By Robert Emslie
That’s Hans Hermann crouched down there, underneath the flipping car- the flipping car that, until just moments before this photo was taken, he was piloting. The crash, at the 1959 AVUS F1 race, was caused by failure of the brakes on Hermann’s BRM. Amazingly, he walked away from the accident with only minor bumps and bruises.
Image source: [pixdaus.com]
Jeff Glucker
It's not the lack of belts that saved him – it was the sheer unfettered mass of his balls calmly planting him to pavement as everything went to hell.
Of course, considering the apparent incoming trajectory of the car, that photographer could probably throw down as well where nut size is concerned.
Well, the car doesn't appear to have any sort of roll hoop, so I'm not sure strapping yourself to such a machine would be a good thing.
Also, a 1959 BRM would be too old to have the 1.5L V16 but too new to have the 3.0L H16 🙁 .
For a few points in time, BRM was like the end all and be all of awesome motors. Too bad they weren't more reliable …
Also, I don't think I've ever looked at the hard stats for the V16 – abso-freaking-lutely amazing. 12000 RPM, 600 HP, from 1.5L in 1951!!!!!!!! That's unbelievable.
The funny thing is, if they built a larger, naturally aspirated engine (Ferrari's was 4.5L), maybe they could've had the reliability to win a race or two but nobody would remember them now.
What's that thing on the left, a rolling gasoline tank? If this calamity had been aimed just a yard or two in that direction, this photo would be just that more dramatic, and I doubt that neither the photographer nor the driver would have been so lucky.
That would be a fire extinguisher.
Good. From the looks of this, they were going to need one.
Lucky driver, lucky photographer.
Wow, to the power of yikes. Is that a chair on the left for someone to man the fire extinguisher? Looks like the photographer stood his ground but that guy might .. not have.
rollbar much?
Hans hunkers as his hoopty hovers.
It was this same race where Jean Behra was killed when his Ferrari skidded over the top of Avus's banked turn, striking a flag pole.
Unlace a shoe. Tie the ends of the laces together. Put your fingers in the middle and pull tight so you have two parallel lines with two small corners at the ends. This is a rough approximation of the AVUS ring. Bonkers.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Circuit_AVUS.svg/250px-Circuit_AVUS.svg.png" style="width: 250px; height: 231px; border: 0" alt="imgTag" />
Same AVUS as von Frankenburg’s Miracle of AVUS in ’56?
Same AVUS as von Frankenburg's Miracle of AVUS in '56?