BBC4 documentary 'Deadliest Crash: The 1955 Le Mans Disaster' (merged)

I note from next week's Radio Times that the documentary entitled "Deadliest Crash: The 1955 Le Mans Disaster" is due to be broadcast next Sunday 16th May on BBC4.

I believe this is the film which was released last year and which won 'Best Documentary Reportage Milan Film Festival Mention D'Honneur 2009'.

To quote a preview: 'Three years in the making in conjunction with the BBC, using never seen before home movies, photos and eye witness accounts - this is the inside story of the world's biggest motorsport disaster. Deadliest Crash is the dramatic story of the day racing was changed forever. The carnage, seen through eye witness accounts, includes the stories of the survivors from the packed grandstands and members of the Mercedes and Jaguar teams at the heart of the disaster.'

Thanks for that, I will try and catch it - seems to be a few racing documentaries over the last few years, I hope there is more to come! I wonder if one of the commissioning editors at the BBC is a motor racing fan?!

Thanks for alerting me to this Alan, having been to Le Mans many times and passed the stone placed to honour the victims of the accident on the start finish straight it will be interesting to hear a full account of what happened.

We've got a pretty good 'account' of what happened on an old thread here, with plenty of pictures...

But there could be something new in it. Please let us Colonials know.

I have watched the DVD at a friend´s home and I think it is quite interesting, specially for a very short movie it shows, recorded from a place that seems to be close to where Levegh´s Mercedes landed. This old movie shows the whole incident and ends when Levegh´s Mercedes started to take off. Apparently the film is burned from then on.
I would say those short seconds justify the whole documentary (about 1hr long). Anyway, it includes very interesting testimonies of drivers and people that were in the paddock where the engine landed.

Thanks for that, Arturo. I did note that it has already been released on DVD, but you are the first person I have heard of who has seen it.

Back in 55 there was a huge tabloid press beatup about the callous Froggies not stopping the race. Someone more sane pointed out that the nett result of stopping the race would be to have thousands of cars leaving the venue and blocking the ambulances. By keeping the race going the roads were clear for the emergency vehicles. The race organisers did the right thing.

Radio Times informs us that the race was won by Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Lueb

I thought it was that well-known Russian driver Igor Bulb

I thought it was that well-known Russian driver Igor Bulb

Inventor of the Bulb Horn.

Radio Times informs us that the race was won by Mike Hawthorn and Ivor Lueb

Ivor Lueb sounds like, er, I'm not going to say...

Back on topic: good docu, a must see if you havent yet seen it

Will this also be available on BBCiPlayer? I hope so as I am already otherwise occupied throughout Sunday.

No problem

This is the first time I watched such a movie about this accident and so I would say it is unique. The old movie can be seen about 48m after the start, but it is worth the wait, imo.

Will this also be available on BBCiPlayer? I hope so as I am already otherwise occupied throughout Sunday.

As it's a first run, it probably will. But there are two further broadcasts - if at somewhat inconvenient times:

Mon 17 May 2010
00:40

Wed 19 May 2010
00:30

I have watched the DVD at a friend´s home and I think it is quite interesting, specially for a very short movie it shows, recorded from a place that seems to be close to where Levegh´s Mercedes landed. This old movie shows the whole incident and ends when Levegh´s Mercedes started to take off. Apparently the film is burned from then on.
I would say those short seconds justify the whole documentary (about 1hr long). Anyway, it includes very interesting testimonies of drivers and people that were in the paddock where the engine landed.

This and stills from the crash is covered on the Mike Hawthorn Tribute Site and in older posts on this forum - the film-from-stills the DVD shows belong to Paul Skilleter/JDHT and a selection of 12 frames from the 58 that were used to make the movie of a few seconds you'll see are printed and documented in Mike - Hawthorn Golden Boy and in the first link above. I made the movie from the stills myself a couple of years ago and it's quite chilling the first time you see it.

At least it clearly demonstrates that Hawthorn did not pull in suddenly and that Macklin appears to not have seen him, probably through watching Fangio coming up fast behind him in his rear view mirror. You can, if you watch carefully, actually see Macklin's upper body hang right out of the car as he suddenly notices Hawthorn in front of him and swerves out to the left to avoid him!

This and stills from the crash is covered on the Mike Hawthorn Tribute Site and in older posts on this forum - the film-from-stills the DVD shows belong to Paul Skilleter/JDHT and a selection of 12 frames from the 58 that were used to make the movie of a few seconds you'll see are printed and documented in Mike - Hawthorn Golden Boy and in the first link above. I made the movie from the stills myself a couple of years ago and it's quite chilling the first time you see it.

At least it clearly demonstrates that Hawthorn did not pull in suddenly and that Macklin appears to not have seen him, probably through watching Fangio coming up fast behind him in his rear view mirror. You can, if you watch carefully, actually see Macklin's upper body hang right out of the car as he suddenly notices Hawthorn in front of him and swerves out to the left to avoid him!

Thanks for the information

Personally, I am not so sure about who was responsible for the accident. Certainly not Levegh, so the chances are Hawthorn or Macklin. After watching that clip several times, I guess Hawthorn slowed down to enter the pits and Macklin had to avoid it moving to his left. I guess Macklin knew Hawthorn was ahead of him, he looked at the left mirror to see if he could move to his left and when he watched Hawthorn again he found Mike had slowed down and so Macklin had to move to avoid crashing Hawthorn. Perhaps Macklin just moved too much to his left ... I do not know.

Perhaps, it was just one of those circumstances where Hawthorn, Macklin and Levegh were all of them at the wrong place at the wrong time

Personally, I am not so sure about who was responsible for the accident.

Why does it have to be anyone? Look at the circumstances as a whole. For 30+ years people had driven down that stretch of track without any hint of a collision. But I am guessing that never before had two cars going hell for leather come up to lap two backmarkers just as one is about to pit. A set of circumstances that had not happened before, but were bound to happen at some point. If you have to look at anything at all, the track design that had the pits as part of the racetrack yet barely allowed for three abreast...

Why does it have to be anyone? Look at the circumstances as a whole. For 30+ years people had driven down that stretch of track without any hint of a collision. But I am guessing that never before had two cars going hell for leather come up to lap two backmarkers just as one is about to pit. A set of circumstances that had not happened before, but were bound to happen at some point. If you have to look at anything at all, the track design that had the pits as part of the racetrack yet barely allowed for three abreast...

Well, I think that when one watches an accident, the first idea is to define how it happened and then why. One of the potential answers to the "why" is because of a human error. So I would never discard, prima facie, the human error as the cause of an accident. If it was an unforced error, or the consequence of several other factors and lead to the error, most of the time it can be determined.

In this particular case, and appart from the testimonies of the witnesses, we only have some low quality short movies and pictures, so to arrive to a definitive conclusion is very difficult, to say the least. THis analysis has been made several times with no definitive conclusions, and I have no authority to blame any driver for it.

So do not take this personal. English is not my daily language and perhaps I did not use the right words.

I recall a series on English TV called "The Power and the Glory". The Le Mans disaster was covered in some detail and I recall Lance Macklin being interviewed. He said, I think, that Hawthorn's Jaguar had powerful disc brakes that his (Macklin's) Austin-Healey could not match and so he had to swerve.

Interesting that reports have stated that Levegh who has been criticised by some fools had the presence of mind and indeed the reactions to warn Fangio who was behind him by raising his hand whilst travelling at around 170mph...

After all the discussion, I am inclined to agree with Chris Nixon: it was a racing incident compounded by the restricted width of the track, and this in my view, is confirmed by the modifications made to the pits area for the next race.

Edited by VAR1016, 14 May 2010 - 21:10.

Just a reminder - 9.00pm this evening, BBC4

Just a reminder - 9.00pm this evening, BBC4

Thanks Alan, I'd forgotten! Where were you today?

Having just watched it It do feel it was porrly done. The narrator was dreadful and obvious did not have a clue.
The most obvious things was the people who were not included in the programme. Sir Stirling being the most obvious and that may well be why he was barely mentioned in it. Perhaps they struggled to find people in motorsport willing to be interviewed. Perhaps typically Chris Hilton was there in his pot boiler mode.

iPlayer link: http://www.bbc.co.uk..._1955_Disaster/

Yes, a bit of a curate's egg. Usual bits of generic film - I spotted Spa, Nurburgring and maybe Montlhéry and Reims - and a well-known bit of US newsreel, which had curiously been revoiced with an English commentary.

The final sequence was effective though.

O/T: There were two statuettes in shot behind Norman Dewis. One was very obviously Senna, but who was the other meant to be?

Edited by Vitesse2, 16 May 2010 - 22:08.

and a well-known bit of US newsreel, which had curiously been revoiced with an English commentary.

The final sequence was effective though.

Thought the voiceover on the US clip sounded like Barrie Gill ?! Oh & I think I noticed a bit of footage from Avus as well as lots from Zandvoort of Fangio & Moss in the 1955 Dutch GP which of course took place a week after Le Mans

The first hand accounts and cine film were interesting but the script had so many factual errors that it was hard to take seriously after about 10 minutes -

Le Mans was "unique" in running classes for cars of differing speeds....which gives you the impression no one who looked at the script has the first clue about motor racing outside of F1.
Le Mans was and still is the longest racing circuit....apart from being some 30+ miles shorter than the Targa Florio circuit at that point in time
The track was not like a normal race circuit, being made up of "country lanes" and had "trees"....where's the remote....

Actually I did see it to the end. Much of the vaunted never-before-seen-film was actually from the Nurburgring but a lot of the stills were interesting.
The shock-horror aspect was cranked up as one tends to expect in these cases but the aftermath, the effect the accident had on motor racing wasn't conveyed at all well.
There was a strong element of "it was hushed up", when of course that was far from the case and the ramifications were massive for the sport worldwide.
The old adage " never let the facts get in the way of the story" came to mind at times.

Clearly Hawthorn was intended to be seen as the bad-boy in this film. It's interesting that Paul Skilliter is seen but not heard despite having written (with Tony Bailey) one of the most detailed and frank reports of the accident in "Mike Hawthorn - Golden Boy". But then I rather think his conclusion ran contrary to the one which the film set out to make...

All in all it was something of a wasted opportunity, given the ' raw material' supplied by the eye-witnesses who were interviewed.
A pity...

I watched it and I thought it was quite good, though I was surprised there was no appearance by Stirling Moss. The narrator's voice was extremely monotone but it was appropriate given the subject matter. The end sequence was quite chilling...very well done.

I did notice the statuettes...Senna in his Williams clothing...but I have no idea who the other one was.

Not sure how many 'casual viewers' this documentary would have attracted, but it must have been very confusing for non-experts. The film clips came from all over the place, how was film of saloon car racing at Spa relevant to a story about the Le Mans tragedy, though brief clips of Lancia Ferraris and the like were entertaining. The commentary was a curious mixture of over simplification and technicalities that must have been completely meaningless to most viewers. First we were told that the 300 SLR was "Almost an F1 car, with a 3 litre F1 engine", and almost in the same sentence, that it had features like "desmodromic valves". I don't mean to be patronising here, but what sense would 95% of viewers have made of that? Deeply flawed for most 'expert' viewers, and unintelligible in parts for non-experts. As Derwent Motorsport noted, Chris Hilton was most certainly in his potboiler mode, I think most of us had a right to expect better from him, the man is a very competent writer and chronicler, but only when he chooses to be, so I suppose that the money must have been good, clearly every man has his price. What I found most distasteful was the way that Mike Hawthorn's rȏle was overplayed, and I would say misrepresented. John Fitch was there, and is entitled to his opinion of course, but some of his statements should have been countered, it's lucky for him that dead men can't sue.

Having just watched it It do feel it was porrly done. The narrator was dreadful and obvious did not have a clue.

Why should he, he is an actor doing a voice-over reading from a script prepared for him.

I found the pace of the documentary plodding, probably because it was padded out to be presented over a full hour whereas it would have been more effective and tighter if limited to around 40 minutes. However, that final sequence of the merged panning right to left of the two pictures immediately before and after the accident was really dramatic and the most lasting image of the tragedy as far as I am concerned.

If I were Chris Hilton I would be taking legal advice on Monday morning regarding some of the content that relates to him as detailed in posting no.29.

O/T: There were two statuettes in shot behind Norman Dewis. One was very obviously Senna, but who was the other meant to be?

It was Fangio, wasn't it?

Pretty much as others have said I felt it was somewhat of a mishmash. Lots of old stock footage used to pad out the program, several annoying inaccuracies but some elements were interesting, but it was played to entertain (not unreasonable I guess) to the detriment of accuracy and consistency in my eyes. It finished and I didn't feel I had learnt anything new or been treated to a detailed and broad of perspective summary of events and for that felt it disappointing.

What struck me as odd was the emphasis of the War as the basis for the rivalry between Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar. Yet there was no mention of the 1952 race, at all, which was somewhat weird as it was won by Mercedes-Benz. Or better still, lost by Jaguar, because the Mercedes-Benz entry scared them into using an untried evolution of their C-Type. The commentary suggested Mercedes-Benz only returned to racing that year. It seems more likely that the fans were on Jaguar's side as the team was clearly the underdog.

Another strange thing was the almost casual mention of Ferrari, who were the defending champions at Le Mans. It must have been very confusing for most viewers that while Fangio and Hawthorn were racing on the limit a Ferrari was leading and continued to lead for quite some time. That would have at least warranted a mention. On a slightly more pedantic note; when one of the French spectators mentioned the great sound of a V12 Ferrari, one of the six cylinder cars was shown...

Very disappointing production.Newly found archive film is always welcome, but it was ponderous, the narrator was unsuitable, it was needlessly padded out.
Not in the same league as some of the recent Mark Stewart productions of motor racing documentaries. Congratulations to those of you who managed to stay awake throughout. Pity I was expecting it to be vastly better.

The first hand accounts and cine film were interesting but the script had so many factual errors that it was hard to take seriously after about 10 minutes -

Clearly Hawthorn was intended to be seen as the bad-boy in this film. It's interesting that Paul Skilleter is seen but not heard despite having written (with Tony Bailey) one of the most detailed and frank reports of the accident in "Mike Hawthorn - Golden Boy". But then I rather think his conclusion ran contrary to the one which the film set out to make...

All in all it was something of a wasted opportunity, given the ' raw material' supplied by the eye-witnesses who were interviewed.

A pity...

Agree Simon, and Paul is unhappy about some aspects of the production - he also feels his interview wasn't shown as it disagreed with what the production people thought....

Interesting re number of viewers that at about 21:30 last night accesses to the Mike Hawthorn Tribute Site web site started rising - rapidly! By about 22:00 it was being clobbered with multiple access per second rather than per 5 minutes! I wondered WTF had happened until I noticed that most of the accesses were the multiple Le Mans 1955 coverage pages and the penny dropped. By midnight there were over 6000 hits rather than the normal 500 or so on most days. And it's still going on this morning with 2000 hits already....

I didn't watch it last night as I have the DVD and had already reconstructed the video they show from Paul's stills ages ago. It could have been so much better if they hadn't gone for cheap sensationalism. Even the Radio Times had the graphic descripion of the decapitation of someone standing next to a spectator and him finding brains splattered over his face...


While discussing Le Mans, I have a couple of tickets for this year's event coming that I've been asked to dispose of as the person cannot now attend. I don't know the full story but they have some form of privileged parking (caravan etc I think) and they are sold out currently. I'll put a link to the eBay item in the For Sale and Wanted forum thread and also here.

Edited by tonyb, 17 May 2010 - 09:29.

I watched it all and have to agree it was a disappointment. But in all honesty I expected little else.

Given the amount of information, data and footage available, it really isn't acceptable to be putting out a programme of this standard. A shorter, crisper production could easily have been achieved. Why is it that so many of these documentaries fall so wide of the mark?

I'm afraid knowledgeable enthusiasts should not be disappointed when a TV doco put together by an unknown director for general consumption on a Sunday night gets facts wrong, and puts a lurid story above historical accuracy. It was ever thus. I too watched it with dismay, not only at the factual errors, but also at the skewed emphasis and clunky conclusions drawn from apparently fleeting research.

What grated most of all is that they couldn't be bothered to get the pronunciation right of key people's names. Surely everybody knows that Ivor the Driver pronounced his surname "Bew-Ebb" rather than the embarassing "Boob". Even Chris Hilton, the author of a book about the 1955 Le Mans accident for which he did do quite a lot of research, apparently didn't know how to pronounce Levegh's pseudonymous name (an anagram of his racing uncle's surname Veghle). My understanding, confirmed by French friends, has always been that Pierre himself said it with a hard G, as LEVEG.

You heard John Fitch say that Levegh was known by his friends as The Bishop, because of his serious and straight-faced demeanour. The highly intelligent and no doubt well-educated Fitch has apparently forgotten that the French for "The Bishop" is "L'Eveque", which sounded almost exactly the same as Levegh's name when correctly pronounced. Hence, surely, his nick-name.

We shouldn't be too hard on Hilton, or indeed the excellent and responsibly well-informed Paul Skilleter. When you co-operate with a TV team on a programme like this you may be interviewed for several hours, but what appears on the final edit may be no more than a few seconds. As the interviewee you have no control over what is left in and what is left out. So the director is able to quote you totally out of context, and there's not a thing you can do about it. The solution is: only allow yourself to be interviewed by a director whose judgement, and understanding of the subject matter, you can trust.

Maybe that is why Stirling didn't appear. I have talked to him often about that race. His insights into sharing the lead with Fangio, and their feelings when the command came through by telephone from Stuttgart to withdraw, are fascinating. But I'm rather glad he didn't get involved with that programme.

There was also little clarification of the fact that Hawthorn actually braked very hard in front of Macklin, nor that Hawthorn missed the Jaguar pit and stopped further up. As we all know, he ran back to Lofty England in a distraught state. He couldn't reverse in the pit lane, of course, and that's why he had to do another lap before coming in again.

However, let's be positive: there was one thing in that programme which was totally new to me, and I think came via Paul Skilleter: the film sequence taken by a French spectator of the split seconds leading up to the accident, from a different angle. We knew that, when Hawthorn swept past Macklin, and then immediately braked hard in front of him to swing into the pits, Macklin swerved to avoid him and moved into Levegh's path. What I didn't realise was that Macklin had swerved so far to his left, clearing the D-type by what looked like an unnecessarily wide berth. Maybe, because of having to swerve so suddenly at what, even in an Austin-Healey, would have been over 100mph, he was not totally in control. If he had been able to pass Hawthorn more closely, the accident would not have happened.

It was also news to me that Macklin threatened to sue Hawthorn for libel, presumably about something that Hawthorn was later quoted as saying. Was this as a result of what Hawthorn said in his (ghosted) book Challenge Me the Race, or a newspaper article, or what? Does anybody have information on this?

It seems pointless to apportion blame now: the protagonists are all dead, and the track at that point has been changed out of all recognition. Like so many serious incidents, the Le Mans accident seems to me to have happened because several things co-incided at once: Hawthorn braking heavily when the car he had just lapped was so close behind, Macklin swerving so far to the left, the road being so dangerously narrow right in front of the pits, the crowd being so close to the track and unprotected. But to blame poor Levegh on the assumption that he was not fit to handle the 300SLR is plainly complete nonsense, and an insult to the man's memory. No experience or talent would have enabled him to avoid Macklin: he was completely innocent of causing the accident, but lost his life as a result of it.

Bottom line: if you are a knowledgeable, well-informed motor racing enthusiast who cares about history and wants to watch contemporary film of the sport we love, stick to David Weguelin's consistently wonderful Motorfilms Quarterly series. Volume 24 has just reached me, and it's as fresh and informed and unmissable as ever. And with the genius that is Doug Nye at the microphone, the facts are right, the judgements are entirely on target - and the pronunciation is correct, too.

Edited by Simon Taylor, 17 May 2010 - 10:41.

I echo much of the above, as enthusiasts we have all no doubt read much more than can be condensed into a 1 hour documentary, and as such will almost bound to be dissapointed. The programme also has to set the complex scene of the race for the uninformed viewer, who on a Sunday night is probably more interested in the grusome details rather than the historical facts.

The new footage certainly helped clarify the run up to the the crash, and for me further clarified the point I have never understood when the crash is discussed - why do people always want to apportion absolute blame on one party?

It appears quite clear to me that more than 1 driver, the cars and circuit all had an equally significant part in the events which led the the tradgedy, not just Macklin or Hawthorn or Levegh alone.

There was a two page spread on the programme on the Daily Depress on Saturday. Again lots of dubious "facts" but there was one "allegation" which I did not think came out in the programme that the Mercedes carried an extra "illegal" fuel tank. Perhaps the programme makers were wary in case Mercedes decided to sue?

Lads, I'm away on holiday at the moment, can anyone tell me`who the production compny were and the producer/director?

Lads, I'm away on holiday at the moment, can anyone tell me`who the production compny were and the producer/director?

Producer: John L Matthews.
Director: Richard Heap

A co production between the BBC and Bigger Picture International

I have just watched it on Iplayer. Didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, and I found the best way to watch it was to turn down the volume, so I couldn't hear the narration, and turn it up for the interview material. Dreadful, inaccurate script, delivered by a man that sounded dis-interested or possibly asleep. A wasted opportunity, because the i/v, film and stills, along with the 3D model were quite good.

Dreadful, inaccurate script, delivered by a man that sounded dis-interested or possibly asleep. A wasted opportunity, because the i/v, film and stills, along with the 3D model were quite good.

Say's it all really. I was hoping the quality would be near the recent Mark Stewart efforts, so am rather disappointed.

If I were Chris Hilton I would be taking legal advice on Monday morning regarding some of the content that relates to him as detailed in posting no.29.

A friend recently returned safely from the Middle East, was given security training before he left the UK. He was told that if he was taken hostage and forced to make a video by his captors, he should subtly mispronounce words, to make it clear that he was performing under duress. Maybe that's why Christopher Hilton was talking about "Ivor Bewb", someone was pointing a gun at him, somewhere off-camera. This tragedy has been written about and discussed pretty comprehensively over the years, no new evidence is likely to emerge after this length of time, and most sensible commentators agree, that the cause was an unfortunate juxtaposition of factors, with no single person at significant fault, and with the benefit of hindsight, the track layout itself being a major culprit. For anyone who thinks that this documentary was a travesty though, have a look at last Saturday's Daily Express article previewing the programme, or on second thoughts don't bother. Believe me, it's even worse than the TV version that almost none of us enjoyed.

Not sure how many 'casual viewers' this documentary would have attracted, but it must have been very confusing for non-experts... The commentary was a curious mixture of over simplification and technicalities that must have been completely meaningless to most viewers. First we were told that the 300 SLR was "Almost an F1 car, with a 3 litre F1 engine", and almost in the same sentence, that it had features like "desmodromic valves". I don't mean to be patronising here, but what sense would 95% of viewers have made of that? Deeply flawed for most 'expert' viewers, and unintelligible in parts for non-experts...

My thoughts entirely. There were some very good elements - the graphics and the "panning" sequence especially - but the narration was truly appalling. Who was that? These events were to a degree "before my time" but I became aware of this tragedy in the early 1960s when I first became interested in motorsport and I remember showing Jaguar's own film of the 1955 race when still at school (I ran the school's film club so it gave me an opportunity to indulge in transport films).

I think that Simon Taylor's post above is an excellent and comprehensive summary and I cannot add to this except that I think the Hugh Hudson film "Fangio" included some additional footage of the accident that was not incorporated into last night's programme. In the Paul Skilleter stills sequence, the violent swerving to the left by Macklin's Austin-Healey was much greater than I had been previously aware. Again, overall it would have been nice to have had more balanced views being expressed throughout the programme.

Edited by Pullman99, 18 May 2010 - 15:25.

I've been talking to Paul and we've decided to post the two pages from Golden Boy (pp 164/5 for those of you that have it) here that analyse 12 separate key frames from the crash sequence taken by the spectator including the important very early ones, plus Lofty England's comments on why Hawthorn overshot the pits, plus some other material. Since the analysis was created some two years ago prior to publication, Paul has modified his own thoughts on the captions and wants to write some additional material. Hopefully I'll have this tomorrow to add to what I have ready to post.

You should all find this helpful as the frames are quite detailed - I tidied them up a lot to align them, and to get rid of noise, dust and other detritus (without altering what they show of course). In our opinion they very clearly demonstrate that there's no way Hawthorn pulled in sharply in front of Macklin.

Edited by tonyb, 17 May 2010 - 14:02.

I've been talking to Paul and we've decided to post the two pages from Golden Boy (pp 164/5 for those of you that have it) here that analyse 12 separate key frames from the crash sequence taken by the spectator including the important very early ones, plus Lofty England's comments on why Hawthorn overshot the pits, plus some other material. Since the analysis was created some two years ago prior to publication, Paul has modified his own thoughts on the captions and wants to write some additional material. Hopefully I'll have this tomorrow to add to what I have ready to post.

You should all find this helpful as the frames are quite detailed - I tidied them up a lot to align them, and to get rid of noise, dust and other detritus (without altering what they show of course). In our opinion they very clearly demonstrate that there's no way Hawthorn pulled in sharply in front of Macklin.

I look forward to seeing this. As some one that has worked in documentry production, and motorsport as well as accident investigation, the whole of "The Deadliest Crash" failed to perform. Just the few frames that were stitched together show that Macklin, possibly surprised with the pace of Hawthorn, went right before swerving left, even running a tyre on to the dirt, and the way he tried to pass the Jaguar indicates he wasn't really in complete control. Yet we have forty minutes build up to eventually miss most of the important points!

For anyone who thinks that this documentary was a travesty though, have a look at last Saturday's Daily Express article previewing the programme, or on second thoughts don't bother. Believe me, it's even worse than the TV version that almost none of us enjoyed.

Daily Express - enough said!

An accident of that magnitude was bound to happen sometime, somewhere given the ever increasing speeds being attained, track conditions prevailing and primitive spectator protection provided in the 1950s. It just happened that it was at Le Mans which just made it all so worse.

Parallels can be drawn here with Farnborough 1952 and the John Derry DH 110 crash where 29 spectators lost their lives. After that disaster aircraft had to fly parallel to the spectator line rather than towards it. After the 1955 Le Mans spectator protection was taken up to another level. It was an era where increasing speed brought with it a painful learning curve.

As to who was to blame, nobody - just look again at those few frames again on BBC IPlayer - it all happened so quickly. It was motor racing - motor racing is dangerous, just as those signs I remember said.

Sadly we are now judging it all again by today's 'values' wherein someone must be held to account, someone must be blamed. Just leave it that all those on the track that day were either aware of the danger involved or conditioned to its existence and that one of them died along with the many non-participants who were in disaster's path.

Edited by retriever, 17 May 2010 - 19:40.

There was also a lot of woffle at the time that the Mercs used magnesium in their construction and that this burned causing further loss of life. The difficulty for me with press or documentaries is that elementary mistakes cast doubt on the veracity of any other "facts" presented in the artifcle/programme.

Edited by Sharman, 17 May 2010 - 16:24.