The Safety Perspective

It was a drizzly night as we made our way home from the circuit. We came out through an unfamiliar exit, just blindly following the signs until we hit the main road. Traffic was light but the roads were kind of spooky - unfamiliar fast curves between the trees seen through the wiper strokes, occasional buildings up close to the road, detail smeared through the glass, demister struggling to keep up.

Then through the mist it loomed, a double right-hand kink, very solid white-painted farm building picked out by the headlights tight up to the left-hand kerb on the exit. It was a vista familiar from countless '50s and '60s motor racing pictures: Masta Kink. We were on the old Spa circuit.

No longer was I in the passenger seat of a road car but inside Chris Amon's March 701 on the last lap of the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix, Pedro Rodriguez's BRM P153 the only thing between me and my first grand prix victory. I wanted to know, looking at this curve: was it feasible to take it flat in top?

Instantly, I thought, 'Yes, do it! Flat.' It was close enough to feasibility to allow desire to disregard the enormous peril, ignore the lethal roadside furniture as irrelevant (all imagined from the passenger seat of a prosaic road car, remember). Oh dear... I'd briefly crossed my sanity line there, briefly crossed over to the dark side.

Probably like a lot of you, I've been touched by the insanity of the racing car cockpit and part of it remains forever imprinted on me. I don't do it now, the pull of the drug fading, the flashbacks more or less under control. Things are different to the real world inside a cockpit. Inside there, nothing else exists and there is no danger, only desire.

No matter how much the logical part of your brain tells you about risk, another wholly illogical part smothers it, convinces you absolutely that you personally will be fine, that the danger is for other people and nothing to do with you. You made the choice when you climbed inside this cockpit, this world.

Anything else no longer counts and is therefore discarded. On some level you even convince your logical brain it would be more logical if it just checked out now and left you alone while you did this - that that would be the safest course of action.

There's only the occasional reminder now. In fact Masta was only the second time this year it'd been triggered for me. The other time was in Bahrain airport where a Lotus 72 was on display. Standing looking at it, the danger of its design compared to a modern F1 car was very, very obvious.

Not much more than a piece of fibreglass for protection to feet, front wishbones just asking to be mashed into your legs in any serious impact, flimsy low cockpit, delicate construction, fuel surrounding your torso, engine bolted almost to your seat back. It was appalling, barbaric. How could this have been just 35 years ago?

Then you bend over and look up close into the cockpit, catch the whiff of fuel fumes as you do so. There's the simple little steering wheel, gearshift a couple of inches to the right, reassuring little Smiths dials and suddenly you're in a different world.

No, this is fine, a voice tells you. From down here you can feel that you've got this cosy cockpit surrounding you that will protect you in any eventuality. It's plenty safe enough. Let's get in, let's go.

Then you stand back again - and you're appalled. How could you think that's anything other than lethal? Bend down again - it's fine, come on, strap yourself in, push the starter button. Stand back - that's insane, you idiot. There's an invisible insanity line and it's about a metre away from the cockpit. You can stand inside or outside it at will and the effect is instantaneous.

On Friday the second F1 practice session was rained out. No-one completed a lap, only three drivers came out of the pitlane, and one of those then crashed heavily. Even the current Spa - let alone the pre-'71 iteration - looks a scary place in the rain.

Standing around in their garages, drivers had plenty of time to ponder the risk should they be required to race in these conditions. But these were the logical, reasoned people that were standing away from the insanity line surrounding the cockpits. Afterwards,

Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button and David Coulthard all expressed the view that they shouldn't race if conditions were like this on Sunday.

F1 races have been held in Spa rain for years. Yes, it looks extra terrifying with a train of cars heading into Eau Rouge in sixth gear in a ball of spray, visibility near-zero, but it's always been an accepted part of the job, has never before raised the possibility of being considered too dangerous.

That rained out Friday session had allowed the drivers to be outside the insanity line of their cockpits while still focused on the track for just a little too long. Had they been inside that invisible line, in the car, dealing with the conditions, it's doubtful whether the thought of not racing would even have occurred.