Sir Jackie Stewart admits he was lucky to survive F1 career after tragic deaths of rivals – The Mirror

His Formula 1 career produced an unprecedented level of success – but also a tremendous amount of pain.

By the time Friend Jackie Stewart ended his racing profession in 1973 he had won more races than anybody else had ever managed. A record associated with 27 wins and 43 podiums from 99 starts helped the particular petrolhead through Dunbartonshire to three world championships before he quit the sport.

Why retire then? Put simply, the risk of carrying on was too great. Motorsport remains a dangerous pastime today even despite the abundance of safety measures in place – back in Stewart’s day, every driver really was risking their life whenever they clambered into their cars.

” In those days the number of fatalities was huge, it was ridiculous, ” the 83-year-old told Mirror Sport . inch The race tracks themselves experienced never been changed since before the Second World War. No run-off areas, nothing.

“The cockpits associated with our vehicles meant we were sitting on our fuel tanks the whole time, right down in order to your knees. It was a different world, yet we didn’t know any better. Even then, Formula 1 was the particular fastest technology in the world, but it was very dangerous. ”

Of course , Stewart survived his career, but not without some close calls. One of the crashes which remains vivid in his memory was at the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix – it proved to be something of a watershed moment, encouraging the Scot in order to advocate for more safety measures to be taken in a sport which was, at the particular time, hopelessly devoid of them.

” I had the big shunt at Spa, because the race track was ridiculously unprotected, inch he recalled. ” I knocked down a telegraph pole and went in to a woodcutter’s hut. We ended up trapped inside a farmyard. [Fellow drivers] Graham Hill plus Bob Bondurant got me out of the car and it took them 30 minutes – there were no marshals at all.

“I has been soaked within fuel. I actually got Graham to take all my clothes off because I was going in and out associated with consciousness plus I had been burning. It was a much higher octane fuel compared to today. Then, I had been lying naked upon the floor while these people tried to get some marshals, ambulances and there was nothing. They had to get tools through spectators’ cars to obtain me out,

“The medical centre has been ridiculous, cigarette ends on the ground. After that, I had a specialist who had been good at resuscitation as well as everything else. He came to every race I went to. ” And that was not the particular only change he made – in the following years he organised driver boycotts of races at Spa and Germany’s Nurburgring within the push to improve safety.

This individual managed in order to achieve this, but at some personal cost. Stewart said: “I was very unpopular because of it – I got death threats. People were coming to my house and banging on the doors. We had a big gate we had to fill in to make sure people couldn’t get through.

“For a lot of people it was because: ‘Motor racing is dangerous, so why aren’t you race? ‘ Our death rate was horrendous and, within a major accident, you never stopped. You drove through the flames. With Piers Courage’s incident, I knew it has been him due to the fact his helmet had come off and it was on the side of the track.

“It was a very big thing against me personally, as president of the GPDA at the time. But it was the right thing to do and it changed the particular whole element of motor racing safety in my period. I’m proud associated with that. inch

Despite their efforts plus the progress made upon safety features, the fatalities continued. Jochen Rindt died in a crash during practice in the 1970 Italian Grand Prix – the same 12 months he became the first and only racer to posthumously win the world championship. The particular crash which killed the Austrian was your only one which, by Stewart’s own admission, elicited an outwardly emotional response from the Scot.

After declaring he “absolutely” feels fortunate to have made it his own race career, Stewart said: “Death was therefore close plus so often. And we saw this in the worst circumstances. At Monza, when Jochen passed away, I wasn’t on the accident, I used to be in the pits at the particular time.

“But I had been told he had an accident and We went to see [Rindt’s wife] Nina and I said: ‘I’ll go see him and find out, don’t worry about it’. I actually did go to see him yet he got already died. He was in the back of a truck, the trailer, with no cover over your pet.

“In Italy, nobody was allowed to die at a race monitor because if they will did, the whole weekend had to stop – that was the particular law. So Jochen passed away ‘en-route in order to hospital’, the same as [Ayrton] Senna. But they were dead.

“I proceeded to go back and Ken [Tyrrell] said: ‘Right Jackie, you’ve got to go away and qualify’. I went out and am burst directly into tears getting into the vehicle – I am not emotional normally – and then I went out plus put within the fastest lap I actually put within at Monza.

“I put myself on the front row, second fastest to [Clay] Regazzoni’s Ferrari, and I came back in after four laps and burst into tears again getting out of the car. This was the only time it ever affected me, since I acquired never gone to the driver before and he was a really good friend. ”

How can someone who saw so many associated with his friends and fellow drivers die while racing have only been impacted by one of them? “I learned to manage emotion, ” he responded simply. “I can’t think of anybody I know who’s already been to a lot more funerals than I have, but it was an important thing in order to do. Francois Cevert, for example , would in no way go to a funeral – this individual was frightened of them. It was a very tough time. ”

The Frenchman, Cevert, was a great friend of Stewart. Yet he has been another who lost their life in a crash – it had been that incident which led to Stewart never ever taking to the start line for what was due to be his 100th and final Great Prix.

Despite all the tragedy, many of their memories associated with his race days are much more positive. He remembered the great friendships this individual had with obvious enthusiasm and wore a smile on his face whenever reminiscing regarding an era of the sport which will be barely recognisable compared to nowadays.

Stewart said: “The camaraderie had been fantastic – we all travelled together. Nowadays, everybody has helicopters and private plans waiting for them and they have their own motorhomes these days where they’ve got a shower room plus a massage room. In those days, we had been in the back of the truck!

“But the camaraderie was really close. The girls, Helen was doing the land charting and the timekeeping for the team. That was what all of the wives and girlfriends do, it was part plus parcel associated with the business. That created the Doghouse Club, where all the particular girls could go between practice and the competition, so all the girls were friends as well as the drivers. It’s different today.

“And of course we had been driving GT cars, Can-Am cars, IndyCars, Touring vehicles – you drove every thing to make a few money, because it was small within comparison in order to today, really small. I did 69 crossings of the Atlantic 1 year due to IndyCar plus doing television in America and so forth, because well since still racing.

“The entire thing has been different. Within 1971 We made £1m for the particular first period in a season. What do [Max] Verstappen and Lewis [Hamilton] make now? Huge money! And that’s good, I’m glad. By the end I was making good cash too. Times have changed. ”

All of those friendships, successes and heartbreaks make up a new documentary from Atmosphere. STEWART, a film executive produced by the race legend’s son Mark, begins with him as the youngster driving his Austin A30 in the Scottish Highlands – the car he bought with the money he earned serving petrol at the local garage.

From there it takes in their racing career, his marriage to his devoted and beloved wife Helen plus the severe dyslexia which left your pet unable to read and write – even when traveling to their world championships.

“When a person see this, take a hanky along with you, inch Stewart advised Mirror Sports activity. “Prince Albert came in order to the very first viewing of it within Monaco plus he sat on a single side of me and [F1 chief executive] Stefano Domenicali had been on the other. Both associated with them were in holes.

“I don’t know anyone who’s seen it who hasn’t had the weep. It can been beautifully done. I think it will certainly be the best motor racing film ever made – and am had absolutely nothing to do with this! I didn’t even know it was being produced, to begin with. It had been finished, almost, before I actually knew. ”

STEWART will be shown upon Sky documentaries and streaming service NOW on December 30.