Remembering Monaco's darkest day

By common consent Stirling Moss, defying attacks from Ferrari, drove his greatest race in Monaco in 1961. It was not, though, Phil Hill or Wolfgang von Trips who put him under the greatest pressure, but the team's third driver, Richie Ginther.

"Stirling was the greatest I ever saw," Ginther said. "And that was my best race, but it drove me nuts when the mechanics kept giving me this board, 'Ginther - give all'. What the hell did they think I was giving?!"

Towards the end of the race six years later, Ferrari gave similar messages to Lorenzo Bandini as he chased Denny Hulme, and Margherita, his widow, has a clear memory of his last time past the pits: "He took both hands off the wheel, as if to say, 'I can't do any more...'"

This was lap 82 of 100, and at the exit of the chicane - then a dauntingly fast left-right flick - Bandini's Ferrari hit the strawbales, then somersaulted and came to rest upside down, instantly engulfed in flames.

It is Sunday May 7, as I write, and 50 years to the day since this seminal accident in motor racing history - long, long, ago, and still I shudder at the memory of that afternoon.

A few years after the accident Chris Amon, Bandini's team-mate at the time, told me he thought the race should have been stopped. And that was quite a radical thought, for back then they didn't stop a race for any reason: as the inept marshals struggled to rescue Bandini the cars continued to circulate.

"I went past the fire several times," said Amon, "and at first I thought two cars were involved, because strawbales were also burning. I realised it was Lorenzo, because I could see a gold wheel, and in the smoke and chaos I was looking for him, but couldn't see him - it never occurred to me he could still be in it. There didn't seem much activity around the car, so I assumed he'd got out alright - it wasn't until after the race that I realised he hadn't."

Giancarlo Baghetti was spectating at the chicane, and at Monza years later told me he was still haunted by the experience. "Unless there was a car coming past," he said, "all you could hear was Lorenzo screaming."

The marshals - one of whom never removed the pipe from his mouth - had only ropes with which to right the car, and none had any fireproof clothing. Five minutes went by before the car was turned over, and the driver literally manhandled from the cockpit. As they carried him away, a TV helicopter fanned the fire into life again. Unprotected, the marshals ran clear, dropping Bandini as they did so.

It was, in sum, a scene from Hades. With no means of getting an ambulance to the area, eventually the hapless driver was taken across the harbour on a launch, thence to the Princess Grace Clinic, where three days later he died.

The following weekend, Tony Brooks wrote a piece for The Observer, entitled, 'The Cruel Death of Lorenzo Bandini'. "Fire," Brooks said, "is the consuming dread of the racing driver. To be killed outright is one thing; to be burned to the point of death is the supreme horror."

Bandini had gone to Monaco with high hopes, having finished second there the two previous years. Partnering Amon, he had recently won the Daytona 24 Hours and the Monza 1000km, and his star was in the ascendancy, as Chris acknowledged: "I really thought Lorenzo was on the point of going from good to great."

John Surtees, Bandini's previous team-mate, also reckoned him highly: "Lorenzo was very underrated. After leaving Ferrari, I joined Cooper with Rindt - your first rival is always your team-mate, and to me Jochen and Lorenzo were about the same."

In Monaco, Bandini started from the front row, but when Jack Brabham blew up on the first lap, and unfathomably continued round to the pits, Lorenzo - leading - was the first to find the oil, and as he sorted out a big moment Hulme and Jackie Stewart both got by. Though Denny's nimble Brabham took him on to his first grand prix victory, there was no joy in his face as he went to the Royal Box.

The day after the race Bandini had been due to fly with Amon to Indianapolis, where both had drives in the 500, but now Chris travelled alone. "I stayed an extra day in Monaco, but Lorenzo wasn't allowed any visitors. When I got to Indy on the Wednesday they told me he had died."

Fifty years ago, the Monaco Grand Prix was a very different event from now. For one thing, run over 100 laps, it lasted more than two-and-a-half hours; for another, with a conventional gearshift you had only one hand on the wheel half the time; for a third, you had no power-steering.

"I think Lorenzo was exhausted," said Amon. "It was a heavy car, that Ferrari, and hard work round there. I was more tired at the end of that race than any other I can remember - it was a hot day, but I was actually shivering because I was so dehydrated.

"For most of the race Lorenzo had been going quite a bit quicker, but for a while he'd been missing gearchanges, clipping kerbs and so on. It wasn't a big mistake he made - he was a few inches out, clipped the entry to the chicane, and that was it..."

The charismatic Bandini was an immensely popular member of the Formula 1 fraternity, and his accident had a profound effect. "It disgusted everyone," said Amon, "that they made such a bloody mess of trying to put the fire out.

"As well as that, they'd ignored our request for guardrails on the harbourfront, and just had strawbales there. After the accident, of course, they did put guardrails in - if we'd had them in '67 Lorenzo would have got away without a scratch..."