May 9, 2014

That moment when you realize you just stuffed a Lotus 49 at St.Devote.

Photo: Brando Cairone
A collective "nooooooooo" rose from all in the stands around St. Devote when Chris MacAllister stuffed his immaculate 1967 Lotus 49 into the barriers.   It happened on the first flying lap of practice for the 9th Monaco Historic Grand Prix on Friday.

Tough one for Mac Allister but you might not want to be is a member of his pit crew tonight as it looked to me the front right came off, just before the crash.

This particular car is of enormous historical importance:  it was in this car that the Ford Cosworth DFV engine made its debut, with a win at Zandvoort with Jim Clark.   Clark later drive this chassis to a win at Silverstone as well as in the US and Mexican Grand Prix.

Hopefully there are spares on hand to fix this amazing car before Sunday's race.


11 comments:

  1. it would seem the more money you have to afford these classic beauties, the less skill you have to handle them.. they were very tricky cars to drive back in the day and should only be driven by professional drivers who know what they are doing. Im sure it can be repaired to its former glory but this incident is still a crying shame nonetheless..

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  2. The ghost of Jim Clark just kicked this guy in the ass, the ghost of Colin Chapman just kicked this guy in the ball sack, and the ghost of Graham Hill just gave this guy a wet willy. I would have liked to have seen Johnny Herbert or Nigel Mansell navigating that Lotus around the principality. They would have been worthy of that seat, not this numbskull.

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  3. First off, I have nothing but respect for all of these guys who put these cars at risk rather than leaving them sitting in a garage. Second, sure looked to me like his front right came off and that's why he went into the wall, not because he blew the corner.

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  4. There are certainly some drivers who are out for a bit of a Sunday drive but many are quite skilled and some are REALLY quick!

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  5. Maldonado - "I crashed...sorry."

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  6. Sad to see it bent...but it being raced - what it was built to do - is infinitely better than having it locked up in a garage.

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  7. This is Alex MacAllister, Chris's son. Dad is unhurt, luckily. We discovered the right front wheel nut on the front straight of the track Friday evening, and have confirmed that the wheel nuts were torqued to a lower than required setting by Classic Team Lotus, who was helping us run/maintain the car this weekend.

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  8. This is Alex MacAllister once again :) if it is possible, I would prefer to delete the content of my previous comment regarding Classic Team Lotus' involvement with the car

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  9. Footage of the crash (not very clear, but footage nevertheless):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8q2D1S9VM8

    Note the spillage when the car is liften from the ground.

    There were multiple historic F1 cars being plowed into walls:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWNxCQqVC8

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuHuDIBbOl4

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  10. Hear those engines fellas? Do you hear that? This is why I love the raw fan footage of GP's on YouTube. Those are thirty and forty year old F1 engines! Those are real Formula 1 cars back when Formula 1 was real Formula 1. Not this we're gonna save the planet cause we run eco-friendly F1 cars eighteen or nineteen weekends a year. We've been robbed folks. We've been robbed. The idiots have taken over our ship.

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  11. + 1,000
    Carlos Ghosn is an arrogant @ss

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