Dodgy Business

There's always a special frisson about Monte Carlo. Something fabulous about witnessing Grand Prix cars on the streets.

Toyota's Pascal Vasselon summed it up well. "Monaco is exceptional and even people who have been involved with F1 for several years are still amazed by the cars on this track," he says. "You are so close to them, with so many visual references. I'm always really enthusiastic about going there. At other circuits we are protected, a long way from the cars, with long run-off areas, and you tend to lose visual references. But at Monaco you really see and feel the performance."

Back in the days before every race was televised, we regularly saw just three per year - Monaco, Silverstone and Monza. Personally, two races cemented my fascination and then fanaticism for F1 - Silverstone '69 and Monaco '70.

Another thing Vasselon said about Monte Carlo that rings so true is that performance factors differ. The tyres and the drivers are more important. Chassis and engines still matter, but not so much. The simple explanation is that the average speeds are slow. From the engine point of view, most of the lap is tyre limited, and at lower speeds the aerodynamic package brings less performance than at a circuit like Barcelona.

Drivers then, matter. The aces tend to shine. Broadly-speaking, in recent years we've had Prost, Senna and Schumacher eras, although Michael hasn't won in the Principality since 2001, largely thanks to Michelin.

Jochen Rindt driving the Lotus 49 in the 1970 Monaco Grand Prix © LAT

But back in that 1970 season, Jochen Rindt was highly fancied behind the wheel of Colin Chapman's gorgeous Lotus 72. Except that they were reworking the suspension and at Monaco, therefore, Rindt had to race the old Lotus 49, by now a little long in the tooth.

Austrian journalist Heinz Pruller is still very much part of the F1 scene and back then he was working on a book with Jochen. The chapter on that Monaco race is fascinating and tells of a different era.

Neither Jochen, nor Chapman, it seemed, were particularly optimistic. On a rainy first day of practice Rindt and most of the others didn't think it worthwhile driving in the rain, and it was left to Jack Brabham to splosh around on his own. Rindt said it would be a different matter if it was wet in the race, but he wasn't going to drive in the wet if he didn't have to.

A lot more fun, he thought, was taking out a speed boat as high winds whipped up the sea. He was warned that it looked too rough but grinned that that was why he wanted to go. He took Piers Courage with him, much to the disgust of Piers' wife Sally, who berated her husband for going anywhere with "that lunatic Jochen." A month later, Piers would die at Zandvoort and four months later Jochen himself became the sport's only posthumous world champion, when he was killed in Saturday practice at Monza. But, for now, they were both intent on living life to the full.

Rindt was managed by Bernie Ecclestone and only the day before had taken Bernie's private pilot for a wild ride in the speedboat, and the poor chap had broken his leg when he lost his balance... The speedboat belonged to an ocean-going yacht that Rindt and Ecclestone had chartered for Monaco. Back then, it cost less than $10,000 (USD) for the whole month!

If Rindt himself had not seemed particularly focused, Chapman was not in the Principality at all on the first day - he and wife Hazel had tickets to see Frank Sinatra in London...

On Saturday, Rindt was feeling the after effects of sleeping on the pitching boat and was still green around the gills when he turned up for qualifying. He was almost two seconds slower than Jackie Stewart and qualified eighth. The Lotus mechanics changed the shocks and the gear ratios, put new rubber on, and the 49 was a different animal on race day. But, from eighth, Jochen wasn't expecting much.

Jack Brabham in the 1970 Monaco Grand Prix © LAT

On race day, Jack Brabham was a guest of Rindt and Ecclestone for lunch. Rindt told his wife Nina that he stood no chance 'starting eighth in a slow car.' Chapman, who knew that Rindt would give his all if he sniffed a victory, also knew that the Austrian would not put himself out for no reward. He was actually worried about Rindt's motivation from the middle of the 16-car grid and thought he might actually park up if things weren't going well. He told Jochen not to come back to the pits unless it was on foot!

Stewart led, but suddenly started to sound rough and stopped to change the transistor box, Jackie Ickx broke a drive shaft and Jean-Pierre Beltoise his gearbox. Rindt outbraked Henri Pescarolo to take fourth and was behind Brabham, Chris Amon and Denny Hulme. Both Kiwis had problems. Hulme had to hold first gear in and Rindt passed him around half distance. He went through into second place when Amon broke an engine mounting.

Brabham was 15 seconds up the road. There had been no indication that Rindt had race-winning pace up to then. He later said that the brakes had not felt good with full tanks but that the car came good as the race went on.

He immediately upped the pace to challenge Brabham, but his 44-year-old lunch guest responded. So Rindt went quicker still and as they started the penultimate lap, he was 2.5 seconds behind. He caught Brabham a third of the way round the last lap but this being Monaco, there should have been no way by.

As they caught tail-enders in the closing stages of the lap, however, Brabham, rattled, locked up and went straight on at the Hairpin. The startled Clerk of the Course failed to drop the chequered flag when Rindt's Lotus flashed across the line. Jochen's last lap was a 1:23.2. Stewart's pole time was 1:24.0...

Some of those who complain about the lack of overtaking or close racing in F1 today, don't actually know what it was like before they were born. Back then, the grids were smaller and the racing nowhere near as close or as intense. But, in 1970, that Monaco GP made fantastic television, just as Silverstone had in '69.

Poor Brabham went on to lose the British GP to Rindt a couple of months later, also on the last lap when he ran out of fuel. But that Monaco win was the first of '70 for Rindt and once the 72 was sorted, he won at Zandvoort (the race in which his friend Courage, run by Frank Williams, died), Clermont Ferrand, Brands Hatch and Hockenheim.

Jochen Rindt © LAT

Rindt was already worried about safety and just a couple of weeks before Courage, Bruce McLaren had been killed testing a CanAm car at Goodwood. Jochen, the king of F2, went to a race in France in the aftermath and finished only ninth. A couple of F3 drivers were killed at the same meeting and Rindt started to think a lot about stopping. He and Nina had a two-year-old daughter and Nina also wanted him to quit.

He talked it over with Ecclestone, and Bernie told him, poignantly, that if he was thinking of stopping, he should do it immediately because you can't plan for an accident. Jochen thought it was wrong to stop mid-season but vowed to announce his retirement the moment he won the championship, although some say he had already agreed terms with Chapman for one more year.

Rindt was expected to clinch it at Monza but the Lotus suddenly swerved left under braking for the Parabolica on Saturday afternoon, hit the barrier and bank and Rindt, who never wore crutch straps, was fatally injured. McLaren, Courage, and now Rindt, all within three months.

That Monaco race brought Rindt's greatness to prominence and, writing the introduction for Pruller's book, Jackie Stewart said: "There are only two drivers I have driven against who I consider truly great: Jimmy (Clark) and Jochen."

Although now, as then, there's seldom much overtaking at Monaco, there are still fantastic performances. As Vasselon said, it never fails to excite. Maybe someone will produce a Rindt drive this Sunday. The sport is still gladiatorial but, and I sincerely hope I'm not tempting fate, the great thing is that while today's heroes know there is risk, they are not starting with negative odds of making it through to their pipe and slippers.