Twenty-four seconds six hundred and seventy thousandths of a second. That's where Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap time yesterday at the legendary Monza circuit, which has been flirting with speed, danger and tragedy for more than 90 years, in the first practice session for a new Italian Grand Prix.
One minute twenty-three seconds was the time that, 45 years ago, the World Championship leader, the Austrian Jochen Rindt, thought he could set in the qualifying session. Rindt knew what he was talking about. A victory at Monza would automatically make him world champion as long as his great rival, Jack Brabham, did not finish higher than fifth place.
The Austrian was driving the best car of 1970, the Lotus 72, an aerodynamic wonder that, according to its driver, at times "even a monkey could win with it". In tests, he had found that by removing the spoilers, he could gain up to 800 extra rpm and that, in top gear, he could reach 330 km/h final speed. With a special engine reserved for final qualifying on Saturday, 5 September - 45 years ago today - he reckoned to be a second ahead of the Ferrari (Hamilton's 1m24s670 yesterday was almost eight-tenths of a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari), as he claimed at last night's dinner with the team.
In the recent Formula 1 break, ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix that Hamilton won, the category's official website published a series of stories about certain characters' ideal teams. Many were pleasantly surprised that F-1 Czar Bernie Ecclestone included Spaniard Fernando Alonso as one of his drivers in his Dream Team, but overlooked Rindt's nomination as the other member of his ideal squad. In 1970, the creator of modern F-1 was just the Austrian's representative, a former aspiring racer showing his business acumen. Ecclestone was at Monza that weekend, as was Lotus team manager Peter Warr, who recalled in his memoirs published in 2012 that, at that Saturday dinner, Rindt confided his plans to announce his retirement as soon as the championship was secured.
With that in mind, the Austrian prepared his car especially for a very fast lap on Saturday and pole-position. But he did not take into account details, which turned his Lotus into a death trap.
That Monza without chicanes was a circuit with an average speed of almost 250 km/h where, except for a couple of corners, there were permanent right-hand turns. Rindt therefore fitted hard tyres on the left and soft on the right, not taking into account that it took seven to eight minutes for the hard compound to reach the ideal working temperature. The Lotus always carried more weight on the rear than its rivals and without a rear wing, brake balance modifications or altered ground clearance, it had become unbalanced.
It's hard to imagine a less stable set-up," Warr wrote in his memoirs, "yet Jochen felt he could handle it. Although on his fourth lap he was already turning 1m26, but without enough laps to get the hard tyres into the right state, he faced the braking of the Parabolica corner on his fifth lap.
In these unstable conditions, under braking, the Lotus pulled to the right, due to the softer tyres; Rindt corrected and the car crossed the track to the right, diving into the guard-rail. The Austrian's constant refusal to fasten his seatbelt's lower attachment point proved fatal. The subsequent mechanics of the accident are horrible enough to ignore here.
First on the scene of the disaster was Ecclestone. He picked up the white helmet and a shoe. The Italians pronounced Rindt dead once the body left the circuit, just as they did for Ayrton Senna at Imola almost a quarter of a century later. But there is little doubt that both died virtually on the spot. "Fifteen to 30 seconds after impact," says Warr.
He had built up enough of a lead that, with one race to go, no rival would have been able to catch him at the top of the standings. A month later, on 4 October, the US GP win of Emerson Fittipaldi, who took over the Lotus seat, meant that Jochen Rindt was automatically crowned Formula 1 World Champion. Never again did the category have a post-mortem champion.
Ecclestone never forgot his driver and his particular legacy. "With the medical resources we have today, he might have had a better chance of survival," he has said on more than one occasion. For years he employed Jochen's daughter Natasha Rindt as a pilot on his private jet and in the F-1 organisation.
This story has a postscript. A German champion, who was obsessed with world titles but had little interest in the history of the sport, was introduced to Natasha, explaining who she was. "Ah, very good," said the champion, before asking, "and what does your father do now?".
Spurce images: Motor Sport Memorial.
209.274 SRY