Throwback Thursdays: "1"

Senna was brilliant, Rush will hopefully live up to the hype, soon a new documentary about Formula One's transformation years will be released online.

"1" directed by  Paul Crowder, focuses on the period between the late 70s and early 80s when Formula One changed from sport circus to commercial circus and it realized a key factor crucial for good F1 business was stopping its stars from getting killed every season.

F1's reluctant march towards safety history has been covered many times before but, as with "Senna", this film looks like it might be a more artful telling of what was a crucial process for the sport.

Narrated by Michael Fassbender and featuring most of the top mames in the sport, "1" will be available for download on iTunes October 1 2013
(h/t WTF1)

Throwback Thursday: Niki Lauda's Early Years

Niki Lauda driving a BMW 3.0 CSL in the DRM

I thought it might be of interest, with the imminent release of Ron Howard's Rush to have a look at Lauda's early racing career.   Granted, this documentary is pretty lame but it does show Lauda racing BMW sedans and CSL's in the early 70s something many might not know he did.

Lauda's involvement with BMW continued throughout his F1 career, he was the winner of the inaugural BMW M1 Procar season in 1979.
Lauda, as you might imagine he would, remains pretty handy behind the wheel in his later years, winning a Procar revival race in 2008.

Throwback Thursdays: 1962 Belgian Grand Prix

This long summer break probably feels like a short blip for those working on F1 teams but it endless for fans now used to a race almost every week end.



But it wasn't always so, in 1962 the Formula One calendar had only nine races, The Belgian Grand Prix on the old 14 km Spa circuit was the third race of a season that was a complete debacle for Ferrari and the marked the rise of British teams, Graham Hill won the championship for BRM but it was Lotus, with it's revolutionary 25 monocoque driven by Jim Clark who would change F1 forever.


Video after the break...

Throwback Thursdays: 1971 Spanish GP in Montjuic

They ran in the morning because people had bullfights to go to in the afternoons!