by Unknown
The Nurburgring celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1952 and Alberto Ascari marked it in style by winning the German Grand Prix for the third year running in his Ferrari, the first driver to score a hat-trick of victories in the race.
‘If anyone wants to see how a circuit can be dressed for a Grand Prix we recommend the Ring.’ wrote Rodney Walkerley, in The Motor. ‘We have never seen it in so gay a mood, this being the Jubilee year, of course. Messrs. Continental Tyres put up some 400 huge banners to make the approach road a triumphal avenue, each banner 12 ft by 3 on 20ft poles, and around the start area the stiff breeze which blew the flags and banners properly, made a complete backcloth against the sky. In the gardens behind the Sporthotel (which is part of the 2,000-seater grandstand) there was a nostalgic display of racing cars which we gazed upon with many memories seething in our cold and feeble brain: Lautenschlager-model 1914 Grand Prix Mercedes with its sharp-nosed radiator, the 1936 shortchassis 4.5-litre eight-cylinder (which was, we always thought, the prettiest if most unstable) and the 1938-1939 two-stage V12 model, plus a beautifully polished chassis and engine of the big VI6, 6-litre, 600 bhp Auto Union of 1937 looking brand new and ready for a motor show. We were a little surprised to hear persons asking in bewilderment what on earth these cars were. Verily new generations have peopled the earth. We felt our age and tottered sadly to the nearest bar.’
A new generation of Mercedes-Benz sportscars was also present at the Nurburgring that weekend, in the shape of the sensational 300SLs, which romped to a 1,2,3 in the main supporting race for the Grand Prix. The new Silver Arrows had very nearly won the Mille Miglia in May and had finished first and second at Le Mans in June.
With German sportscars and drivers back on the winners’ rostrum the ADAC was keen to host an event that would rival the long-established Mille Miglia and Le Mans 24 Hours and they were already making plans for a 24-hour race at the Nurburgring. It was scheduled for September 7 and entry forms were printed, only for the event to be cancelled at the last minute. Evidently, the Club had second thoughts about letting high-powered cars loose around the Ring at night.
The long-distance idea refused to go away, however, and the ADAC announced a 1000 kilometre race for 1953, one of seven events to count towards the new Sportscar World Championship. Held on August 30, this proved to be a success, with victory going to Alberto Ascari and Nino Farina in a Ferrari 340MM. Mercedes returned to Grand Prix racing in 1954 and initially proposed to enter the Sportscar Championship also, with their new 300SLRs. A home win in prospect, the ADAC scheduled their 1000 Km race for August 29, only to cancel it just three weeks beforehand when Mercedes announced that their sportscars would not be ready to race until 1955.
Stirling Moss set the 300SLR’s victory ball rolling with a stunning drive in the Mille Miglia and just four weeks later he finished second to Fangio in what was virtually a 500-km Mercedes demonstration race at the Ring. The 1000 Kms was scheduled for August 28, but then came the disaster at Le Mans and many races were cancelled in the face of the hysteria from the Press. Rather than do that, the ADAC reduced their event to 500 kms and limited it to cars of up to 1.5 litres. It was a dismal failure.
The 1000 Kms was reinstated for 1956, but the ADAC had a rethink and scheduled it for the end of May or the beginning of June, where it effectively replaced the prewar Eifel Grand Prix. And there it stayed, until it left the Nordschleife for good in 1984.
Mercedes-Benz made their post-war comeback to Grand Prix racing in 1954 and almost as if to mark the occasion, Dunlop of Germany erected their superb scoreboard tower at the Nurburgring’s start/finish line. This not only showed spectators the race order, but also the ongoing position of the leading car on an electronic map of the circuit.
In 1956 the curves at Aremberg and Schwalbenschwanz were reconstructed to make them safer; in 1957 a great deal of resurfacing was done and in 1958 Schwalbenschwanz was again altered, as was Wippermann. In 1963 many trees were cut down at the Karussell to improve the drivers’ vision there and improvements were made at Bergwerk. In 1967 a chicane was added to the end of the three-kilometre straight, as cars were now capable of taking the bends at Tiergarten at around 150 mph, which meant that they were passing the pits at very high speed. The left-right-left chicane increased the lap times by some 8 to 10 seconds and reduced the speed past the pits to around 85 mph.
In 1968 a new Press Centre was opened in the main grandstand and in ‘69 a long stretch of road at Flugplatz was resurfaced and the Hatzenbach area was improved. Also, a guard-rail was installed in front of the pits. This was a sensible safety move, but it drastically reduced the width of the track.
PHASE FOUR : 1970 -1983
All the improvements were not enough to prevent the Nurburgring from losing the German Grand Prix in 1970, when the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, led by Jackie Stewart, decided that it was too dangerous.
‘Last week a bald statement in the national press announced that the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring was off.’ wrote Peter Gamier in Autocar. ‘The Automobil Club von Deutschland had decided that the changes to the circuit required by the GPDA could not be made in the three weeks available. The requirements are understood to number 18 different points and include the erection of over 10 miles of Armco barriers, the felling of various trees, filling in of ditches and changes in road camber, as well as the provision of more firefighting equipment at strategic points manned by expert crews. The cost of installing the barriers alone is estimated at around £100,000.’
As a result, the Grand Prix was moved to Hockenheim, but on the very same weekend the AvD held an F2 race at the Ring, where only the previous year Stewart had won the F2 Eifel GP at just over 104 mph. The reaction to this was varied and interesting, to say the least. Motoring News published an Editorial headed, ‘The Drivers’ Disgrace’, expressing sympathy with the aims of the GPDA, adding, ‘There is no denying that motor racing is going through an exceptional and very sad time, and we support everything reasonable that is being done to make the cars safer and to improve the safety amenities of the circuits... We need to keep matters in perspective, and good sense advises that the cars are no less safe than they were two years ago, when Jackie Stewart won the German GP in simply appalling and very dangerous conditions, while the circuit and its safety facilities are better if anything. To threaten any sort of extreme action merely suggests that the top drivers are losing their nerve in the face of recent losses...
‘Cancellation of the Nurburgring venue makes us mindful of the “bad old days” when cars were entered by factories and team managers were gods. Woe betide the driver who told Alfred Neubauer that he “didn’t feel like racing at the Nurburgring.” He might as well have retired on the spot. Luckily motor racing still has such characters as Commendatore Ferrari, from whose drivers one never hears any outspoken protest, and John Wyer, who between them manage to control a very disciplined bunch of go-anywhere sports car drivers.’
In Motor Sport, Denis Jenkinson predictably had a go at the GPDA, having railed against what he called “milk and water” racing drivers when the 1969 Belgian GP was cancelled because the Spa-Francorchamps circuit did not meet the GPDA’s safety requirements. In an Editorial he wrote,
‘I am well aware that motor racing, or any other form of racing is dangerous, bloody dangerous, but that is what makes it exciting for spectators and competitors alike, and I know we have recently had a series of nasty accidents but, for goodness sake, we must not get hysterical. The song of the GPDA at the moment is “spectator safety”, an entirely new song, I might add. Their main objection to the Nurburgring, if (Jackie) Stewart is to be believed, is that there are places where a crashing and blazing car could go into the crowds, and if that happened at the present moment when some Continental newspapers are ticking about motor racing deaths, it could damage or even stop motor racing in Europe. A very laudable and noble thought, but is it the concern of the GPDA?...
‘Certain Grand Prix drivers, I cannot say the GPDA as a
body, are doing a great job, well done, but if they go on like they are doing we shall finish up as a reader suggests, with the British Grand Prix being held on the main runway at Heathrow Airport, with cars running one at a time and, in the interests of “spectator safety”, there will be no spectators allowed.’
Autosport’s Editor, Simon Taylor, saw the matter in an altogether different light, pouring scorn on Jenks and those who thought like him: ‘Now that the GPDA have been responsible for the German Grand Prix’s near cancellation, and its move from that most challenging of circuits, the Nurburgring, to the less demanding Hockenheim, Formula 1 drivers will no doubt be subjected once again to a deluge of abuse from motor racing enthusiasts who think that Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt are cowards who want to be paid large sums of money and don’t want to risk their necks doing it...
‘Denis Jenkinson and his followers would not matter if it weren’t for the fact that Jenks, very rightly because he is one of the finest motor racing journalists in the world, has a vast following... One is loath to resort to sensationalism to plead one’s case, but if motor racing is the poorer with fewer trees and more fire extinguishers round the Nurburgring (which we do not accept), it is infinitely the poorer without Martin Brain, Dick Brown, Richard Colley, Piers Courage, Denis Dayan, Jimmie Dunne, Hans Laine, Sigi Lang, Stuart MacQuarrie, Ido Marang, Bruce McLaren, Talmadge Prince, Jean-Luc Salamon, Herbert Schultze, Tom Sulman, Andre Willem or Derrick Williams. All these 17 drivers have died competing in events in the past four months.
‘Motor racing is a wonderful activity. We know it is dangerous, and the drivers take part in their chosen sport of their own free will. But to dress up these sombre statistics in romantic nonsense about ancient helmets and sleeveless shirts, and to call the reigning World Champion a “milkand-water” driver because he wants to reduce unnecessary risks, is criminal stupidity.’
But, as Jenkinson had also pointed out, not every member of the GPDA was in agreement with the boycott of the Nurburgring. As John Surtees told Autosport: ‘I think there’s a lot to be said for taking action to improve circuits. At the same time I believe there are ways to do things and ways not to do things. I think this year and possibly the year before have been ideal examples of the way not to do them. You cannot go along and give one example of a dangerous circuit. Personally, I consider that the Mexican Grand Prix was far more dangerous than racing on the Nurburgring.
‘Certain features of the Nurburgring can certainly be improved, but at the same time I think the way it was handled was disgraceful, especially the fact that it was only done a short while before the race, and I cannot agree with that. I can only agree with people who make a statement when the calendar is published and not when the season is here.”
Another who disagreed was Jacky Ickx, who resigned from the GPDA in September, explaining in the French paper, L’Equipe, that he was not against the views of the GPDA, but against their political methods and that he felt strongly against the part the GPDA played in the cancellation of the Belgian Grand Prix at his home circuit of Spa, and the removal of the German Grand Prix from the Nurburgring, a circuit on which he particularly shone, to Hockenheim.
And it was not until mid-September that GPDA President Jo Bonnier told a press conference in Paris that in June,1968, they had presented the organisers of the German GP with a list of modifications to the Nurburgring required to protect both drivers and spectators. In July 1970, they found that little more than 25% of the work had been done. Bonnier stated that had it been completed the GP would have been held at the Ring. When asked why some GP drivers, including himself, refused to drive Fl cars at Spa and the Nurburgring, yet were prepared to race 3-litre and 5-litre sports cars at similar speeds on the same circuits, Bonnier said he didn’t see the anomaly, and that sports cars had more protection in an accident than Fl cars.
There is no question that the GPDA was its own worst enemy in many ways, as Philip Turner noted in Motor, ‘When the GPDA was first formed, my old friend and rival Peter Gamier, who was then the secretary, used to put out a statement after every meeting on what had been discussed. Of late, however, the GPDA has become very secretive, so that unofficial leaks have replaced official statements with the result that the Association has gained some very bad publicity. If only the statement on the German GP had been issued last August instead of on September 15, then a great deal of confusion would have been avoided.’
Although Jo Bonnier, as President, was the spokesman for the GPDA, the driving force behind the boycott of the Nurburgring in 1970 was Jackie Stewart. From the beginning of his career he had become more and more concerned about the disregard of human life in motor racing. Safety was not really an issue, largely because when racing got going again after World War Two death had been such a commonplace for so long that people accepted it as part of daily life, so if you died doing what you really enjoyed - driving a racing car, for example - it was a much better way to go than being killed by an unseen enemy.
In the 1960s, however, that began to change and while it was accepted that danger was part and parcel of motor racing a few people decided that much of the danger was unnecessary and should be eliminated. Among the drivers Jackie Stewart was the leader of the band and he began a crusade within the GPDA, rightly pointing out that many men had died simply because the circuits left no room for driver error or mechanical breakage and had virtually no rescue or emergency medical facilities. Stewart in particular, an intelligent and eloquent advocate, was frequently vilified for his views, too often by journalists whose idea of taking a risk was putting a false claim on their expenses.
As we have seen, since racing had returned to the Ring after the war a good deal of cosmetic tidying up had been done, but nothing had been changed to deal with the ever-increasing speed of the cars, apart from putting the chicane in at Tiergarten. Speeds, however, had increased enormously: in 1958 Tony Brooks (Vanwall) had won the German GP at an average of 90.35 mph/145.8 kph and Stirling Moss (Vanwall) had set fastest lap at 92.9 mph/149.6 kph. In 1969 Jacky Ickx (Brabham-Ford) won at 108.4 mph/174.5 kph and set fastest lap at 110.134 mph/177.3 kph. The difference in both averages is almost 20 mph/32 kph, which is a very big difference indeed if you are having an accident and there are only trees and 50ft drops to slow you down.
Looking back after almost 35 years Sir Jackie Stewart recalls, “Nothing gave me more satisfaction than to win at the Nurburgring, but it was so, so dangerous. I never did a single lap more than I had to there. Many people say they love the Nurburgring. Well, they’re either telling lies or they never drove fast enough.
“The Ring is a great environmental area and I christened it Green Hell. It was a very scary place. There were not enough medical facilities or medical teams. The circuit was 23 kms long, but that is 46 in reality, as you have to service both sides of the track, so racing there just didn’t make sense any more.
“And 1970 was a terrible year. We lost Piers Courage, Bruce McLaren and others and it was obvious that the Ring was no longer suitable, because there were no barriers anywhere and the crash banks were launching pads. The GPDA had a meeting at the Dorchester Hotel in London in June, right after the memorial service for Bruce McLaren. I pushed very hard for us not to race at the Ring because, if we did, we would sabotage all the things we were trying to do at other circuits. The organisers would have said, ‘You want us to spend all this money, yet you still race at the Ring?’ It was a very difficult meeting, but we agreed to boycott the German GP and that was a very controversial decision which brought an immense amount of criticism from the media.”
It is interesting to note that Stewart alternated with Jacky Ickx as winner of the German GP at the Ring from 1968 to 1973: Stewart - Ickx - Stewart - Ickx - Stewart. Jackie hated it, whereas Jacky loved it, although he looks back on it with incredulity.
“With Spa, it was my favourite circuit, but in 2003 I went back and after 30 years I could hardly understand how someone reasonably intelligent could race on a course like th
at. You had to be a
maniac, a little bit crazy, but at the time it was absolutely normal. Now there has been such an evolution in safety that the circuit looks ridiculous, unbelievably narrow and unadapted for racing. At the time you really needed to be brave, young and stupid!”
Although he resigned from the GPDA over the Nurburgring affair, today Ickx acknowledges that he was broadly sympathetic to the Association's demands. «I never really joined the GPDA in a way (every GP driver was automatically made a member). I did not argue against the goals they were trying to reach, through Jackie Stewart, about cars and race course safety, but I was definitely against the way they were trying to reach those goals, such as banning the German GP six weeks before the race in 1970. I always agreed with the principle and appreciated what Jackie had done. He is responsible for where we are today in safety, he gave it the launch it needed. The GPDA was a good idea but, in the early days, the way they were ready to go on strike or boycott was not for me.»
At the time, many doubted that the German Grand Prix would ever return to the Nurburgring but, happily, in 1971 the teams assembled once again in the garage square of the fabulous Nordschleife. Ray Hutton described the changes to the circuit in Autocar: ‘A year ago not many people would have predicted with any confidence that the 1971 German Grand Prix would return to the Nurburgring. The 1970 race had been held at Hockenheim, following the drivers’ boycott of the Ring on safety grounds, and had been a considerable financial success. That the Grand Prix did return to its rightful home where it was first held in 1927 is to the great credit of the Nurburgring circuit owners.
‘Although the profile of the 170-odd corners themselves has been little changed, many of the more hazardous changes in camber have been corrected and the road flattened at such places as Brunnchen and the Flugplatz, where cars used to fly high in the air. A large section of the 14.2-mile ciruit has been resurfaced and mile upon mile of double-height Armco barrier erected. The changes have actually benefitted the spectator, for wherever trees have been felled there is generally a much better view than before and a number of new car parks has been laid out. The total cost of the work was nearly £800,000, but a large slice of this must have gone to the erection of a proper fence outside the spectator enclosures. The investment should have produced some extra profit, for a greater than usual proportion of the 250,000 spectators who are reported to have watched the race will have had to pay this year.