He simply overtook a car to stand then immediately on his disc brakes. Just before the car he overtook. That guy went immediately in troubles. He could have drove into Hawthorn's car.
Afther 30 years Mercedes tried it again. They fly away like before. Audi is a tough cake for PSA. Lions play with birds for fun.
One has to say, that the people whom drove those cars had balls, and there is no other phrase for it. pedestrians, motor vehicles, motor cars, Hawthorn just blythely talks on regardless. Absolutely brilliant video. great effort on the presentation and it is greatly appreciated.
Only one year has passed, and all is forgotten, at least 82 people dead but the show must go on.... The man himself died three years later, while trying to overtake a Mercedes 300 SL. I was born one month after this disaster. I developed an interest in motor racing, but when I first came to know about this horrific crash I was truly shattered. Hathworn continued racing, but was there any joy in it after this?
The comment by schanche1965 is incorrect. The film actually demonstrates Hawthorn’s innocence.
Even without the video, the claimed sequence of events that Hawthorn went past a much slower moving car and his subsequent braking caused the slower car to swerve doesn’t make sense. If he was going faster than the slower car, the driver of that car had a lot of time to see Hawthorn’s brake lights and space to manoeuvre.
Most people in Europe at that time still didn't own a car. Especially not those living in huge cities where you could go everywhere using public transport or using a bicycle or scooter.
Speaking of which you burn a lot of fat and keep in shape riding a bicycle. Formula 1 pros use them frequently.
Mike Hawthorn was obviously an incredible racer but....The previous year at Le Mans, Hawthorn caused the worst accident in motorsport history and in this footage, less thal 12 months later he briefly mentions there was a terrible accident the previous year at the entrance to the pit lane, he was declared the winner that year when most teams withdrew and Mercedes withdrew from all forms of motorsport for very many years afterwards.
@EccentricRichard -At the time they were, but it was a right fiddle- new evidence in a recent documentary showed that Hawthorn had braked very suddenly and very hard in a last second decision to pit, having just overtaken a slower back-marker, the other car braked and swerved to avoid Hawthorn and in doing so skidded on grass on rhs of track then veering across towards the lhs causing the Mercedes to try and avoid him, the rest is very sad history. Hawthorns actions were to blame.
@schanche1965 Most teams withdrew? What did you pull that one out of? And you are dead wrong to say that the film shows Hawthorn making a sudden last-second move towards the pits. It was a smooth, routine, planned move. Macklin made an unforced error and lost control, then gracelessly tried to blame Hawthorn.
@Zoomer30 - no, la Sarthe is still open public road. However, Spa-Francorchamps, which used to be public road, is now closed (though part of the track was abandoned in the 1970s and remains public road - would that it could be restored to its full glory!). Technically, also, the Nürburgring Nordschleife remains a public road... although it's expected you drive as fast as possible, and in one direction only! It's also frequently closed for racing and testing...
absolutely brilliant film. i know he was just cruising around pretty slowly there, but you can imagine it, canning around that old track for 24hours as fast as they dared.... balls of steel! having said that, it's when you see on board footage of the nurburgring from the same period that your mind really boggles.
incredible!!!! I am Mike ( Michael) My father wa a journalist for formula one and I am named after Hawthorn.....my nephew ( son of my sister_ was named graham....after the great Hill........I sat on Graham Hill's lap when I was a tiny litlle kid, while my dad interviewed him....imagine that the great graham hill on the front wheel of a ferrari, and me on his lap..........love my dad and love f1 and love the hills,........this was ofcourse in zandvoort....
RIP mike hawthorn, still great and he lives on on this video, i see though that microphone technology, was not that advanced, imagine trying to drive with a microphone in your face. id love to have been to le mans in this time though.
@zxgcry he would have died anyway because he had a kidney disease and at '55 they gave him roughly 3 years, but i know what you mean, he was one of the greatest possibly the greatest of all time
275 mph? wow f-zero exists!! I agree with you, but I think it is because nowadays they know that safety has improved greatly, way too greatly compared to that time, or even they didn't knew about these kind of things
Passing cyclists at 100-175 mph - marvellous. Imagine that being tolerated in this day and age. The 50's were a magic, but dangerous, period in motor racing.
Quote: "If a man wants to go down the road at 175 mph, that is HIS business. If another man wants to stand beside the road, to better see the cars,that also is HIS business".
A quote from a competitor in the Mille Miglia.....
@Gruntol5 50's 60's 70'(Rindt, you can't count them), 80's(Stefan Beloff) (and the early 90's) all this times were very dangerous: F1, Le Mans (series), Rally, NASCAR,................
What a fantastic video. Mike Hawthorn was, of course, Britain's greatest-ever racing driver and the first Briton to be F1 World Champion. Here he proves what a great race-commentator he would have been.
These were the days of real racing when drivers drove for the love of the sport not for the money, took real risks and faced death every time they drove.
I met Mike Hawthorn in Pwllheli, North Wales where he was driving some of the racing cars in the film "The Green Helmet". Great guy.
the spirit of real racing still lives on, its just now there is alot of politics, team orders etc that takes away from the sport.
But every now and then you see a true drivers race like hamilton vs kimi at spa this year, that was a true battle. And for the first time in a while kimi was alive fighting for the race win.
Men of Thunder, when racing was racing, not a parade of ad-plastered doorstops driven by whatever in space helmets. The slightest mistake was worth your life.
BTW, this vid is a year after the big crash at Le Mans. Obviously it made a big impression on the organizers.
"Coming around...There's somebody in the way... Cyclists everywhere, hehehe Typical French" That comment had me laughing out of my seat... Typical French... Great post!
whenever I see this kind of virtuso driving I wonder.... could any of today's formula 1 drivers do this? no barriers, lots of bumps, trees, other (slower) cars.... I ownder
Probably not. I remember something that Stirling Moss once said in reply to someone asking "Wasn't it dangerous?". He replied "Oh heavens no. You have to remember, this was the first time in years that nobody was shooting at you."
He simply overtook a car to stand then immediately on his disc brakes. Just before the car he overtook. That guy went immediately in troubles. He could have drove into Hawthorn's car.
Afther 30 years Mercedes tried it again. They fly away like before. Audi is a tough cake for PSA. Lions play with birds for fun.
SelfTubeFreak 1 month ago
Amazing to see this. I'm just learning about mike hawthorn and was recently offered a 1958 mk1 jaguar 3.4 litre, just like the one he died in
Monterey2am 1 month ago
One has to say, that the people whom drove those cars had balls, and there is no other phrase for it. pedestrians, motor vehicles, motor cars, Hawthorn just blythely talks on regardless. Absolutely brilliant video. great effort on the presentation and it is greatly appreciated.
arriviste2020 3 months ago
lol: "One of the advantages of this straight is to relax a little". A real man relaxes at 185 MPH :p.
blootmens 6 months ago
No chance would i be cycling on that road lol. Great film
jsfowler06 6 months ago
Only one year has passed, and all is forgotten, at least 82 people dead but the show must go on.... The man himself died three years later, while trying to overtake a Mercedes 300 SL. I was born one month after this disaster. I developed an interest in motor racing, but when I first came to know about this horrific crash I was truly shattered. Hathworn continued racing, but was there any joy in it after this?
Sillach 8 months ago
Is it just me, or does the audio go badly out of sync after he passes Mulsanne Corner?
OfficialNonsense 8 months ago
The comment by schanche1965 is incorrect. The film actually demonstrates Hawthorn’s innocence.
Even without the video, the claimed sequence of events that Hawthorn went past a much slower moving car and his subsequent braking caused the slower car to swerve doesn’t make sense. If he was going faster than the slower car, the driver of that car had a lot of time to see Hawthorn’s brake lights and space to manoeuvre.
WolfiePeters 8 months ago
2 people could only afford a bicycle in 1956
TroyKling 10 months ago
@TroyKling
Most people in Europe at that time still didn't own a car. Especially not those living in huge cities where you could go everywhere using public transport or using a bicycle or scooter.
Speaking of which you burn a lot of fat and keep in shape riding a bicycle. Formula 1 pros use them frequently.
McLarenMercedes 9 months ago 2
Wow ! that's nice !....did U see those trees lining that straight ? !
cybershakey 11 months ago
is that a D-Type?
LukeLamping 1 year ago
i wonder what rpm the car uses? and cc
bartbeta1 1 year ago
Mike Hawthorn was obviously an incredible racer but....The previous year at Le Mans, Hawthorn caused the worst accident in motorsport history and in this footage, less thal 12 months later he briefly mentions there was a terrible accident the previous year at the entrance to the pit lane, he was declared the winner that year when most teams withdrew and Mercedes withdrew from all forms of motorsport for very many years afterwards.
Hawthorn died in `59 racing on the public road...
schanche1965 1 year ago
@schanche1965 - Hawthorn and Jaguar were cleared of any wrongdoing, or so I thought...
EccentricRichard 1 year ago
@EccentricRichard -At the time they were, but it was a right fiddle- new evidence in a recent documentary showed that Hawthorn had braked very suddenly and very hard in a last second decision to pit, having just overtaken a slower back-marker, the other car braked and swerved to avoid Hawthorn and in doing so skidded on grass on rhs of track then veering across towards the lhs causing the Mercedes to try and avoid him, the rest is very sad history. Hawthorns actions were to blame.
schanche1965 1 year ago
@schanche1965 Most teams withdrew? What did you pull that one out of? And you are dead wrong to say that the film shows Hawthorn making a sudden last-second move towards the pits. It was a smooth, routine, planned move. Macklin made an unforced error and lost control, then gracelessly tried to blame Hawthorn.
gcrav 4 months ago
The camera weighed more than the car XD. He'd boggle if he saw how many video cans they can get on a car now.
Just shows that in the day Le Mans was an open public road. I think it's a closed circuit now.
Zoomer30 1 year ago
@Zoomer30 - no, la Sarthe is still open public road. However, Spa-Francorchamps, which used to be public road, is now closed (though part of the track was abandoned in the 1970s and remains public road - would that it could be restored to its full glory!). Technically, also, the Nürburgring Nordschleife remains a public road... although it's expected you drive as fast as possible, and in one direction only! It's also frequently closed for racing and testing...
EccentricRichard 1 year ago
Fantastic video! Makes me look forward to Formula Vee next year!
gnarkillkicksass 1 year ago
I guess they didn't have spark plugs with resistors in them back then. You can hear the whine in the background.
workensmart 1 year ago
Hahahah "Cyclists everywhere... typical french!!" :) :D
robeLTDP 1 year ago 4
absolutely brilliant film. i know he was just cruising around pretty slowly there, but you can imagine it, canning around that old track for 24hours as fast as they dared.... balls of steel! having said that, it's when you see on board footage of the nurburgring from the same period that your mind really boggles.
MrTautologist 1 year ago
onh handed at speed lololol health and saftey whats that? lololol thx for this
ododargo 1 year ago
incredible!!!! I am Mike ( Michael) My father wa a journalist for formula one and I am named after Hawthorn.....my nephew ( son of my sister_ was named graham....after the great Hill........I sat on Graham Hill's lap when I was a tiny litlle kid, while my dad interviewed him....imagine that the great graham hill on the front wheel of a ferrari, and me on his lap..........love my dad and love f1 and love the hills,........this was ofcourse in zandvoort....
basmikiemike 1 year ago
Was allowed street racing on the past?
wejhvabewjty 1 year ago
RIP mike hawthorn, still great and he lives on on this video, i see though that microphone technology, was not that advanced, imagine trying to drive with a microphone in your face. id love to have been to le mans in this time though.
timthemagicbus666 1 year ago
What a marvellous sound this car makes when he accelerates after Mulsanne corner!
remuaja84 1 year ago
Exceptionnel !
nonogag 1 year ago
Wonderful video! I can't believe how well this clip was recorded an preserved...
LuxeXx 1 year ago
What asshole voted this down?
ExplosiveFace 1 year ago
it looks like the course was different. The corner at 4:14 looks like mulsanne at the end of the current straight away
soulsaflame4135 2 years ago
@soulsaflame4135
The corner at 4:14 is Arnage
the audio is slightly out of sync at that point
hanewf 1 year ago
Great video! Thank god we still have the TT at the Isle of Man, for true grit like that....
englishelectric 2 years ago
@englishelectric
Don't forget the Nordschleife !!
turboslag 1 year ago
grande mike!
formulafelipe 2 years ago
"bikes everywhere.. typically french. ah ah" said the narrator !
I went in Cornwall (England) this summer ...that was the same !
lol
Prost1988 2 years ago 6
WOW ! Thank you so much. Outstanding footage, just like being there. Can't believe he was going that fast with all the traffic. Can't do that now.
flyingscotsman1000 2 years ago
gentlman racer and clubsport heros golden years
comando750 2 years ago
Love the cars, trucks and pushbikes on the road at the same time!
asd36f 2 years ago 4
A wonderful piece of rare footage. The lovely sound of that engine and the commentary by Mike Hawthorn makes this clip.What a tragedy for his loss.
zxgcry 2 years ago 39
@zxgcry he would have died anyway because he had a kidney disease and at '55 they gave him roughly 3 years, but i know what you mean, he was one of the greatest possibly the greatest of all time
bovdebov 1 year ago
It's amazing how many more trees there are there now :-)
Fab footage thanks :-)
MarbleheadsFC 2 years ago
Just superb...I had no idea this footage existed.
Priceless
jb355 2 years ago
What a great find!!!!!!! Thank you. Vintage driver Al Camano
letspedal114 2 years ago
je rêve ou il est sur route ouverte ??...
lookalulu 2 years ago
tu reves pas :)
Orvieta 2 years ago
A golden era oh to have been there, glorious soundtrack.
sideranger 2 years ago
beautiful just beautiful
fundamental1975 2 years ago
A gentleman.
volumeguy 3 years ago 2
Now they crash into a wall at 275 mph., walk away dusting themselves.off. Crap, busted a nail. What will my sponsor think?
Thank you for showing us real courage, Mike and other real racing drivers.
bearlag 3 years ago
275 mph? wow f-zero exists!! I agree with you, but I think it is because nowadays they know that safety has improved greatly, way too greatly compared to that time, or even they didn't knew about these kind of things
Corvonix 2 years ago
Passing cyclists at 100-175 mph - marvellous. Imagine that being tolerated in this day and age. The 50's were a magic, but dangerous, period in motor racing.
Gruntol5 3 years ago 32
Quote: "If a man wants to go down the road at 175 mph, that is HIS business. If another man wants to stand beside the road, to better see the cars,that also is HIS business".
A quote from a competitor in the Mille Miglia.....
jcarroll330P4@
375GTB 2 years ago 6
@Gruntol5 50's 60's 70'(Rindt, you can't count them), 80's(Stefan Beloff) (and the early 90's) all this times were very dangerous: F1, Le Mans (series), Rally, NASCAR,................
Austria4ever1000 1 year ago
This has been flagged as spam show
want to chat with singles
i cant watch this video Cr
678ju 3 years ago
Just brilliant, Mike was my Mums 2nd cousin - tenuous link I know - really enjoyed watching this. Thanks.
jt2958 3 years ago 3
sencasional !!!!!!!!!!!
ronaldo25111993 3 years ago
What a fantastic video. Mike Hawthorn was, of course, Britain's greatest-ever racing driver and the first Briton to be F1 World Champion. Here he proves what a great race-commentator he would have been.
These were the days of real racing when drivers drove for the love of the sport not for the money, took real risks and faced death every time they drove.
I met Mike Hawthorn in Pwllheli, North Wales where he was driving some of the racing cars in the film "The Green Helmet". Great guy.
newsnetuk 3 years ago 3
the spirit of real racing still lives on, its just now there is alot of politics, team orders etc that takes away from the sport.
But every now and then you see a true drivers race like hamilton vs kimi at spa this year, that was a true battle. And for the first time in a while kimi was alive fighting for the race win.
Thats how racing should be.
3star2nr 3 years ago 4
précieux !!
HondaRacingDevellopm 3 years ago
Men of Thunder, when racing was racing, not a parade of ad-plastered doorstops driven by whatever in space helmets. The slightest mistake was worth your life.
BTW, this vid is a year after the big crash at Le Mans. Obviously it made a big impression on the organizers.
bearlag 4 years ago
Truly incredible footage. Well done!
SiddoNotts 4 years ago
"Coming around...There's somebody in the way... Cyclists everywhere, hehehe Typical French" That comment had me laughing out of my seat... Typical French... Great post!
badgerfan65 4 years ago 7
what a great film.remember his death,amazing to see thanks so much
stickmanpig 4 years ago 2
superb video of a superb driver in a superb car
xgavj6 4 years ago 2
<3 Le Manns
carzaddict 5 years ago
True motor racing
Turbobok 5 years ago 3
This is fantastic. Thanks for posting!
scheese 5 years ago
whenever I see this kind of virtuso driving I wonder.... could any of today's formula 1 drivers do this? no barriers, lots of bumps, trees, other (slower) cars.... I ownder
stratos3 5 years ago
Probably not. I remember something that Stirling Moss once said in reply to someone asking "Wasn't it dangerous?". He replied "Oh heavens no. You have to remember, this was the first time in years that nobody was shooting at you."
Threadoflength 5 years ago 5