Jaguar D Type onboard lap at Le Mans (1956), with Mike Hawthorn
Carrying on with the onboard Le Mans series, this is some amazing footage (not rare anymore though) of Mike Hawthorn describing a Le Mans lap — with traffic on the road! Obviously he couldn’t go flat out, but the traffic factor just adds to the vintage feeling that this isn’t going to happen anymore.
Just wonderful. This was the magic of the 50’s.
Mark Webber Pole Lap at the Monaco GP, 2011
“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be stuck in the past?”
Yes, I am, but the nice folks at BBC managed to include some of the 80s/90s crashes at Monaco along a few corners while Webber shows us how it’s done.
Senna crashed, Coulthard crashed, Schumacher crashed, Prost crashed… will Vettel do the same tomorrow?
Porsche 936 onboard lap, at Le Mans 1977, driven by Jurgen Barth.
I’m not entirely sure if I had posted this before or not, but here it goes anyway. It’s worth watching at least once every day.
It’s absoluting stunning to watch these race at speeds that could embarass F1 cars today. On the long straights, these were often clocked at 370+ km/h, and if you need some sort of visual comparison, just watch the video from 1m20s — those are 911 Carreras RSR with more than 350bhp and they’re overtaken as if they were bikes.
Racing at its best.
Ari Vatanen — Manx Rally 1983
This awesome onboard footage was suggested to me by petrolhead and it’s definitely worth taking a close look. Ari Vatanen drives the Opel Manta 400 like a missile, on roads which are just barely wider than the car itself.
He nearly lost it at 1m38s in a very bumpy corner, which made his co-pilot forget about the notes he had to give and express a “Dear God…” instead.
Also notice the amount of steering inputs necessary to keep the car straight in every step of the way. Vatanen was one of the Men.
Jordan Hart F1 hillclimbing out in the open road, at the Isle Of Man.
In the rain. This is a great display of “I don’t care if I die, I’m a man” philosophy.
Nigel Mansell (Williams-Renault FW14B) overtaking Ayrton Senna (McLaren MP4/7A) in the 1992 German Grand Prix.
What he did on the chicane was completely bonkers.
Onboard with Jim Clark’s Lotus 25 @ Oulton Park, 1963.
Jackie Stewart, Paul Picard, 1973.
Niki Lauda’s onboard lap at Zolder (Belgium), with the Brabham BT46 (1978)
Ford GT40 onboard video, lapping Le Mans in 1969.
With commentary, and as usual, pure racing sounds.
