50 years of the Brazilian GP: 13 top drivers are dead today

class=”sc-29f61514-0 dXbCZE”>

Ayrton Senna, who later became an unforgettable national hero in Brazil, was only 13 years old and also won karts in Europe. Jo Siffert, the equally unforgettable Swiss Formula 1 idol, had been dead for fifteen months.

The journey through time begins

Thus begins an unforgettable journey back in time. The GP do Brasil celebrated its baptism on February 11, 1973 – now the 50th anniversary is on the agenda.

When we arrived here in Interlagos, two weeks after the GP in Buenos Aires, we expected 37 degrees and more than 150,000 fans on race day. The focus on the then 7.9 km long track: world champion Emerson Fittipaldi, who took the world title from the Ticino’s Clay Regazzoni in Watkins Glen in 1974.

Big names – dead

The 1973 registration list from Sao Paulo reads like a ‘Who’s Who’. Of the twenty drivers from that time, only seven are still alive. Including winner Fittipaldi (76) in the Lotus and Jackie Stewart (84), who finished second in the Tyrrell. Their teammates Ronnie Peterson (1978 in Monza) and Francois Cevert (1973 in Watkins Glen) later ran to their deaths.

They also lost their lives

Mike Hailwood crashed his private car in 1981, Dennis Hulme, the 1967 world champion, suffered a heart attack at the Bathurst circuit in 1992, Carlos Pace, after whom the circuit is named, crashed his private plane in 1977.

Argentinian Carlos Reutemann died in July 2021. Two years earlier, Niki Lauda had to leave after total organ failure. His friend Clay Regazzoni was in an accident on the highway in 2006.

Peter Revson’s downfall was the Kyalami route in 1974. Jean Pierre Beltoise died of a stroke in Dakar in 2015.

Seven rarely come anymore

In addition to Emerson Fittipaldi, his brother Wilson and Stewart, the 1973 starting field also includes the Belgian Jacky Ickx (78), the New Zealander Howden Ganley (81), the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Jarier (77) and the Italian Arturo Merzario (80) and on the race tracks.

They’re still shaking the steering wheel

These are wonderful memories of a time when Formula 1 was still dangerous and the drivers always knew why they dropped out. Back then, high-tech and computer steering wheels were foreign concepts like the internet or social media. It was pure life.

Who will the sporting world remember in 50 years from the Formula 1 grid of 2023 here at an altitude of 800 meters in Interlagos near Sao Paulo?

Source : Blick