When you think about it, Damon Hill accompanied his father to the track so often that he really only had one choice: Become a racing driver or never go to the track again.
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Raised in the Pits
Category: Grand Prix
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Inputs
People occasionally ask me why I’m not a fan of contemporary formula racing. I usually start by boring them to tears with tales of the 2005 USGP fiasco and my long drive home from that event, swearing off Formula 1 again and again with each passing mile. But when I look at this photo of a contemporary Formula 1 steering wheel it does a much better job than I could of communicating my real reason.
I admire Formula 1 engineers and aerodynamicists. They have pushed the automobile to the absolute limits of technology. I just think they may have pushed beyond the limits of what an automobile is. This steering wheel doesn’t control a car. A spacecraft; a fighter jet; a robot, maybe. But not a car.
I spend most of my workday at a computer. I click buttons all day. I like buttons. And I know that I sound much older than I am when I say that I do not look forward to these technologies making their way to road cars. I just don’t want to push any more buttons.
I want to feel the hint of tension in my calf when I push the clutch in. I want to feel the gratifying clunk of the shifter when I pull into second. I want to hear the clack of the gears connecting as I pop the clutch. I want to feel it, to smell it, to taste it. I want driving to remain a tactile, physical experience.
Of course I realize that Formula 1 drivers have no ends to the physical sensations that they receive from their machines when they’re racing, but will daily commuters have any sensation when this tech comes to the road?
There. There’s my rant. I try to keep them to a minumum.
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A Bit of a Wiggle-Woggle
Then again, why just listen to Graham Hill talk about Monaco when we can just ride shotgun.
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Graham Hill on the “Proper Road Race”
If you’re going to get an audio tour of Monte Carlo’s road racing circuit, you may as well get it from Mister Monaco.
Mario Andretti christened Austin’s Circuit of the Americas with his 1978 Formula 1 World Championship winning John Player Special Lotus 79. Listen to that Cosworth hum.
Thanks, Racer.
You don’t have to be able to read French to enjoy Marvano’s Grand Prix series of graphic novels. These images speak for themselves and should probably work their way onto your bookshelf. I’m afraid I suffer from that dreaded affliction of believing that color was invented somewhere around 1959 so seeing the vibrance in these renderings of the French Gran Prix and Tripoli Grand Prix and Brooklands is a wonderful treat.
Marvano’s vibrant and wonderfully realized ligne claire illustrations naturally bring to mind fellow Belgian Hergé and—like Hergé’s Tintin–the characters surrounding the Silver Arrows in the 1930’s take us to marvelously exotic locations and stirring drama. And that’s all without being able to read a word of it. Reviews say, and Marzano appears to have confirmed, that while the people and locations are true, the story is somewhat fictionalized. As the author puts it: “The ingredients are historical but the dishes are fictitious.”
I suspect that this doesn’t diminish the work in the slightest but race historians may cry fowl as they see cars that crashed out early in Avus continuing to circle the track. I will not be among them and quite enjoyed the first volume of the three part series, which is currently available on Amazon (Grand prix, Tome 1 : Renaissance) with a forward by Jackie Ickx.
Here’s an interview with Marvano on the work.
Alberto Ascari’s favorite accessory reminds us all: Bring back the laurels.
Photo by Bernard Cahier. Thanks, PHC.
If this photo of Graham Hill isn’t the original photograph, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to believe that this was just desaturated and cooled in Photoshop. I want to continue believing that this photo is the kind of thing Instagram strives to achieve with it’s technology, not the result of digital retouching.
The hues. The angles. The drama. I can’t reasonably articulate why it matters to me whether this shot was composed “in camera” or on a laptop. It just does.
Thanks, Sex, Drugs n Rack & Pinion.
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Saul Bass on Grand Prix
We think of Grand Prix solely as Frankenheimer’s movie. In the basic sense I suppose it was, but I often forget about legendary designer and filmmaker Saul Bass’ hand in the film.
He did the title sequences—which were brilliant—but he also had a hand in the choreographed racing montage sequences as well. They’re handled wonderfully in the film, often as musical interludes that are balletic in parts, raw and evisceral in others. In short, they’re perfect analogues for racing in general. They’re so wonderfully assembled, you’d be forgiven for thinking that they’re the result of months of preparation and storyboarding.
But Saul shared this classic fake-it-till-you-make-it story in Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design:
Shooting the races in Grand Prix brought into focus for me the Director-as-Performer mode. Until then I had been directing in the Repertory mode. Small companies, with accumulated experience working together. All in tune with an exploratory point of view. Shifts in concept or staging understood as a process, rather than a certainty.
This all changed when I began directing the races for Grand Prix. The first race was at Spa in Belgium. We had permit problems with the Racing Association. We didn’t know if we could even get on the track. If we did, I would have no advance opportunity to study the track or even to know what part of the track we would have.
Suddenly, at the end of one day, we unexpectedly got permission to shoot the next day. I arrived at an assigned section of the track at 8:30am. I saw an unfamiliar terrain, a multilingual crew, a slew of Formula One racing cars and drivers, 1,500 extras, and others—waiting for “the word”.
I looked around. What’s my first shot?
A race start.
I called out my requirements.
“Put the cars over there.
The No. 1 Camera here. 600mm lens.
The crowd…”
I had another thought.
I started again.
“Let’s have the cars further back.
No. 2 Camera there. 1000mm lens.
Put the 600mm lens…” Pause.
I had a better idea. “Here’s what we do…”
I stopped.
I could see the crew looking at each other and growing restless. My authority eroding. It was a very long day.
But, somehow I got through it.The next day, I arrived on the set. New pieces of track. New terrain. A thousand pairs of eyes zapped in on me.
Silence.
In a panic, I grabbed my cane.
Plunged it into the turf. “OK!
No. 1 Camera here. 200mm lens.
No. 2 Camera there, 600mm lens.
No. 3 Camera in the stands.
All cars lined up for a start there.
1,000 extras in the stands.
The rest in the woods.
And call me when you’re ready!” A beat.Pandemonium broke loose, and everybody went to work.
I hopped into my jeep with my first cameraman, tooled around the curve in the track, stopped where no one could see, and said to myself, “OK. What the hell am I going to do today?”
I knew it would take them a little time to get that all sorted out. So I calmed down. Went down the track a bit. Set up some angles and figured out my day’s work… my shot list.
My first assistant came running up. They were ready. We drove back to the set. I looked everything over.
“Fine. Alright. We’re ready to go.”
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Camera ready?”
“Camera rolling…speed!” “Action!”
VVRRROOOOMMMMM!
The cars took off.
“Cut. Print. Next shot!”
People exchanged glances. “He knows what he wants. We’re in good hands.”
Of course, I never actually used that shot. It was a question of morale… I learned that when you have an army, you may have to ride a white horse.
“If you don’t come walking back to the pits every once in a while holding a steering wheel in your hands, you’re not trying hard enough”
Mario Andretti