more years, before switching back to a British license, which they used for two years before the team collapsed entirely.
A heartbreaking and very sad affair, I still remember my Dad trying to explain it to me as a six year old.... I was mad about James Hunt back then, but knew Tom was a guy we would root for as he was British (Welsh) - strangely I always think of the Taki Inoue incident afterwards due to the fact he also ran to get a fire extinguisher which ended up being a meme due to that actually being a funny turn of events.... unlike this tragic tale, which I have a small memory of, but largely remember because of the stories that were told in later years regarding that event.
Sad day for sure, but for these losses more safety has been put in place for others. Always a joy to watch your productions, even when so tragic. Tastefully done.
Very well told and sensitively delivered, the story of this incident still sends chills down my spine, even after the nth time of hearing about it. Such a horrible tragedy. 😢
I was there, sitting in the main grand stand for the first time, having watched all the previous GPS from the pits, where my father was a timekeeper for Ferrari. Only 13 years old at the time, I stood up when Renzo Zorzi stopped just after coming out of the Kink & witnessed the tragic scene.
As I recently got back into f1s,this was one of the first topics I got interested in,but none were as informative or engaging,and also,could anyone let me know any other interesting,yet unheard of accidents?Thanks for the video Aiden,and I am glad I found your channel a couple of days ago!
The piped air in to the driver helmet became mandatory after Jo Sifferts fatal crash at Brads Hatch in 1971. He had only a broken leg. But stuck in the car he died of smoke inhalation.
@@tygobermind3640- I don’t know this for sure but I suspect the sheer amount of time Williamson was stuck in the fire, combined with how ferocious that fire was, meant the air tube wasn’t enough.
@@tygobermind3640 without being crass - Roger Williamson was roasted - the fire burned through his fire resistant overalls and kept burning for half an hour longer. The marshals at that post didn't have anything more than a mechanics overalls and a single small fire extinguisher. It was a hopeless situation all around.
@@tygobermind3640 - ok, and understood. It may have been advisory/optional at the time. A lot of changes came over time as the public grew ever increasingly alarmed at the appalling death rate in the sport. Sir Jackie Stewart, Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosely are the real deal hero's here. They worked tirelessly to make motorsport as safe as it could possibly be. A large number of so called fans rail against the safety changes made to tracks and cars, they are ghouls in my opinion. There is no way anyone should wish for a return to the "glory days" of the 1960's and 1970's. The racing is far better today, closer and more competitive - and nobody has to die every weekend anymore either. Those days were tragic. We must remember them to ensure they don't repeat. There are still changes needed, as we saw when Jules Bianchi crashed into that heavy tractor. Ever vigilant in the pursuit of driver and track marshal safety.
there are picture of Tom Prices body with his head stuck at more than a 90 degree angle to his chest. you can also clearly see the neck fracture and neck bones out of place.
I have always felt that these two marshals over-reacted to the original incident. The fire in car did not warrant the risk of running across any section of an active racetrack, much less a high-speed blind bend.
South African F1 fan here. I remember seeing it live on TV (I was 13 at the time). The whole thing was so unnecessary, but the sport had lots to learn about safety back then.
I recall that Jacques said that after he was hit, He stopped, got out in a rage, Shouting in french "What the fuck do you think you are doing you fucking idiot???". It's at that point the dust clears and he noticed the blood, and it was a LOT of blood, and Tom is not moving, his Helmet strap had severed his throat, and Jacques feels nausea with knowing he is looking at a lifeless body, he's on film just looking staggered, someone else in an all white helmet is helping, who I cant identify, and whats chilling is (apart from the claret) that no attempt is made to cover the corpse, even when put on the stretcher...
Sorry for the spamming. there are too many thoughts. That graphic at 8:33, seeing all the Fords got me thinking. 5 minutes of googling later and it hits just how ubiquitous the DFV was back then. 31 different teams entered at some point during the 1977 season. 26 used DFV's. That is just ridiculous.
@AidanMillward after hearing them in action at the Silverstone classic a few years ago, I'm amazed anyone that attended races back then still has effective hearing. The noise in the Woodcote stands was brilliant, deafening and dirty all at once.
I was sitting at Crowthorne and saw this from a distance but could not actually clearly see what happened.The 2 cars collided right in front of me.A very sad day.
Fun fact: Lauda and Hunt were much closer than depicted in Rush. They even shared an apartment in London for a while. To Lauda‘s benefit as Hunt always went out and always came home with more than just ONE girl.
The Rush is an utter crap. It shows some autistic Lauda and a sloppy Hunt disliking each other every moment. Totally untrue. Lauda was a funny guy with his fake scottish accent and Hunt's playboy image covered his deep lack of confidence. They were good pals through the life and rivals only in sport.
From what I’ve read, Roger Williamson died from asphyxiation, not burned to death. Had he been rescued in time, his burns were not such that it would have killed him. The fire robbed his oxygen and that’s what killed him.
The only contemporary coverage I could get in the peninsula wilderness west of Seattle was three-month-old Rob Walker articles in Road & Track. From that source I recall that it was the naturally aspirated cars that suffered at Kyalami not the turbo cars as the latter could adjust boost to compensate for the thin air.
Well told Aidan. I've know all about this accident for years, but it still shocks, & saddens me. Tom was a really pleasant, & Hollywood Handsome man. Those 2 guys totally blew it, running out across the fastest part of the circuit, just behind a blind brow. At least neither gentleman had any time to suffer. Just ghastly. RIP to both. Thanks for your awesome channel AW!🏴🏁
It should be mentioned that Pryce turned down an offer from Chapman - via respected journalist Alan Henry - to drive for Lotus in 1977 alongside Mario Andretti. Tom inexplicably stayed with Shadow, despite the team losing UOP sponsorship and - temporarily - their designer Tony Southgate, so they were not a team on the up. While Tom had the talent, I'm not sure whether he had the hard nosed ambition to be a WDC. We will sadly never know...
I remember seeing this dreadful accident on the local SABC news. It showed the collision of Pryce with the marshal and the marshal cartwheeling through the air into the wall. Horrible to see!
I remember watching your video covering fatalities in F1 history and after some research I stumbled upon the uncensored pictures taken of the accident, yeah, they were rough to look at to say the least ...
Thank you for this video, Aidan. It must have been difficult to make, and I think you handled it with great sensitivity. The whole of "Jansen van Vuuren" is an Afrikaans surname, quite different from typical surnames and not common, but not extremely rare.
Might be grim to say, but I honestly think these kind of stories are the best of Aidan's video's. Thoughtful, respectful and informative. It's important to remember the ones that gave all and remind why 'these safetythingies' are there in the first place.
I once unknowingly clicked on an F1 documentary on youtube because it was about safety in F1 in the 70s, and the very first piece of footage was this incident, - in full - it was a complete shock and I've never been able to continue watching it after seeing what happened. 😞
You're right, I didn't realise that Lauda won the race. Mostly because I naively assumed that they would have red flagged the race after what happened. But now I remember that the 70s were a different time, and they did things very differently back then
The fire extinguisher that hit Pryce cleared the grandstand and landed on a parked car behind. One of my former work colleagues was in the stand watching as a kid and he vividly remembers it.
This crash still shocks and saddens me to this day, so brutal and unpredictability random. Also as far as i know the fire extinguisher itself flew over 200 yards through the air into a quiet car park and completely stoved in a car, the thing weighed 18 kilos and went over 200 yards, let that sink in! RIP Tom Pryce he had potential for sure and could've done great things.
For clarification, the marshal's surname was Jansen van Vuuren (sort of a double barreled surname Jansen plus van Vuuren) and his name Frederik which usually is abbreviated to Frik or Frikkie.
As someone who works in track safety today, these are hard lessons. Last year at my home track a vintage race was shutdown early because the drivers weren’t respecting the flags or safety crews.
For a time on my phone as the background was a drawing of Pryce’s accident i put it there to remind me that even when you are trying to help out things can go bad and to always be mindful of your surroundings
The only comparable injury to a marshal I've ever seen or heard of was the 1990 CART race in Vancouver. The Pryce incident was years old and I knew what to expect when I first watched it. But watching a man unexpectedly wrapped around a tire live on TV is a entirely different matter. 13:10 - Remember Monza in 2000? 23 years on, procedures for marshals were insufficient. 16:10 - "Random"? Hell, no. Preventable with proper training, yellow flags, and safety cars. The day safety really changed was when it stopped being reaction and became prevention.
2:19 I heard from somewhere - not sure how true this is - that one of the reasons Graham Beveridge was fatally hit by a wheel at Albert Park was because he was taking spectators back from an area where they shouldn't be. Again this was just something I read. I saw this one live as I had got up early to watch the race. I was also recording it as well for posterity. The sight of the ambulance pulling off the track for the F1 cars to pass was not a pleasant sight. I recorded over the race with the San Marino GP and never watched it again
I owned the Formula 3 car that Tom raced successfully . He won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch beating James Hunt by 15 seconds in it. I raced it in the Historic Formula 3 series for a while.
I think you didn't mention it, but the two stewards were also brothers. The other brother was in a comment section underneath a video of the accident somewhere on UA-cam a couple of years ago. He said that it (obviously) was still a big trauma but he had learn to live with it over the years. It was a legit account, he answered only a couple of questions though. I'll see if I can find the video again.
My sister's best friend is Dave Wass' daughter. Dave Wass designed the Shadow and subsequently the Arrows before he went to Renault. He told us what it was like at Kyalami that day at dinner once back in the 80s
The craziest thing about this accident is that even after the marshal was horribly injured (to such an extreme that it was immediately obvious he was dead), there were STILL people running across the track with cars traveling at speed. And they continued to let the cars go by while there were no less than 7 people on track attending to the situation! Any one of those cars could have had a tire or suspension failure that sent them straight into a pile of people and they all would have been killed, too. As bad as this was, it could easily have been WAY worse.
And yes, it is true that's the reason why they had oxygen supply to helmets back then. As they had those fireproof overalls and that weird snood thing, it was meant to somewhat isolate them and keep them alive. Bit of a weird stopgap looking back of course. Suffocation during being stuck in the car was a thing. I can't remember whether I've seen Jackie Stewart also detail this, or whether it was in the Sid Watkins book. Or it could just be I'm working off some other memory of it being introduced back then.
It was mandatory. Designed by an Italian guy. The kt was a small air bottle mounted near to the roll hoop, connected by a flexible hose push-fitted to a chromed brass pipe on the side of the helmet. This met with a hole into the helmet. The final part was a skirt of Nomex attached with Velcro to the bottom of the helmet, which made a loose seal against the driver's overalls. I'm guessing that the system was activated manually by a switch in the cockpit. The idea was that a temporary oxygen atmosphere could be maintained for a minute or so if a driver was trapped in a fire, providing life-support until rescued. Suffocation - or breathing hot gasses - is how racing drivers die in fires. Burns rarely kill at the time, unless exposure to extreme heat is very prolonged. Drivers killed by burns died some hours or even days later. Many drivers went without the helmet skirt, as that element wasn't mandatory. When you look at close-up shots of drivers at the time, the helmet pipe often looks hand fabricated and crudely fitted. There was one driver (I can't remember which) who had simply drilled a hole in the back of his helmet, for the air hose to be directly inserted. Hunt was perhaps the most prominent user of the entire system including helmet skirt. Scheckter and Fittipaldi also used a helmet skirt. Petersen's helmet had the Velcro strip attached but he didn't use the skirt. As far as I know, the system was never actually used in any accident. Drivers only seemed to have one helmet back then, which would often be used for more than one season. Helmets were often badly stone-chipped, and visors were sometimes crudely sealed with scruffy bits of draught-excluder foam tape. A "James Hunt 1976 Bell Star" which recently sold at auction for big money, is obviously not the same one he wore throughout the '76 season when photos are studied closely. The custom "narrow eyeport" Nomex-lined Bell Star II actually used by hunt had a Marlboro logo painted (hand sign written) on the front slighly off centre, had a very distingtive hand-cut eyeport position and shape, and was used exclusively for the entire season.
I was at the GP. I remember it like it was yesterday simply because the tragedy played out right before my eyes. I was seated at Crowthorne after the main straight & Pryce's car came to a stop in the gravel run-off area mere metres away from me. The marshal was dismembered 😰😭
Seeing the chequered flag man run onto the track so close to Lauda's winning car was chilling. Lauda wasn't told until he was on the podium, the organisers were pouring champagne into his Trophy, he then turned around and walked off.
Its one of those accidents that you just think "why?!". Not being able to see cars coming over the crest of the hill at 180mph it was clearly a game of Russian Roulette to run across the track there. Haunting footage that you never forget once youve seen it :(
Yeah I was there that day directly above the pits, all unfolded right in front of me still see it clearly in my mind, I was a seventeen year old teenager then
I was a huge Lauda fan back then. In the Road and Track coverage, there was a photo of Lauda's Ferrari with the end of Pryce's rollbar sticking out from underneath. The few images I have seen of the accident were enough, and I've got no desire to see them again.
Bad title.The marshal and Pryce were killed because of the Marshals carelessness.Zorko had already activated the on board extinguisher.Laffite was also lucky to survive.
@@alistairfannell6694 Where is it banned? Sounds like another made-up exaggeration, which sadly seems to be a common theme with these kind of fatal crashes.
For me, this accident was the culmination of roughly a decade of horrendously macabre and gruesome F1 accidents. The stretch from 1968-1977 was a truly ghastly period for F1.
@13:58 in the defence of Zorzi, the brodcast footage shows his reaction more clearly. He saw what happend and he went into shock, you can see it in his body language, espesially after he takes of his helmet. The accident is horrific to watch on video, can't imagine how it impacts your mind seeing it happen right before you. Kinda like what happend to Jody Scheckter at Watkins Glen.
I used to walk through St Bartholomews Churchyard regularly when I lived in Kent when out walking the dog. Tom's headstone is very innocuous .... but then why wouldn't it be. Very sad
I saw the race live on TV in Brazil in 1977 as a teenager, and very little about this tragedy was communicated to the TV audience, unlike the Roger Williamson tragedy that the camera showed as a major attraction, while cars raced by full speed, and everyone knew there was a person dying live on TV. After the "fact", a tarp was draped over the upturned car, and it was visible every time the camera panned showing a car passing. F1 in the 1970s was a nefarious sport, with horrible coverage (sometimes the camera stuck with the leading car from flag to flag), people dying on a monthly basis, drivers and crews were paid very little (Fittipaldi got a US$ 240,000 yearly contract for 1973 after he won the championship, and he was thrilled about it, and mechanics made about 20k a year). But the racing was amazing when one attended at the circuits.
Van Buren had a leg ripped off that flew across the fence and was later found at the other side of a parking lot, almost a hundred meters away, by a couple who went to their car to go home. The accident is by far the most shocking I ever saw in F1.
I've seen the video of the accident, and to call it gruesome and tragic is an understatement. Even more tragic is the fact that it shouldn't have happened. As it was said, the fire on the car was extinguished before they even reached the middle of the track. Apart from the huge sadness felt by the death of Pryce and Van Buren, the other overriding feeling is of frustration and bewilderment. Due to the 2 marshals hasty actions. The first marshal, Bill, was the senior bloke, and Van Buren presumably followed him as instructed. Maybe?? RIP to the both of them.
Looking at the causes of death list at 1:50 I've got to say that the hemicorporectomy suffered by Francois Cevert at Watkins Glen has almost certainly got to be by far the most gruesome and worst way of going - Jesus, I never even though that was a thing.
There are pictures and the car was basically cut in two with half of Cevert in one part of the car and half of him in the other. I've seen the pictures and they're not for the faint of heart. Would have been even worse if they were in color.
@@CrApWiFi0 I’m not a doctor, but trying to translate medico-speak “hemi” means half, “corpor” refers to body and “ectomy” means removal, as in “tonsillectomy “. So it sounds like “hemicorporectomy” means “removal of one half of the body” or, in other words, “cut in half”, which is pretty much what happened to Cevert.
@@mike04574 They don't get the actual crash in the photos, but a couple of the photos couldn't have been taken more than a couple of seconds after the crash because you still see the smoke from the tire skid rising up from the track and that don't take more than a couple of seconds to blow away. If you want to see what the crash probably looked like, see the film of Tony Bettenhausen's fatal crash at Indianapolis. It was basically the same thing only on a concrete wall instead of Armco, but with the same gruesome results.
Info: From what I understand some drivers electively had oxygen hoses so they could get fresh air while engulfed in flames. Lauda had one fitted after his fiery crash and that's the first that I know of. This is way before my time though, so I'm probably not the best person to answer this. Precisely. My recollection of this from the time was that it was a well-meaning safety measure in case a driver was trapped in a burning car. The flipside was that the helmet was supplied with oxygen through the tube which could feed the fire even more. Common in the 80s, by the 90s they had disappeared. I can't recall a system ever having been used either, as by the late 70s fire had mostly been eliminated as a cause of fatal injury in F1. I think poor Williamson was probably the last, thank God. However, I wonder if Elio de Angelis' Brabham was fitted with a system, and if it would have helped if it had been activated. From what I understand some drivers electively had oxygen hoses so they could get fresh air while engulfed in flames. Lauda had one fitted after his fiery crash and that's the first that I know of. This is what I found on reddit. Oxygen pipes were used to prevent drivers being suffocated if they were trapped in the car in a fire, and this I find on Wikipedia. Such awful accident. Jackie Stewart said, no doubt that Tom was future champion. Rest in peace Tom and Jansen 🙏🙏
To translate the memorial:
'Fe gurodd y goreuon heb gefnu ar ei gynefin'
'He beat the best without forgetting his roots/home'
The fastest man from Wales. We've never had a Welsh F1 driver since. Tom very much was one of the biggest 'What might have been?' questions for me with F1.
To explain the translation, Tom was a proud Welshman who spoke our native tongue of Cymraeg/Welsh and wore our national animal, the 'Ddraig Goch' (Red Dragon) proudly on the side of his helmet.
In such an international and glamorous sport as Formula 1, that was something very special to represent our oft forgotten nation.
Diolch yn fawr iawn am sgwennu hwn. Roedd yn arbennig i ni, hyd yn oed yng ngwlad rygbi. 😓🏴
Thanks man
On a brighter note, Elfynn Evans looks like a bright prospect in WRC, he even won his home event, only the third Brit to do so after Colin McCrae and Richard Burns!
I think I understand why those two men ran out onto the track that day. I've been involved in junior level motorsports in just about every role, from driver to mechanic to trackside marshall, and it is incredibly difficult to stand by when you see a driver in distress, even when you know it's the right (or only) thing to do. We tend to take a dim view of our fellow humans, and even a cursory examination of historical or current events justifies that, but I also know that there is a depth of compassion in the human heart that will drive a person into harm's way to relieve the suffering of another, even in defiance of all good sense.
Those men tried to do the right thing. They were willing to give their lives to save a man from burning, and in my view, that's heroic, even if the effort was wasted. Two lives were lost that day that need not have been, and that is a crushing tragedy, but they weren't lost to vanity or in a fit of rage. They were lost because two guys saw someone who needed their help, and they could think of nothing else but giving that help. I somehow doubt the biggest mistake I will ever make will be half as noble.
It would seem likely that Williamson’s fiery death the year before was fresh in everyone’s memory and had motivated 1976 Marshalls to be much more proactive in putting out fires to prevent a repeat of that ridiculous farce.
After Grosjean's accident all the drivers were immediately asking if he was ok over the radios
Yea, people can be so awful to each other. But time and time again, when the chips are down, people are willing to to do anything to help one another. Its like a different mode that has to be engaged or something, to shake us oput of our day to day lives, but for most people its there.
3 died 2 Marshalls and 1 driver, Zouzi car was not on fire ,
Tom was from Ruthin in North Wales where I lived at the time. He was a hero of not only mine, but so many Welsh fans of the sport. In later years I had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Jackie Stewart for a local radio show segment and he was unequivocal in stating that Tom would have been a World F1 Champion. His death can never, and should never, be forgotten.
The footage never gets easier to watch
I've watched pretty much every fatal crash over the five or six years of doing this and the Pryce and Wheldon ones are the worst.
@AidanMillward I think what makes it so bad is you see him get hit, where as most others they're covered by the car
@@AidanMillward Indeed, but the Gordon Smiley one is even worse..
Unfortunately, I have seen this footage & I really don't recommend it. I remember reading that they found the fire extinguisher buried in the side of a spectator's car in a car park on the other side of the grandstand. Can't remember where I read that or if it's true.
@@AidanMillwardIn terms of emotion, I would say Roger Williamson because as his girlfriend at the time said that his biggest fear was being burned alive in his car. You take that, you take into account the whole thing with Purley being a heroic madman brave enough to try to help when everyone else is frozen solid in fear and it just breaks the heart. Pryce's...Jesus, that's one that just makes you yelp "Fucking hell" and look away afterwards.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have been for a spin in Tom Pryce’s MGB GT. It was owned by a lovely bloke called Dave Jones, who I knew from work, and who was a friend of Tom’s family (Dave said that Tom was always known as Maldwyn to friends and family). Tom’s parents had stored it after his death, and Dave had restored it. It was a beautiful car; Dave had added a small Shadow F1 sticker to the tailgate, which was really cool. He also introduced me to Fenella, Tom’s widow. It was just before camera phones, so I don’t have any photos, which I regret, although there are loads of pictures of the car online. The thing which always stays with me is this: in the glovebox was an MGB handbook; in it was a diagram of an MGB, and Tom had drawn in his car’s registration number into the blank number plate of the car in the diagram. I sort of thought of Tom Pryce as some glamorous racing driver until that point, the playboy who drove the real version of the UOP Shadow Scalextric cars I had as a kid; seeing that made me realise that he was also just a young bloke from the hills of north-east Wales who was into his motors, much like I was. Cwsg mewn hedd, Maldwyn La’.
Mr Millward, Thanks for your fine, detailed and compassionate posts about F1.
Until recently, drivers had a 50/50 chance of a race being their last.
My first love for racing was Indycar, and, as I am 69 yrs old, the horrific crash in the '63 Indy 500 really sensitized me to the risks of racing.
Thanks from Idaho!!
His videos are always a treat.
50/50 as in yes or no? Because that stastic doesn't make any sense.
@@tygobermind3640I think that 50/50 is over their WHOLE career. Otherwise that doesn't stand up against the facts.
@@hazy33 The whole 50/50 statement doesn't stand up against the fact. It's bullshit.
The tom Pryce incident is one of the most violent and disgusting videos I've ever had the misfortune of seeing, I feel sorry for all involved.
Saw the video 24 years ago when the press conference after Schumachers 41st win led me down the rabbithole of deaths in F1. I don't need to watch it again to see it.
@@charamia9402 yeah it's harrowing stuff
Yet some newbie with an Internet connection has to throw in their two cents. RIP Tom, dude stood on the button.@@insertgenericusernamehere2402
I was a kid when this happened and thankfully it wasn't live back then (or at least for me in Britain). But it didn't make it any easier to see one of my early new heroes go out like this. It was one of the most cruel and awful situations in motorsport to my mind. Just a sad and horrible state of affairs.
Once again I applaud you for expertly balancing the line between being straightforwards in your description of factual events and sensationalizing it with gory detail. There is no 'pretty' way to describe this incident, but there are definately details (and footage) one doesn't need to see. Your ability to convey the gruesome in a soberly factual way is commendable.
I saw footage from this incident 24 years ago, and I do not need to view it again to see it.
This was one race I was glad I didn't see. I've since seen some video of it which fortunately stopped moments before the actual accident. I wasn't really paying too much attention and hadn't realised that the race they were talking about was _that_ race. It was a series of clips from every season of F1. I wish I hadn't seen as much as I did because as tastefully as they edited it - and I feel for anyone required to watch such things to edit them - I didn't need much imagination to picture it in my head, no matter how hard I tried to not do it.
Tough story for you, Aidan. You have my sympathy and admiration for getting through it. And thank you for talking about Tom. To most people (of those who know his name) this is the only thing he was known for, but if he'd ended up in a decent car (and survived, of course) who knows how far he could have gone. He was certainly very talented.
The footage isn't that bad, just see the Marshall flip around
The other thing about this is that when Pryce hit Laffite, Laffite was furious and was going to remonstrate with him until he took one look at Pryce, with his partially severed head as the straps of his helmet had actually cut into his neck, and the fact that his car still revving and immediately felt that things didn't matter at that time. I mean of all the tragedies of F1, this one just wipes you out cold.
Daniil Kvyat said pretty much the same thing in 2020. Forget about the collision, it's all about the guy.
But like when Scheckter saw Cevert cut in half from neck to hip. Must have been like something from a war zone.
I can only imagine the horror that awaited him.
Don't forget the development of slicks at the same time that we saw a huge increase of horsepower and the addition of aero. It was a triple revolution
Thank you for the look back into this tragedy. The whole incident (filmed) was utterly grotesque. Tom Pryce could have and would have gone far in racing success were it not for this. The pitiful course worker had no concept of how fast an F1 car would come over the crest and had no chance of outrunning it. This incident was an awful reminder of how car design and track design still require organizational safety with trained course workers who follow a disciplined plan.
Tom Price? I was there that day, somewhere between the the point of impact and the corner where the car ended up in the catch fence.
It is worth noting that it wasn't just a hump that the cars went over, but also a dog leg to the right, which the cars at that time could take flat out - zero visibility.
The thing which struck me most was how long it took to get to the car. It was wrapped in multiple layers of diamond mesh wire. If the driver had been alive and there was a fire, that would have been an instant cremation.
Those were dangerous times. At that time I was a volunteer marshal at another track.
I had just had a close shave during a bike race.
2 riders fell at my corner and after checking that the flags were being waved, I and a colleague went out on the track to clear the debris, only for the leaders coming around and completely ignoring the flags. The leader ripped my shirt sleeve with his handlebar.
I stopped marshaling.
8:10 there’s actually one more! Red Bull racing operated as an British team between 2005-06 before getting an Austrian licence in 2007
Virgin Racing, one of the new teams for 2010, did their first year on a British license, then switched to a Russian one when they took on Marussia, a Russian sports car company, as their main sponsor for 2011. After Marussia took over entirely in 2012, they ran with that Russian license for 3 more years, before switching back to a British license, which they used for two years before the team collapsed entirely.
What about McLaren?. Did they race under a New Zealand licence?.
A heartbreaking and very sad affair, I still remember my Dad trying to explain it to me as a six year old.... I was mad about James Hunt back then, but knew Tom was a guy we would root for as he was British (Welsh) - strangely I always think of the Taki Inoue incident afterwards due to the fact he also ran to get a fire extinguisher which ended up being a meme due to that actually being a funny turn of events.... unlike this tragic tale, which I have a small memory of, but largely remember because of the stories that were told in later years regarding that event.
I think it has to be admitted that this Shadow livery was one of the best F1 liveries ever
Sad day for sure, but for these losses more safety has been put in place for others. Always a joy to watch your productions, even when so tragic. Tastefully done.
One of very few crashes that I go out of my way to AVOID. Rest In Peace Tom Pryce and Frederik Jansen Van Vuuren
Very well told and sensitively delivered, the story of this incident still sends chills down my spine, even after the nth time of hearing about it. Such a horrible tragedy. 😢
I was there, sitting in the main grand stand for the first time, having watched all the previous GPS from the pits, where my father was a timekeeper for Ferrari. Only 13 years old at the time, I stood up when Renzo Zorzi stopped just after coming out of the Kink & witnessed the tragic scene.
As I recently got back into f1s,this was one of the first topics I got interested in,but none were as informative or engaging,and also,could anyone let me know any other interesting,yet unheard of accidents?Thanks for the video Aiden,and I am glad I found your channel a couple of days ago!
The piped air in to the driver helmet became mandatory after Jo Sifferts fatal crash at Brads Hatch in 1971. He had only a broken leg. But stuck in the car he died of smoke inhalation.
Than why didn't Roger Williamson had this system installed in 1973??
@@tygobermind3640- I don’t know this for sure but I suspect the sheer amount of time Williamson was stuck in the fire, combined with how ferocious that fire was, meant the air tube wasn’t enough.
@@tygobermind3640 without being crass - Roger Williamson was roasted - the fire burned through his fire resistant overalls and kept burning for half an hour longer. The marshals at that post didn't have anything more than a mechanics overalls and a single small fire extinguisher. It was a hopeless situation all around.
@@lunsmann Yes I know, but he didn't have the airsystem installed, that's my point. It wasn't mandatory at all in 1973.
@@tygobermind3640 - ok, and understood. It may have been advisory/optional at the time. A lot of changes came over time as the public grew ever increasingly alarmed at the appalling death rate in the sport.
Sir Jackie Stewart, Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosely are the real deal hero's here. They worked tirelessly to make motorsport as safe as it could possibly be. A large number of so called fans rail against the safety changes made to tracks and cars, they are ghouls in my opinion. There is no way anyone should wish for a return to the "glory days" of the 1960's and 1970's. The racing is far better today, closer and more competitive - and nobody has to die every weekend anymore either.
Those days were tragic. We must remember them to ensure they don't repeat.
There are still changes needed, as we saw when Jules Bianchi crashed into that heavy tractor. Ever vigilant in the pursuit of driver and track marshal safety.
there are picture of Tom Prices body with his head stuck at more than a 90 degree angle to his chest. you can also clearly see the neck fracture and neck bones out of place.
I have always felt that these two marshals over-reacted to the original incident. The fire in car did not warrant the risk of running across any section of an active racetrack, much less a high-speed blind bend.
South African F1 fan here. I remember seeing it live on TV (I was 13 at the time). The whole thing was so unnecessary, but the sport had lots to learn about safety back then.
When the documentary One by One was rereleased in 1978 as The Quick and the Dead, they tacked this accident onto the beginning of the film.
Thank you covering this with details and facts.. Absolute horrid accident only few as violent.
I recall that Jacques said that after he was hit, He stopped, got out in a rage, Shouting in french "What the fuck do you think you are doing you fucking idiot???".
It's at that point the dust clears and he noticed the blood, and it was a LOT of blood, and Tom is not moving, his Helmet strap had severed his throat, and Jacques feels nausea with knowing he is looking at a lifeless body, he's on film just looking staggered, someone else in an all white helmet is helping, who I cant identify, and whats chilling is (apart from the claret) that no attempt is made to cover the corpse, even when put on the stretcher...
Yes I have seen the pics after they got him out of the car. Horrible, don't look for those either.
Pryce was technically alive when they rushed him to ambulance.
@@marguskiis7711 how?
@@luciiano2221 his heart was pumped to work
Sorry for the spamming. there are too many thoughts. That graphic at 8:33, seeing all the Fords got me thinking.
5 minutes of googling later and it hits just how ubiquitous the DFV was back then. 31 different teams entered at some point during the 1977 season. 26 used DFV's. That is just ridiculous.
It was THAT good.
@AidanMillward after hearing them in action at the Silverstone classic a few years ago, I'm amazed anyone that attended races back then still has effective hearing.
The noise in the Woodcote stands was brilliant, deafening and dirty all at once.
I was sitting at Crowthorne and saw this from a distance but could not actually clearly see what happened.The 2 cars collided right in front of me.A very sad day.
Fun fact: Lauda and Hunt were much closer than depicted in Rush. They even shared an apartment in London for a while. To Lauda‘s benefit as Hunt always went out and always came home with more than just ONE girl.
The Rush is an utter crap. It shows some autistic Lauda and a sloppy Hunt disliking each other every moment. Totally untrue. Lauda was a funny guy with his fake scottish accent and Hunt's playboy image covered his deep lack of confidence. They were good pals through the life and rivals only in sport.
Now THAT is a wingman
From what I’ve read, Roger Williamson died from asphyxiation, not burned to death. Had he been rescued in time, his burns were not such that it would have killed him. The fire robbed his oxygen and that’s what killed him.
You're right. David Tremayne's book on The Lost Generation (Williamson, Pryce and Brise) is a must read.
The only contemporary coverage I could get in the peninsula wilderness west of Seattle was three-month-old Rob Walker articles in Road & Track. From that source I recall that it was the naturally aspirated cars that suffered at Kyalami not the turbo cars as the latter could adjust boost to compensate for the thin air.
Whew, good again for Sir Jackie for all the safety work he did.Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Well told Aidan. I've know all about this accident for years, but it still shocks, & saddens me. Tom was a really pleasant, & Hollywood Handsome man. Those 2 guys totally blew it, running out across the fastest part of the circuit, just behind a blind brow. At least neither gentleman had any time to suffer. Just ghastly. RIP to both. Thanks for your awesome channel AW!🏴🏁
It should be mentioned that Pryce turned down an offer from Chapman - via respected journalist Alan Henry - to drive for Lotus in 1977 alongside Mario Andretti. Tom inexplicably stayed with Shadow, despite the team losing UOP sponsorship and - temporarily - their designer Tony Southgate, so they were not a team on the up. While Tom had the talent, I'm not sure whether he had the hard nosed ambition to be a WDC. We will sadly never know...
I remember seeing this dreadful accident on the local SABC news. It showed the collision of Pryce with the marshal and the marshal cartwheeling through the air into the wall. Horrible to see!
I remember watching your video covering fatalities in F1 history and after some research I stumbled upon the uncensored pictures taken of the accident, yeah, they were rough to look at to say the least ...
This is the one I’ve been waiting for
Thank you for this video, Aidan. It must have been difficult to make, and I think you handled it with great sensitivity.
The whole of "Jansen van Vuuren" is an Afrikaans surname, quite different from typical surnames and not common, but not extremely rare.
It would be a completely normal surname here in the Netherlands.
I watched the clip of this accident without knowing the story behind it. The footage is raw and best avoided
Might be grim to say, but I honestly think these kind of stories are the best of Aidan's video's. Thoughtful, respectful and informative.
It's important to remember the ones that gave all and remind why 'these safetythingies' are there in the first place.
I once unknowingly clicked on an F1 documentary on youtube because it was about safety in F1 in the 70s, and the very first piece of footage was this incident, - in full - it was a complete shock and I've never been able to continue watching it after seeing what happened. 😞
Shame because that documentary is very interesting.
@@erikheijden9828Link? I think I *might* have seen it but I'm not sure, and I know I've seen the accident in other videos so not sure.
You're right, I didn't realise that Lauda won the race. Mostly because I naively assumed that they would have red flagged the race after what happened. But now I remember that the 70s were a different time, and they did things very differently back then
The fire extinguisher that hit Pryce cleared the grandstand and landed on a parked car behind. One of my former work colleagues was in the stand watching as a kid and he vividly remembers it.
This crash still shocks and saddens me to this day, so brutal and unpredictability random. Also as far as i know the fire extinguisher itself flew over 200 yards through the air into a quiet car park and completely stoved in a car, the thing weighed 18 kilos and went over 200 yards, let that sink in! RIP Tom Pryce he had potential for sure and could've done great things.
For clarification, the marshal's surname was Jansen van Vuuren (sort of a double barreled surname Jansen plus van Vuuren) and his name Frederik which usually is abbreviated to Frik or Frikkie.
As someone from wales it’s a big what if ? And shame we have never had a Welsh driver of any quality since then
Yeah the only Welsh driver of any note these days is Elfyn Evans in the WRC.
This is why you look both ways before you cross the street folks.
As someone who works in track safety today, these are hard lessons. Last year at my home track a vintage race was shutdown early because the drivers weren’t respecting the flags or safety crews.
For a time on my phone as the background was a drawing of Pryce’s accident i put it there to remind me that even when you are trying to help out things can go bad and to always be mindful of your surroundings
That pun is criminal lmaooo
Wasn't intended to be one. The pun would have been spelling it Pryce.
@@AidanMillward Given more thought I probably could've guessed that. Great video regardless man!!!
The only comparable injury to a marshal I've ever seen or heard of was the 1990 CART race in Vancouver. The Pryce incident was years old and I knew what to expect when I first watched it. But watching a man unexpectedly wrapped around a tire live on TV is a entirely different matter.
13:10 - Remember Monza in 2000? 23 years on, procedures for marshals were insufficient.
16:10 - "Random"? Hell, no. Preventable with proper training, yellow flags, and safety cars.
The day safety really changed was when it stopped being reaction and became prevention.
Faster cars, older tracks and little or no safety in that era. Four years before Pryce was Roger Williamson's fiery death at Zaandvort.
Many years back I watched the footage out of curiosity after my younger brother told me about the accident.
I regret doing that.
Pryce was a future star for sure, very sad day for F1
The Tom Pryce video and the Station Nightclub fire video are the two videos I have no desire to ever see.
2:19 I heard from somewhere - not sure how true this is - that one of the reasons Graham Beveridge was fatally hit by a wheel at Albert Park was because he was taking spectators back from an area where they shouldn't be. Again this was just something I read.
I saw this one live as I had got up early to watch the race. I was also recording it as well for posterity. The sight of the ambulance pulling off the track for the F1 cars to pass was not a pleasant sight. I recorded over the race with the San Marino GP and never watched it again
I owned the Formula 3 car that Tom raced successfully . He won the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch beating James Hunt by 15 seconds in it. I raced it in the Historic Formula 3 series for a while.
That was also the last race for Carlos Pace before he died as well.
I've seen the footage of the incident here on UA-cam. The image of 2 flimsy bits flying through the air is something I'll always remember
The scene was burned into my brain right here on UA-cam 15 years ago
That was a sad day.
I think you didn't mention it, but the two stewards were also brothers. The other brother was in a comment section underneath a video of the accident somewhere on UA-cam a couple of years ago. He said that it (obviously) was still a big trauma but he had learn to live with it over the years. It was a legit account, he answered only a couple of questions though. I'll see if I can find the video again.
My sister's best friend is Dave Wass' daughter. Dave Wass designed the Shadow and subsequently the Arrows before he went to Renault. He told us what it was like at Kyalami that day at dinner once back in the 80s
The craziest thing about this accident is that even after the marshal was horribly injured (to such an extreme that it was immediately obvious he was dead), there were STILL people running across the track with cars traveling at speed. And they continued to let the cars go by while there were no less than 7 people on track attending to the situation! Any one of those cars could have had a tire or suspension failure that sent them straight into a pile of people and they all would have been killed, too. As bad as this was, it could easily have been WAY worse.
I’ve seen the footage, it still makes me sick thinking about it, so I avoid it as the plague 😬
This was also the last race Carlos Pace competed in before his death
And yes, it is true that's the reason why they had oxygen supply to helmets back then. As they had those fireproof overalls and that weird snood thing, it was meant to somewhat isolate them and keep them alive. Bit of a weird stopgap looking back of course. Suffocation during being stuck in the car was a thing. I can't remember whether I've seen Jackie Stewart also detail this, or whether it was in the Sid Watkins book.
Or it could just be I'm working off some other memory of it being introduced back then.
It was mandatory. Designed by an Italian guy. The kt was a small air bottle mounted near to the roll hoop, connected by a flexible hose push-fitted to a chromed brass pipe on the side of the helmet. This met with a hole into the helmet. The final part was a skirt of Nomex attached with Velcro to the bottom of the helmet, which made a loose seal against the driver's overalls. I'm guessing that the system was activated manually by a switch in the cockpit. The idea was that a temporary oxygen atmosphere could be maintained for a minute or so if a driver was trapped in a fire, providing life-support until rescued. Suffocation - or breathing hot gasses - is how racing drivers die in fires. Burns rarely kill at the time, unless exposure to extreme heat is very prolonged. Drivers killed by burns died some hours or even days later. Many drivers went without the helmet skirt, as that element wasn't mandatory. When you look at close-up shots of drivers at the time, the helmet pipe often looks hand fabricated and crudely fitted. There was one driver (I can't remember which) who had simply drilled a hole in the back of his helmet, for the air hose to be directly inserted. Hunt was perhaps the most prominent user of the entire system including helmet skirt. Scheckter and Fittipaldi also used a helmet skirt. Petersen's helmet had the Velcro strip attached but he didn't use the skirt. As far as I know, the system was never actually used in any accident. Drivers only seemed to have one helmet back then, which would often be used for more than one season. Helmets were often badly stone-chipped, and visors were sometimes crudely sealed with scruffy bits of draught-excluder foam tape. A "James Hunt 1976 Bell Star" which recently sold at auction for big money, is obviously not the same one he wore throughout the '76 season when photos are studied closely. The custom "narrow eyeport" Nomex-lined Bell Star II actually used by hunt had a Marlboro logo painted (hand sign written) on the front slighly off centre, had a very distingtive hand-cut eyeport position and shape, and was used exclusively for the entire season.
@@davidpalk5010 That's it! Thank you for the details as I'm glad my memory wasn't screwing with me.
I was at the GP. I remember it like it was yesterday simply because the tragedy played out right before my eyes. I was seated at Crowthorne after the main straight & Pryce's car came to a stop in the gravel run-off area mere metres away from me. The marshal was dismembered 😰😭
He was not. Van Vuuren lost his trousers, not legs. There are plenty of photos of him dead besides the track.
Did you catch one of his shoes?
Never forgotten. Tom Pryce. #47Years
Seeing the chequered flag man run onto the track so close to Lauda's winning car was chilling. Lauda wasn't told until he was on the podium, the organisers were pouring champagne into his Trophy, he then turned around and walked off.
Its one of those accidents that you just think "why?!". Not being able to see cars coming over the crest of the hill at 180mph it was clearly a game of Russian Roulette to run across the track there. Haunting footage that you never forget once youve seen it :(
Yeah I was there that day directly above the pits, all unfolded right in front of me still see it clearly in my mind, I was a seventeen year old teenager then
It really wasn't until the 1990s that the safety technology finally caught up with the speeds. Deaths even in serious accidents are much rarer now.
Well put
Of all the deaths of f1 drivers, this one always seems the most brutal somehow , fly high TP
Pryce could have been the first Welsh F1 world champion. Had so much to give... career cut too short in the most horrific way possible.
I was a huge Lauda fan back then. In the Road and Track coverage, there was a photo of Lauda's Ferrari with the end of Pryce's rollbar sticking out from underneath. The few images I have seen of the accident were enough, and I've got no desire to see them again.
Bad title.The marshal and Pryce were killed because of the Marshals carelessness.Zorko had already activated the on board extinguisher.Laffite was also lucky to survive.
Pro tip: DON'T SEARCH IT. Trust me.
I agree plus it’s banned several countries to watch the incident
Agreed. If you think you want to watch it, no you don't.
I saw it about 5 years ago. Still attempting to unsee it.
@@alistairfannell6694 Where is it banned? Sounds like another made-up exaggeration, which sadly seems to be a common theme with these kind of fatal crashes.
@@tygobermind3640 It was banned in several African countries
Once seen, it can’t be unseen. Sorry Aidan, I thought I could, but I can’t watch it again. The last time I saw this was 1976 - it stays with you.
For some reason there are images of Ceverts tragic demise on UA-cam. I had the misfortune of seeing these and they really are just horrendous
I’ve managed to avoid them thankfully
I was there, sitting at Crowthorne. His car just went straight into the catch fences, likely already critically injured.
For me, this accident was the culmination of roughly a decade of horrendously macabre and gruesome F1 accidents. The stretch from 1968-1977 was a truly ghastly period for F1.
And for all the Aussies who were wondering, yes, it's that Larry Perkins
This was one of the hardest ones to stomach
It still gives me nightmares
@13:58 in the defence of Zorzi, the brodcast footage shows his reaction more clearly. He saw what happend and he went into shock, you can see it in his body language, espesially after he takes of his helmet. The accident is horrific to watch on video, can't imagine how it impacts your mind seeing it happen right before you. Kinda like what happend to Jody Scheckter at Watkins Glen.
I used to walk through St Bartholomews Churchyard regularly when I lived in Kent when out walking the dog. Tom's headstone is very innocuous .... but then why wouldn't it be. Very sad
Jim Clark’s headstone has him down as a farmer before any of his racing achievements.
I've read somewhere, not sure if it's true, that the fire extinguisher ended up in a car park. Quite a distance away from the track
I saw the race live on TV in Brazil in 1977 as a teenager, and very little about this tragedy was communicated to the TV audience, unlike the Roger Williamson tragedy that the camera showed as a major attraction, while cars raced by full speed, and everyone knew there was a person dying live on TV. After the "fact", a tarp was draped over the upturned car, and it was visible every time the camera panned showing a car passing. F1 in the 1970s was a nefarious sport, with horrible coverage (sometimes the camera stuck with the leading car from flag to flag), people dying on a monthly basis, drivers and crews were paid very little (Fittipaldi got a US$ 240,000 yearly contract for 1973 after he won the championship, and he was thrilled about it, and mechanics made about 20k a year). But the racing was amazing when one attended at the circuits.
Frikkie is a shortened version of Frederick like Bill for William.Janse van Vuuren is his surname.
Van Buren had a leg ripped off that flew across the fence and was later found at the other side of a parking lot, almost a hundred meters away, by a couple who went to their car to go home. The accident is by far the most shocking I ever saw in F1.
Here we go, we more sensationalist bullshit stories...
I couldn’t sleep for days after first seeing the footage
I've seen the video of the accident, and to call it gruesome and tragic is an understatement. Even more tragic is the fact that it shouldn't have happened. As it was said, the fire on the car was extinguished before they even reached the middle of the track. Apart from the huge sadness felt by the death of Pryce and Van Buren, the other overriding feeling is of frustration and bewilderment. Due to the 2 marshals hasty actions. The first marshal, Bill, was the senior bloke, and Van Buren presumably followed him as instructed. Maybe?? RIP to the both of them.
I saw Tom racing in Trois-Rivières James Hunt Keke Rosberg and Gilles Villeneuve a very competitive weekend for Gilles .
Such a difficult topic to discuss done so with dignity
Looking at the causes of death list at 1:50 I've got to say that the hemicorporectomy suffered by Francois Cevert at Watkins Glen has almost certainly got to be by far the most gruesome and worst way of going - Jesus, I never even though that was a thing.
There are pictures and the car was basically cut in two with half of Cevert in one part of the car and half of him in the other. I've seen the pictures and they're not for the faint of heart. Would have been even worse if they were in color.
Can someone translate that to English? I don't understand medicine speak
@@CrApWiFi0 I’m not a doctor, but trying to translate medico-speak “hemi” means half, “corpor” refers to body and “ectomy” means removal, as in “tonsillectomy “. So it sounds like “hemicorporectomy” means “removal of one half of the body” or, in other words, “cut in half”, which is pretty much what happened to Cevert.
@@RRaquelloI think there are only pictures of the car wreck
@@mike04574 They don't get the actual crash in the photos, but a couple of the photos couldn't have been taken more than a couple of seconds after the crash because you still see the smoke from the tire skid rising up from the track and that don't take more than a couple of seconds to blow away. If you want to see what the crash probably looked like, see the film of Tony Bettenhausen's fatal crash at Indianapolis. It was basically the same thing only on a concrete wall instead of Armco, but with the same gruesome results.
Info: From what I understand some drivers electively had oxygen hoses so they could get fresh air while engulfed in flames. Lauda had one fitted after his fiery crash and that's the first that I know of.
This is way before my time though, so I'm probably not the best person to answer this.
Precisely. My recollection of this from the time was that it was a well-meaning safety measure in case a driver was trapped in a burning car. The flipside was that the helmet was supplied with oxygen through the tube which could feed the fire even more.
Common in the 80s, by the 90s they had disappeared. I can't recall a system ever having been used either, as by the late 70s fire had mostly been eliminated as a cause of fatal injury in F1. I think poor Williamson was probably the last, thank God. However, I wonder if Elio de Angelis' Brabham was fitted with a system, and if it would have helped if it had been activated.
From what I understand some drivers electively had oxygen hoses so they could get fresh air while engulfed in flames. Lauda had one fitted after his fiery crash and that's the first that I know of.
This is what I found on reddit.
Oxygen pipes were used to prevent drivers being suffocated if they were trapped in the car in a fire, and this I find on Wikipedia.
Such awful accident. Jackie Stewart said, no doubt that Tom was future champion.
Rest in peace Tom and Jansen 🙏🙏