1961-1973: Nigel Roebuck
‘If you can remember the ’60s,’ the saying goes, ‘you really weren’t there…’ Well, I was, and I can – the feeling in the air, the music, the movies, and the motor racing. Enchanting, exciting and dangerous, it was a mirror image of the times.
Two days after my 21st birthday, I saw the newly released Grand Prix in Leicester Square, and the next day watched Dan Gurney beat Lorenzo Bandini by half a second in the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. A month later I was at Oulton Park, where Jack Brabham won the Spring Trophy, and a fortnight after that saw Mike Parkes take the International Trophy at Silverstone.
In 1967 there were five Formula 1 races in this country, so the British aficionado was indeed well served. For a couple of quid a time, I had a paddock pass at every race, and there was no hiding in motorhomes because there weren’t any – as I walked in on practice day for the British Grand Prix, the first person I saw was Jim Clark, that weekend as ever happily staying at The Green Man. I treasure my collection of signed programmes from those days: no need for a ‘Fan Experience’ back then.
At the same time, in part because there was little TV coverage of F1, the drivers – although readily available for an autograph – retained an exotic, mysterious, quality long lost now. Beyond a few words over a circuit’s PA system, you never heard the voices of Jochen Rindt or Pedro Rodriguez, much less saw them playing infantile games for the camera.
Undeniably there was a romance about that era, and it stemmed in part from a continuing sense of history, with grands prix still run at traditional theatres of battle like Spa-francorchamps and the Nurburgring. Save at Monaco, the word ‘chicane’ was virtually unknown, although by 1972 that was starting to change, and their introduction at Monza sadly ravaged the nature of the Italian GP.
From 1961 to ’65 the 1.5-litre F1 was in force, and if the cars were small and underpowered, still they raced superbly, allowing such as Clark and Stirling Moss to display their genius: with downforce not yet thought of, a car’s ultimate cornering speed was dependent much more on the delicate skill of the driver.
The 1966 season, heralded as ‘The Return to Power’, saw the introduction of the three-litre Formula 1, and it was lauded on all sides, for now the cars had more power than grip, and – with opposite lock much in evidence – it was a fine time for the spectator. Shaped by designer’s pen rather than windtunnel, the cars were invariably elegant, and they sounded sublime, too, with V12s from Ferrari, BRM, Honda, Matra and (Eagle) Weslake – each distinctive one to another – competing with Cosworth’s V8.
Downforce did not raise its head until 1968, when Amon’s
Ferrari appeared at Spa with a tiny rear wing – and took pole by four seconds. “I couldn’t help but wonder,” he said, “what can of worms we were opening here…” His fears were well grounded.
In 1968, too, commercial sponsorship appeared for the first time in F1, but if it was sad to see the green and yellow of Lotus replaced by the red and gold of a Player’s fag packet, the spectacle didn’t change. Even with the advent of wings, cars were routinely steered on the throttle, and overtaking was commonplace. As time went by, the increasingly ubiquitous DFV gained ever more of a stranglehold, but still the ‘twelves’ had their days in the sun.
The drivers of that generation earned reasonable money, but no more than that, and usually they travelled together on commercial flights, further strengthening the sense of camaraderie that then existed, not least because life in F1 was tenuous: if we looked upon them as gods, our feelings were amplified by uncertainty that we would see them again. While definitively a golden era in the sport’s
history, not everything was good. In the 13 seasons of which
I write, only four went by without at least one fatality: 14 lives were lost at grand prix weekends, and a further seven F1 drivers were killed competing in other categories. Remembering the loss of Clark, Amon spoke for all his fellows: “If it could happen to Jimmy, what chance did the rest of us have?”
Back in the day of course it was always a shock when a driver died, but not a surprise: that was how racing was – how it had always been. Jackie Stewart, three times world champion in this era, took it upon himself to change the whole thinking about safety in motor racing: every driver of the past 50 years is in his debt.