Dangerous Times

SailGP moves to Sydney with more questions than answers...

The analogy between the 1960’s era of Formula 1 and today’s SailGP is a stark one. Back in the day, drivers were sent out onto tracks with little to no safety either for themselves or for the spectators. There was an air of romanticism over physics, and an approach, a machismo, that in today’s modern world would be galling.

Inevitably crashes occurred as the sport grew into a highly competitive era, and the results were absolutely horrific, so much so that the drivers took it into their hands in the early 1960’s to try and force a way onto the Commission Sportive Internationale (CSI) and influence the all-powerful FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile).

Stirling Moss was the first chairman of what became the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association and although it fractured and split over a myriad of issues, it was brought back to life in 1993 at the insistence of drivers such as Ayrton Senna and Martin Brundle as the FIA attempted lethal rule changes mid season.