Mechanic Safety and Chaotic First Race
The Belgian Grand Prix of 1981 was marred by two serious incidents involving mechanics, one fatal. In Friday practice a mechanic from the Osella team, Giovanni Amadeo, stumbled off the pitwall into the path of the Williams of Carlos Reutemann. Reutemann was unable to avoid the mechanic, who suffered a fractured skull. He died from his injuries on the Monday after the race. Before the start of the race the mechanics of all the teams staged a protest over the safety measures protecting them, which was soon joined by several drivers who left their cars. The race organisers nevertheless flagged the warm-up lap at the normal time, leaving several cars delayed on the grid, either stalled or with their cockpits vacant. The resulting chaos when the grid formed up again at the end of this lap was exacerbated when Nelson Piquet missed his starting position and was sent round on another lap, with the other cars being held in position. As the cars began to overheat, several drivers turned off their engines, among them Arrows driver Riccardo Patrese, expecting another formation lap due to Piquet's error. However, the organisers began the start sequence as usual once Piquet had regained his position. Patrese was unable to restart his car and waved his arms to signal that he could not take the start. His mechanic, Dave Luckett, instantly came onto the track to restart the car from behind. But after he got onto the track, the lighting sequence to start the race had already begun, and the start went ahead despite the presence of Luckett and Patrese's gesticulations. In the confusion and likely unable to see Patrese's stalled car, the other Arrows driver, Siegfried Stohr, ploughed into the back of his team-mate's car, hitting Luckett. Luckett suffered a broken leg and lacerations but survived the incident. But even after this incident, the race continued, and as the field was about to start the second lap, with marshals and Stohr's disabled car still on the circuit, cars passed by with very little space, and the marshals frantically waved at the drivers to stop and the confused drivers waved back at the marshals, who were still on the circuit as the cars passed by. The drivers stopped themselves rather than being directed to stop. As a result of these events, a new rule was introduced forbidding mechanics from being on the grid within fifteen seconds of the formation lap, and the race starter would use greater caution.
Read more about this topic: 1981 Belgian Grand Prix
Famous quotes containing the words mechanic, safety, chaotic and/or race:
“He may have seen with his mechanic eyes
A world without a meaning, and had room,
Alone amid magnificence and doom,
To build himself an airy monument”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (18691935)
“For hours, in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack and veer and hold the middle of the pond, far from the sportsman;... but what beside safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden I do not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“Our chaotic economic situation has convinced so many of our young people that there is no room for them. They become uncertain and restless and morbid; they grab at false promises, embrace false gods and judge things by treacherous values. Their insecurity makes them believe that tomorrow doesnt matter and the ineffectualness of their lives makes them deny the ideals which we of an older generation acknowledged.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892?)
“I dont like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)