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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 10/4/23: He Never Got To Celebrate [1]

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Date: 2023-10-04  

On this day in 1970, Austrian Formula 1 driver Jochen Rindt clinched the championship after contender Jacky Ickx finished 4th at the US Grand Prix. Sadly, Rindt was killed in practice on September 5th, making him the only dead person to win a championship.

Ironically, Rindt was concerned about his car’s safety.

The Lotus drive was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Colin Chapman provided Rindt with a competitive car. On the other, the cars were notoriously unreliable; the Lotus 72 was still working out the worst of its growing pains, and Rindt was often a guinea pig for Chapman’s experiments with faulty wings. Rindt wasn’t afraid to criticize the team for its faults. He hated the concept of the racing wing, which provided more aerodynamic downforce but which could also be unreliable and dangerous. He was vocal about the fact that he had little trust in Lotus, and that left him often butting heads with Chapman, who didn’t take kindly to the criticism.

Even more ironic was that Rindt’s dislike of one safety protocol was what did him in.

Upon impact, a joint in the crash barrier parted, the suspension of the vehicle went under the barrier, and the car hit a stanchion head-on. The front end was destroyed. Rindt was in the habit of using only four points on the five-point harness then available and did not wear the crotch straps, as he wanted to be able to exit the car quickly in the event of fire. As a result, upon impact he slid under the belts, and the belts fatally slit open Rindt's throat.[5][60][61] Later investigations found that the accident was initiated by a failure of the car's right front inboard brake shaft, but that Rindt's death was caused by poorly installed crash barriers.[62][44]

His widow accepted the trophy in a subdued ceremony.

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