When inflexible Spa officials refused to heed a sensible warning
The fickle Ardennes weather often plays a decisive role in Belgian Grands Prix at Spa. MAURICE HAMILTON asks if perhaps that’s why, in days of yore, officials refused to start the race without enjoying a long lunch first…
Lando Norris has every reason to curse the precision of lap time recording in F1. You’ll recall that qualifying in Montreal could not have been closer. George Russell and Max Verstappen both got around Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 1m12.000s. But Russell claimed pole because he did it first. Norris’s lap of 1m12.021s was within the blink of an eye. Had this been in 1964, Lando would have started from the front row.
Sixty years ago, lap time measurement only went as far as a tenth of a second thanks to the use of hand-held stopwatches. During the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, three drivers were awarded fastest lap. Jack Brabham (Cooper), Phil Hill (Ferrari) and Innes Ireland (Lotus) covered the original Spa-Francorchamps in 3m51.9s but, because he did it first, only Brabham was credited with the new lap record.
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