|
|
Post by chrisb on Sept 23, 2020 8:06:04 GMT
I always like riding in Scotland! actually starting to plan a trip with hopefully a couple of fellow Triumphers to the Hebrides so will pop into Jackie's home town and remind him, except he lives in Switzerland - oh well next year I am supposed to be touring Germany and possibly down to Slovenia so may pop in then Carl.
Utub showed the documentary and it was a nice tribute to one helluva character - amazing human being, MotorSport have also done a tribute in this months magazine, although I am not happy with the 'cult' piece the rest of it is very good, especially lunch with,
I also wondered about that fateful decision, I thought John Miles refused to take his wings off and good for him walked away from F1 and Chapman's quest, In Mark Hughes excellent F1 retro 1970 book he discussed the accident from Denis Hulme's view and the contributing factors including the inboard brake shaft breaking, but I did wonder how much the lack of downforce caused the breakage or did it not have any role in this, all I do know we had yet another star lost to us and it was just bloody needless,
|
|
|
|
Post by charleselan on Sept 23, 2020 12:06:32 GMT
A couple of years ago I saw an interview with Nina Rindt and she was adamant that Jochen had not wanted to run the Lotus 72 at Monza without wings. She also said that in fact Jochen had pleaded with Colin Chapman to let him use the older Lotus 49C at Monza as he felt it was more suitable to the Monza circuit, Chapman refused his request.
I am also certain that it was a brake shaft that failed and caused the tragic accident. I did read that the front brake shafts for the inboard mounted brakes needed critical heat treatment, and I think it might have been Tony Southgate who mentioned that the failure might have been due to incorrect heat treatment.
|
|
|
|
Post by René on Sept 23, 2020 14:40:26 GMT
I am also certain that it was a brake shaft that failed and caused the tragic accident. I did read that the front brake shafts for the inboard mounted brakes needed critical heat treatment, and I think it might have been Tony Southgate who mentioned that the failure might have been due to incorrect heat treatment. That is exactly the conclusion drawn by the experts in the black and white Austrian tv broadcast I posted. The 'bremswelle' or brake shaft failed. |
|
|
|
Post by Carl on Sept 23, 2020 16:24:34 GMT
A couple of years ago I saw an interview with Nina Rindt and she was adamant that Jochen had not wanted to run the Lotus 72 at Monza without wings. She also said that in fact Jochen had pleaded with Colin Chapman to let him use the older Lotus 49C at Monza as he felt it was more suitable to the Monza circuit, Chapman refused his request. I am also certain that it was a brake shaft that failed and caused the tragic accident. I did read that the front brake shafts for the inboard mounted brakes needed critical heat treatment, and I think it might have been Tony Southgate who mentioned that the failure might have been due to incorrect heat treatment. Wouldn't a Lotus 72, even with wings, have been faster on the Monza straights than a Lotus 49C? So many people must have said so many things intended to soothe her grief and memory plays tricks on us all, but if Nina Rindt is correct, then Colin Chapman may have gone beyond acceptance of risk into a reckless disregard for the safety of his drivers. He was an arrogant genius and often took chances with structural integrity. |
|
|
|
Post by Carl on Sept 23, 2020 16:39:59 GMT
I always like riding in Scotland! actually starting to plan a trip with hopefully a couple of fellow Triumphers to the Hebrides so will pop into Jackie's home town and remind him, except he lives in Switzerland - oh well next year I am supposed to be touring Germany and possibly down to Slovenia so may pop in then Carl. Yes, but should Stewart fear to meet you in Scotland, the plan includes funding for a large billboard on a main road to shame his vanity.  |
|
|
|
Post by charleselan on Sept 23, 2020 16:48:59 GMT
A couple of years ago I saw an interview with Nina Rindt and she was adamant that Jochen had not wanted to run the Lotus 72 at Monza without wings. She also said that in fact Jochen had pleaded with Colin Chapman to let him use the older Lotus 49C at Monza as he felt it was more suitable to the Monza circuit, Chapman refused his request. I am also certain that it was a brake shaft that failed and caused the tragic accident. I did read that the front brake shafts for the inboard mounted brakes needed critical heat treatment, and I think it might have been Tony Southgate who mentioned that the failure might have been due to incorrect heat treatment. Wouldn't a Lotus 72, even with wings, have been faster on the Monza straights than a Lotus 49C? So many people must have said so many things intended to soothe her grief and memory plays tricks on us all, but if Nina Rindt is correct, then Colin Chapman may have gone beyond acceptance of risk into a reckless disregard for the safety of his drivers. He was an arrogant genius and often took chances with structural integrity. I had mulled the same scenario over myself especially considering that Jochen had used the Lotus 72 at Hockenheim to win the German GP weeks before. This venue as we all know was also a very fast place with long straights but here Jochen ran the 72 with quite some wing angle and still easily (his words) beat the more powerful Ferrari 312B's. So one would presume that the criteria for Hockenheim was different to that of Monza at that time. Monza was always a slip stream circuit in those days and Jochen would have known that the 49 would have been a handy tool especially shorn of wings as he had used it to finish a very close second in 1969. So i would say that Nina's comment was correct and that Jochen wanted to use the 49 sans wings which was known quantity, whereas he was very unsure of the 72 if similarly shorn. Colin Chapman was known to be quite authoritarian with his drivers, even someone as strong willed as Jochen Rindt. It was a bad decision by him that weekend, absolutely no doubt about that. P.S. To my previous remark about the front brake shafts and the need for them to be correctly heat treated, I now remember where the comment came from originally. Robin Herd said that the failures on the March 711 that caused Ronnie to have a very heavy accident at Silverstone for the International Trophy were due to incorrectly tempered front brake shafts. The March 711 also had inboard front brake discs. |
|
|
|
Post by Carl on Sept 23, 2020 18:01:05 GMT
Well thought out and well written, John Charles. Colin Chapman was not at all likeable. It's remarkable that the malignant side of creative geniuses is so often tolerated and even glorified because they are exalted. Sometimes people of weak character can be warped by the exaltation of others, one reason I prefer to keep my creative genius well hidden. 
-anonymous
|
|
|
|
Post by René on Sept 23, 2020 20:02:15 GMT
With regards to what car he would drive in the race, in the B/W video you can see Jochen at 1.40m before the qualifying. He says Monza is a high speed slip streaming circuit so most cars will drive without wings because straight line speed is more important than cornering speed.
Then he says he will use the 72 for this race and not the turbine car. He feels the turbine car is promising but still needs developing. He doesn't mention the 49. But I don't know what this means. Maybe he doesn't want to go against Chapman in public.
|
|
|
|
Post by Carl on Sept 24, 2020 1:37:50 GMT
With regards to what car he would drive in the race, in the B/W video you can see Jochen at 1.40m before the qualifying. He says Monza is a high speed slip streaming circuit so most cars will drive without wings because straight line speed is more important than cornering speed. Then he says he will use the 72 for this race and not the turbine car. He feels the turbine car is promising but still needs developing. He doesn't mention the 49. But I don't know what this means. Maybe he doesn't want to go against Chapman in public. Many pieces of this tragic puzzle are unclear. He appears resigned to drive the 72, but was he still going back and forth with Chapman about the rear wing when he says "most cars" or did he instead mean his car would be one of those driven without wings? |
|
|
|
Post by robmarsh on Sept 24, 2020 9:59:02 GMT
Peter Warr wrote a book on his time at Lotus. I enjoyed reading it and it is in my boxes somewhere. He gave a very detailed account of what he thinks went wrong. It seems it was a combination of tyres, no wing, cold brakes. If I find my book I will post it.
|
|
|
|
Post by charleselan on Sept 24, 2020 11:21:31 GMT
The comment about using the Lotus 56B Turbine 4WD car is strange. To the best of my understanding that car wasn't even in the equation in 1970; I have many Lotus books (obviously  ) and drivers of Team Lotus and I have never seen anything written about that car during the 1970 season. The 56B began to be used in the 1971 season but wasn't competitive except in the rain where it was moderately more so. As I mentioned earlier in the interview with Nina Rindt she was adamant that Jochen wanted to use the older Lotus 49C and was opposed to running the 72 minus wings. I am also certain that I have heard JYS comment that he too thought that Jochen wished to use the 49B, but I may be mistaken there. In the previous season of 1969 Jochen had two big disagreements (bust ups) with Chapman, one that as particularly spectacular and public. This was after his huge accident at Montjuic Park which could easily have killed him and the following accident that Graham Hill was lucky to step out of unscathed. Jochen wrote a letter to Autosport in which he was very critical of the tall wings, especially the ridiculous extensions that Colin had fitted to the Lotus 49B's in Spain, and called for them to be banned on safety grounds. Chapman was not pleased at all, but it wasn't his life on the line was it, not one of Colin's finer moments. The other bust up came later in the year with regard to the 4WD Lotus 63 which both Jochen and Graham knew immediately were not going to be competitive. They both refused to drive them at the British GP which forced Colin Chapman to buy back the 49B's he had sold to Jo Bonnier; to save his face he more or less made Jochen drive the 63 at the Oulton Park Gold Cup meeting later in the year and then finally accepted that the drivers were right after all. So maybe after that Jochen pulled back somewhat from a full on confrontation at Monza; hindsight of course now says that he should have stuck to his guns. |
|
|
|
Post by chrisb on Sept 24, 2020 18:06:30 GMT
In David Tremayne's excellent book he gives each and every theory into play, he confirms that Jochen had told Colin he wanted the 49 at Monza as he felt the 72 wasn't as safe as the 49, Chapman said yea and turned up with 3 x 72's telling Jochen either drive a 72 or don't drive,
what a lot of people forget is that the car Jochen was driving was supposed to have been Emmo's but Emmo had crashed Jochen's earlier,
Apparently it was Jochen who first muted the idea of taking off the rear wing and Chapman got hold of the idea and latched onto this, BCE says it was more 'shall we - shan't we' there is some poignancy from BCE when he talks of Stuart LE and Jochen.
The brake shafts had already failed twice - Austria and Jarama, Rob Walker sent Graham's brake shafts to Vickers Armstrong for testing and the response was that they were shattered, and he sent them back to Chapman to change them
There is so much speculation, some say the car was so unstable under braking it was undriveable and Jochen lost it, others and the majority say it was the brake shaft, which sounds the more probable,
whatever the reason we lost another great, whose car control was incredible and who had decided to keep racing in 1971 and BCE reckons they would have gone into business together, that would have been interesting
R I P Jochen
|
|
|
|
Post by René on Sept 25, 2020 11:07:43 GMT
There are obviously many questions that will be unanswered and it's also interesting how a relatively recent event in history is difficult to reconstruct in detail.
Take Rindt's comment in the video about using the turbine car. I checked in Ulrich Schwab's Grand Prix 1970 year book (like Prüller's books essential food for fans like me back then) and he also mentions the 56B in the Monza report. Before the Italian Grand Prix Lotus announced they would bring a turbine car to Monza, the 56B. So there was a working prototype based on Rindt's and Schwab's comments but it wasn't race ready and would appear only in 1971. My Schwab book is an early 1971 first edition so this wasn't added later.
Below is a very interesting documentary in honour of Jochen by Austrian broadcaster ORF and Heinz Prüller. Again in German only but it's worthwhile watching for the unique footage. There's also some English speaking here and there. Some of the accident images are difficult to watch but there is so much great stuff in here you have to see it. Also Nina and their daughter Natasha feature in the video.
A few interesting facts that are mentioned: Rindt was ok with the 72 if Chapman would make the car stronger and therefore even offered him to lose weight to compensate. Another fact: Rindt's seatbelts were not completely tightened because of his fear for fire. That's why he slid underneath them when the Lotus hit the guardrail. What if...
|
|
|
|
Post by charleselan on Sept 25, 2020 16:26:59 GMT
Not doubting the voracity of your comment René regarding the Lotus 56B being a possibility for Monza in 1970, it just wasn't mentioned in any contemporary magazines at the time and not in any Lotus books that I have.
For many years it was the belief that Jochen died in the accident due to him not fastening the crutch straps to his seat belt, however in more recent times there have been suggestions that this was not the case. However in the end it really doesn't matter, he died and that is the end.
I am pretty sure that the accident was caused by a brake shaft failure as all of the pointers are there. Denny Hulme was actually following Jochen at the time and said that the car just speared off to the left and most certainly wasn't the result of any driver error, poor Jochen was just a passenger.
Incidentally there is a book currently being promoted on Amazon about Jochen that is written by a German guy (one of a series I believe) but it is pricey at over £90, it does look very good though.
|
|
|
|
Post by René on Sept 25, 2020 17:08:53 GMT
Not doubting the voracity of your comment René regarding the Lotus 56B being a possibility for Monza in 1970, it just wasn't mentioned in any contemporary magazines at the time and not in any Lotus books that I have. For many years it was the belief that Jochen died in the accident due to him not fastening the crutch straps to his seat belt, however in more recent times there have been suggestions that this was not the case. However in the end it really doesn't matter, he died and that is the end. I am pretty sure that the accident was caused by a brake shaft failure as all of the pointers are there. Denny Hulme was actually following Jochen at the time and said that the car just speared off to the left and most certainly wasn't the result of any driver error, poor Jochen was just a passenger. Incidentally there is a book currently being promoted on Amazon about Jochen that is written by a German guy (one of a series I believe) but it is pricey at over £90, it does look very good The accident was caused by the brake shaft failure, no doubt. You could only wonder if he had survived had the seatbelts been fastened proporly but as you say, it doesn't matter anymore. It was most certainly not a driver error though. Hulme is also in the documentary telling what he saw. |
|
) and drivers of Team Lotus and I have never seen anything written about that car during the 1970 season.