M.Lawrenson

It really hasn't been a good week for cricketers, that's the third one this week Possibly followed soon by Darrell Hair. Either strung up by himself, the ICC, or Inzamam-ul-Haq.

Or they could attach an oven to the car (possibly using the excess heat generated by the engine) and using the telemetry computer to shoot a pie out of the airbox every time a driver gets a fastest lap in. The first one to eat all the pies will be declared the winner. Overtaking would, of course, be impossible due to the sheer width of the chassis.

Why is Prost still on that row of pics? Surely by not being in the first 3 races he's made his intentions clear as far as GP Masters goes. Shame to see Laffite disappear - at 63 he was the most likely driver to die of old age in a racing car. Can't see where they could dig up more 'noteworthy' drivers for GP Masters. Of the last century's F1 title winners : 1998-99 - Mika Hakkinen (not quite old enough) 1997 - Jacques Villeneuve (still only 35, though his open wheel career has probably ended) 1996 - Damon Hill (too busy, too rich, and couldn't wait to retire in his last season anyway) 1994-95 - some German git who's name I forget 1986-96, 1989, 1993 - Prost, see above 1992 - Mansell 1988, 1990-91 - Ayrton Senna (I hear he has a good excuse) 1981, 1983, 1987 - Nelson Piquet (down on paper as saying GP Masters is stupid) 1975, 1977, 1984 - Niki Lauda (a medical basket case who wouldn't be let near GPM, even if he wanted to be) 1982 - Keke Rosberg (oddly silent, as far as I'm aware. After all, being too unfit hasn't stopped several others) 1980 - Alan Jones (actually, it did stop him) 1979 - Jody Schecker (happy enough to wave the chequered flag at Kylami, but busy with his organic farm) 1978 - Mario Andretti (probably would be up for it, but getting on a bit at 66)

As far as driver fatalities go, Monaco is one of the safer tracks. Even in the old days of the 1930s no-one ended up with anything more than a smashed up hips (there's a wince-inducing picture of Rudolf Caracciola being carried from an accident in a dining chair of all things). Thing is, the cars never really go fast as there's no room to accelerate. Monaco lap speeds average at about 98mph, as opposed to Monza which is about 150mph. Alberto Ascari even put his car into the harbour in 1955 and lived. The only driving fatality to date at Monaco was Lorenzo Bandini in 1967. He'd been hauling his heavy steering Ferrari around the streets of Monte Carlo in second place for 80 laps and was probably exhausted. He got it wrong at the harbour on lap 81 and clipped the straw bales (put there to stop cars doing an Ascari). Bandini's car turned over and burst into flames. By the time they put it out, Bandini had been in the fire for about 4 minutes - a long time at petrol burning temperature. And he was still alive when they got him out. Lorenzo Bandini died in hospital three days later of his appalling burns. It would have been better to let him die at the accident scene, one feels. I've seen much horrible and gruesome footage of the accident and it's aftermath, and I hope that when they got him to the burns unit at Monte Carlo hospital, they dressed him simply in bandages and gave him all the morphine in the Principality.

I presume the track surface wasn't damaged enough to cause postponement of the race. They cleared up the wrecks, took the injured to the hospital (some spectators got flash burns), and the dead to the morgue. The Indianapolis 500 is stopped for no dead driver (not even 2-time winner Bill Vukovich who was killed while leading the 1955 race). Sign of the times, perhaps. Even today, did they cancel that race because Paul Dana was killed? Yes I know he died officially 2 hours after his crash, but even if he was alive after they freed him from the wreck the medical team must have known he was beyond help.

Haven't been here for a few days, but I felt my ears bu...actually, it's probably best not to say this given this topic. The Sachs-McDonald crash was truly horrendous. I remember seeing the photos of the fire and smoke plume and thought it was a Photoshop creation. One pic I found was this. The car McDonald was driving should never been let near an Indy 500 grid. It's build quality left much to be desired, and it's handling qualities scared several drivers off from the race. McDonald was a sportscar ace, but an Indy rookie. But he managed to get the thing qualified. In the above picture, the sidepods (unusual in 1960s racing cars) were the fuel tanks. Each held (IIRC) 40 gallons of petrol. During the second lap, McDonald's car got away from him, and went side on into the wall, with obvious results. Most of the cars following went right through the flames, but Eddie Sachs was unlucky enough to hit McDonald's car. He was killed instantly. McDonald, sadly, lived for another 2 hours. This is a quote from article about another driver involved in the accident, Johnny Rutherford : The main effect this accident had on future races was that Indycars were only allowed to run on methanol fuel and not petrol (gasoline). Methanol isn't quite as effective a fuel, but it's an awful lot less volatile and any flames (provided you can see them) can be quickly extinguished with water. In a final note, IRL cars in 2008 will run on ethanol (bit like me, really)...

John Profumo dead at 91

Nope it's based more on the fact that in 10 years he's risen more slowly than other drivers, he's never handled F1 power in this kind of company before and he's driving a four year old car. Japanese bit isn't here or there. A rookie in a milk float is the issue. If the leaders are going to collide with a backmarker statistically speaking it's likely to be him because he's the first one they'll catch. Having looked at the dismal roll-call of F1 driver deaths enough times, I can confirm that a rookie driver is more likely (statistically speaking) to be killed racing than a regular or a veteran. Ide's racing CV looks alarmingly like that of Roland Ratzenberger (the driver who was killed during the 1994 San Marino GP the day before Ayrton Senna). This is, of course, assuming he can actually qualify the shed-on-wheels that is the Super Aguri within 107% of the pole position time (otherwise they won't let him on the grid come race day). And yes, I am still here

Riccardo Patrese won 6 GPs, as I recall... De Cesaris should have won at least twice. HJ Stuck had a long, distinguished, and successful career in sportscars after realizing the F1 game was up for him before he was 29. Now, if you really want to have a go at GP Masters, you should concentrate on the likes of Christian Danner and Eliseo Salazar. Danner got one 4th place after everyone else broke down in the 1989 US GP. All Salazar ever did was get punched (on live TV) when he took Nelson Piquet off while being lapped in the 1982 German GP. Piquet (left) discusses driving technique with Salazar (right)

The man is still alive, but the moustache, sadly, died long ago.

He may have sung 'I'm Ready', but he sure as hell isn't yet...

Put it this way, the stronger and younger Christopher Reeve lived 11 (?) years after his accident. Curtis Mayfield managed 9. Frank, so far, has managed 19. Before his accident Williams was a fitness fanatic, even running around GP circuits during race meetings. He still keeps a vigourous exercise program to circumvent the bodily deterioration that usually occurs as a result of quadroplegia. However, he's 63 now and it's presumably getting more and more difficult to keep going.

Surprisingly, I'm not actually the same M.Lawrenson who played for Liverpool in the 1980s . I'm his third cousin once removed (or something), and we were born in the same town. I thank him for being a respected professional footballer in the 1980s while I was at school ( I hate to think about the unfortunates at school today called L.Bowyer, R.Savage, C.Bellamy and what they must go through). Some snippets of info about some of those on the 75+ list : (9) John Fitch was the co-driver of the Mercedes that Pierre Levegh had his infamous accident in (though of course he never got to drive it). (13) Hans Klenk co-drove a sports car in a long distance South American race, and hit a vulture with the windscreen. The windscreen was destroyed and replaced with welded iron bars, while Klenk had to drive the rest of the race blood-splattered and with a car full of vulture parts (with obvious consequences in a South American summer). He won. (22) Al Pease, despite being in his late 40s, raced a thoroughly outdated car in the 1969 Canadian GP. He remains the only driver in F1 history to be disqualified during a race for being too slow. (27) Froilan Gonzalez won the 1951 British GP in a Ferrari, despite looking like the unlikeliest ever racing driver. (33) Pete Lovely was not in 'Wacky Races' - that was Peter Perfect. Lovely bought a Lotus 49 and proceeded to enter a few GPs in 1969-70, usually not qualifying or finishing so far behind that he was not classified. For 1971, he got a Lotus 69 and did just as well. (35) Maria Teresa de Fillipis is one of only 4 women to ever qualify for an F1 GP. (39) Phil Hill, of course, was the 1961 F1 champion, winning the title after Wolfgang von Trips crashed in the Italian GP killing himself and 14 spectators. (43) Hans Hermann won Le Mans in 1970, and also, in crashing in the 1959 German GP, was the subject of one of the most spectacular racing photos ever taken : He walked away. Honest, I've got a video clip that proves it...

As mentioned in another thread, I'm working out a list of the oldest F1/GP drivers. I've done the raw data after trawling through grandprix.com and FORIX, just needs some cosmetic work : http://www.planet-cutie.co.uk/seventy_five_plus.htm

Bizarre stuff there. I remember Channel 4 News reporter Gaby Rado, and some actress from Holby City dying in very similar circumstances.

The oldest living Grand Prix driver is Paul Pietsch, who celebrated his 94th birthday last month. He still works at his publishing company, and is in good health. I really must make a proper list of oldest living GP drivers - Froilan Gonzalez, Toulo de Graffenreid etc. There's more than you might think, but if you can survive motor racing in the 1950s you can survive anything...

To be honest, I thought he died years ago (I remember reading about him having cancer a long time ago when he was still slightly famous). Don't like his music, but he must be a top man for living with cancer for 16 years.

Let's see a typical picture of AdC. 1985 Austrian GP : As he told his team boss - "The car died."

Higgins will outlive us all. He's 'beaten' throat cancer (probably no tumour could live long in that body) and is still smoking away. His booze intake is legendarily still the same as ever. And that's only the legal substances... He OD'd on headache pills sometime in the 1980s, and somehow his liver managed to process them all and he recovered in days. Someone should get his DNA sequenced so we can see if immortality lies in his genes.

The old rocker's sweepstakes stands like this Chuck Berry - b. 18th Oct 1926 (78) Fats Domino - b. 26th Feb 1928 (77) Bo Diddley - b. 30th Dec 1928 (76) Jerry Lee Lewis - b. 29th Sep 1935 (69) Little Richard - b. 5th Dec 1935 (69) As far as I know, they're all still performing.

I had read somewhere (probably Q magazine) that he'd set up cameras in the womens' toilets in a restaurant he owns and had in his possession videotapes recorded from the above cameras. 'Alleged' is covering both the forum's and my backs. Can Chuck manage to do his patented 'duck walk' these days?

Damaged lung tissues can regenerate quite a bit, much better than kidney tissues. True. Lauda had his accident on the Sunday, was critically ill on Monday, had the last rites on Tuesday, was sitting up on Wednesday, was out of bed Thursday, and was walking around the hospital by Friday. Lungs heal quicker because the body realises they're vital for immediate survival. Skin on the other hand, is another thing. Lauda raced in the Italian GP less than 6 weeks after his accident. He finished 4th. And after the race, he removed his helmet and his balaclava, and some of his skin grafts came off with it. The season ending race in Japan was run in torrential rain. Despite only needing to finish higher than James Hunt in the race to take the champoinship, he pulled in after one lap. Lauda considered it stupid to race in conditions where you couldn't see a thing, especially when his eyelids still weren't working properly after being almost burned off. He was nearly crucified by the Italian press for admitting he was scared. Niki Lauda may look short and scrawny, but he's a hard, hard man. Oh and thanks for the plaudits everyone. Though I'm not sure I deserve them. Some people on the Atlas F1 forums have forgotten more than I'll ever know of motor racing

Odd. I always thought Lauda's lungs would have gone first, considering his years of smoking and his near-fatal accident at the Nurburgring in 1976. It was lung damage that nearly killed him - his burns looked bad because they were on his face. But it was the fact he'd inhaled smoke, fumes, extinguisher powder etc. that severely impaired his lungs ability to take up oxygen. It was so bad that he was read the last rites in hospital. Lauda now says it was this that made him survive because he was so angry about being written off.