On a rainy, hostile day at Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps circuit in 2012, a young Kiwi racing driver was charging through the track in atrocious conditions. Suddenly, it all went horribly, violently wrong.
About to turn into a chicane, Richie Stanaway didn’t see fellow racer Carlos Huertas’ Formula Renault car in the spray ahead until it was too late. Stanaway had nowhere to go and his car plowed into the back of the much slower Huertas. Stanaway went straight up in the air before landing with a crunching thud, sliding into a barrier and then across the track.
The crash looked bad at first. But the extent of it was evident only when Stanaway was helped out of the car. Out for months with a broken back, that day was nearly the last of the New Zealander’s racing career.
Forty-four years earlier, during the golden age of New Zealand motor racing, another young New Zealand racing driver was in an even more horrific crash. Chris Amon was ripping through the Monza circuit during the Italian Grand Prix touching an incredible 320kph when a piece of his Ferrari came loose and sent him spinning backwards.
At the time Monza had a newly-installed barrier to keep cars on the track. But this acted as a ramp, for Amon’s car, sending it somersaulting four times before it hit the trees surrounding the circuit.
Amon was lucky. He had nothing worse to show than a cut lip. He got up and walked away. The season of 1968 had been grim for racing drivers. Jo Schlesser and Jim Clark had already met untimely ends. If Amon hadn’t had that rare slice of luck, it could have been worse.
Back then, driver safety was in its infancy. And drivers who stepped into the cockpit had to be prepared to face death. Yet, the safety changes that came out of this era changed motor racing forever. It’s no longer the death-defying pursuit it used to be.
Just ask the new breed of New Zealand’s finest. The old guard of Amon, Denny Hulme and Bruce Mclaren had to confront death on a monthly basis. The current generation is much safer, despite higher speeds. At the very highest level - Formula One - no driver has died since Ayrton Senna was killed at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.
Seatbelts are mandatory, cars are stronger. Drivers wear snug, carbon-fibre helmets that are light and strong. Barriers and runoff areas line circuits. Besides, particularly dangerous corners have been ironed out in the historical tracks.
“The danger of racing is not something I often think about,” Brendon Hartley says. After spending most of his career in single-seaters, the Palmerston North-born lad now races sportscars for Porsche alongside ex-Formula One driver Mark Webber. He’ll admit he’s had his share of accidents, but says he has never hurt himself when racing.
Hartley next to his Porsche 919 sportscar. Photo: Supplied
“Honestly, if I was thinking about that (the chance of injury), I would be driving slower,” he says. “I think I’m very lucky that I’m driving in an era that’s I-don’t-know-how-many times safer than in the past. There’s obviously an element of risk. But in the end that’s about being a racing driver, and you always have to calculate risk versus reward when you’re behind the wheel,” he says.
It’s a similar story for Mitch Evans. The young Aucklander shot to fame when he became the youngest driver ever to win an FIA-approved race, taking the New Zealand Grand Prix in 2011 aged 16. Startlingly quick, Evans quickly climbed the motorsport ranks and now competes in GP2, a level just below Formula One. Yet, despite years spent behind the wheel, he still hasn’t had a major crash either.
“I had a nasty crash in Formula Ford and thought I’d broke my hand once,” he says. “I had to head back out a couple of hours later for qualifying and managed to put it on pole with a pretty smashed-up hand. That stands out because I was in a fair bit of pain, but I’ve been pretty lucky with crashes. You try not to think about the danger and just press on. Try and avoid accidents the best you can, although sometimes it’s inevitable, it just happens. It’s in the back of your mind to an extent – after all, there is a big element of risk - but you just focus on the track ahead really,” opines Evans.
A lot of resources and development goes into the safety of cars. In Le Mans this year there was a huge crash in testing (involving Frenchman Loic Duval)… actually quite a few big crashes in testing.
Spurred on by former Formula One world champion Jackie Stewart, a safety campaign began during a period when drivers were dying or suffering serious injuries on an alarmingly regular basis. A look back at that era reveals some distinguished drivers perishing behind the wheel -- Lorenzo Bandini at the 1967 Monaco Grand Prix, Jo Schlesser at the following year’s French Grand Prix, Jim Clark in a Formula Two race in 1968, Piers Courage at the 1970 Dutch Grand Prix among others. It speaks volumes that Jochen Rindt, Formula One’s world champion in 1970 never got to celebrate his championship win. This colourful and popular Austrian died when his Lotus crashed into a barrier during practice for that year’s Italian Grand Prix. But he had already sealed the championship before his crash.
“Even in the last 20 years, the safety of the cars has improved massively. As a sport, I think it’s relatively safe now,” Hartley says. “A lot of resources and development goes into the safety of cars. In Le Mans this year there was a huge crash in testing (involving Frenchman Loic Duval)… actually quite a few big crashes in testing. The kind of crashes that you don’t expect someone to walk away from, but on each occasion they did. It just shows you that so much research goes into the safety of cars (in Formula One) which, in a way, even translates onto road cars as well.”
And rally cars too. While circuit safety has improved massively, the wild, open road stages of rally driving is an entirely different game. Yet, rally car safety has progressed exponentially. The reasons Evans and Hartley feel so secure behind the wheel apply to New Zealand rally driver Hayden Paddon, too.
“(Rallying) can be quite unforgiving,” he says. “You can have sheer drop offs, trees beside the road, rocks… because there are so many obstacles, the danger factor in rallying is probably one of the highest in motorsport.”
“But,” he continues, “you don’t think about it too much. You just have to have total trust and faith in all the safety features of the cars. Things have changed over years; roll cages are more extensive and stronger, there’s much better side impact protection, shock absorbing foam everywhere, much stronger brackets. The safety regulations are constantly changing and improving.”
Still, Paddon’s biggest crash was a spectacular one. It wasn’t even during a competitive event. Taking part in a corporate event near Geraldine, the rear suspension of his car collapsed and sent him off the track and off a cliff down to a 200-metre drop. Despite the car rolling several times on its way down, he escaped without injury.
“There’s certainly risk involved,” Paddon says, ”but if anything that probably gets your adrenalin going a bit more and just makes it that much more exciting. It’s the nature of the sport.”
Hayden Paddon in action at The Rally of Poland. Photo: Supplied
The risk of injury wasn’t something that made the sport more exciting for the older generation. Echoing a sentiment often heard from Second World War fighter pilots, Amon, who raced in Formula One from 1963 to 1973 says “I guess it happened with everybody … You think it’s going to be the other person and not you.”
“The cars were far less safe, the circuits were far less safe,” he says. “Even on a personal protection side … sometimes people would go out wearing t-shirts. There have been huge changes in all directions, thank goodness. Although the fact of the matter is we didn’t know any different. If you wanted to race that’s what you did.”
Still, some things have persevered throughout the years. Before Richie Stanaway’s career nearly ended on that rainy day at Spa in 2012, he too thought serious crashes only happened to others. When it happened to him, it opened a flood of doubts and a painful realisation that he wasn’t as bulletproof as he’d thought. Lying prone for months with his career as a racing driver on the ropes, the young driver had a lot of time to think and explore his deepest fears.
“I used to feel really safe beforehand,” he says, “and now I sort of… it’s that typical syndrome where you think ‘ah, it’ll never happen to me’, and then when it does happen to you you’re like, well, shit. It breaks down that wall where you think you’re invincible.”
(Injury) is always in the back of your mind. But definitely more so now, having had a shunt like that. But, I mean, doing this kind of thing as a profession… it’s something you just have to learn to cope with.
“I think I was lucky not to be paralysed,” he says. “And for sure, something like that changes you a little bit. Makes you, I guess, a little less prone to taking risks and stuff like that. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s part of getting older.”
According to him, it wasn’t so much the crash itself, but the rehab and the months afterwards where he spent “a long time sitting around and doing nothing,” that was the most trying. Through it, he came to a new appreciation of not only his career as a racing driver, but of life itself.
“(Injury) is always in the back of your mind. But definitely more so now, having had a shunt like that. But, I mean, doing this kind of thing as a profession… it’s something you just have to learn to cope with because, obviously, there are safer ways to spend your time,” he says.
“You can get an illness, you can get hit by a bus while walking in the street. So I think you can’t just live your life in a padded room and not feel anything, you know,” opines Stanaway.
When he eventually recovered and worked his way back to full fitness, Stanaway’s Formula Renault drive was gone. He was forced to head to sportscars, a change of tack, which in tandem with his accident, could easily have seen him lose confidence and fade as a competitive force altogether. It wouldn’t have been a surprise; many talented drivers have succumbed to less traumatic events than Stanaway.
But he didn’t fade. Despite not having raced sportscars before, he was quickly on the pace, and two years after his crash, he conquered the circuit that nearly ended him, finishing second for Aston Martin at Spa. He’s back in single-seaters now, and on a streak in the GP3 series the equal of anything he achieved pre-crash. Like Chris Amon, Richie Stanaway faced the risks of being a racing driver head on. Unlike so many others, he’s come out on top.
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