That time Berger destroyed everyone (including Senna) with one of the most insane manual laps ever

[gold333]

Finally found an onboard video (Japanese broadcast) on that banzai lap Berger did in qualifying Suzuka 1991 and destroyed the whole grid. It's really an insane lap.







I can just imagine him double declutching and heel and toeing like crazy. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

PS: I found that this was the only race Senna let Berger through on the last lap to gift him the win in honour of his insane qualifying performance.

[johnny comelately]

Finally found an onboard video (Japanese broadcast) on that banzai lap Berger did in qualifying Suzuka 1991 and destroyed the whole grid. It's really an insane lap.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaTt3VxytI



I can just imagine him double declutching and heel and toeing like crazy. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

PS: I found that this was the only race Senna let Berger through on the last lap to gift him the win in honour of his insane qualifying performance.

Fantastic, great post
worsst part...the chicane

[bill shoe]

Excellent! Berger had me at turn 1, he doesn't even brake until he starts the turn-in!

[Rodak]

Damn, they used to have to drive the cars..... There is some great in-car footage here http://web.archive.org/web/200604010558 ... ontact.htm.

[gold333]

I actually read a bit of history on Berger after posting this.

It turns out a few years prior to this he was talking at a table to a team chief asking for a drive and pretended to be bored by cupping his head/chin between his palms. Turns out he was hiding the fact that he was actually holding up his head with his own hands.

He'd broken his neck and the doctors had operated through his throat to try to stitch the nerves back together in his spine. He was trying to land a drive to race the 1400hp Benetton. (Which he managed to land and actually won with).

He was also the one who superglued a picture of an erect male member on top of Senna's passport picture which caused Senna to be held at an Argentine airport for 24 hrs. Apparently Bergers practical joke repertoire also included unexpected uses of the handbrake as a passenger, one of which caused the private Lancia Y10 (which Jean Alesi and him had been tasked with delivering to Jean Todt) to flip on its roof and skid to a halt infront of the Ferrari headquarters.

Christ, and he was one of the "also rans". Just a number 2 driver of the 80's.

Talk about real characters back then.

[gandharva]

Rory worked with the front wing endplates so we had a kind of ground effect at some tracks. The car was like a bomb at circuits like Spa, Austria and Monza. And the power was unbelievable - even if the turbo delay was terrible. You'd open the throttle at the entry to the corner only to get the power at the exit. And if you missed it by five or 10 metres, there was nothing you could do - you just spun it. The lag was about one or two seconds.
At Zeltweg, down the long straight to the Bosch Kurve, the car was throwing out 1400 bhp and just kept on pushing - you felt like you were sitting on a rocket.

Gerhard Berger (speaking in 2007) on the B186.

With a hose, we improvised an extension to the fire extinguisher and we put it under his room door at three in the morning. We invited some people to watch and when we pushed the lever, Senna flew out of the window like a rocket. It looked like a bomb had exploded inside the room.

–– Gerhard Berger

/edit
some more:

https://sports.vice.com/en_uk/article/j ... ard-berger

[Monster Hesh]

Gladiatorial footage. You have to look at MotoGP so see that level of super human now.

[DiogoBrand]

I wouldn't call a .198 second advantage "Destroying" but nice footage anyway.

[RZS10]

exactly my thoughts ... and Senna let Berger through because Berger let him through first and once their 1-2 was safe they made the switch back (which was the condition under which Berger let Senna through in the first place) ...

Senna let Berger through on the last lap to gift him the win in honour of his insane qualifying performance

... lol ... crock of shite

[gold333]

Gladiatorial footage. You have to look at MotoGP so see that level of super human now.

Yeah it's great! F1 was much more awesome back then. I think the flat bottom necessitating the miniscule ride height and the super stiff suspension really makes for exciting onboards.

That and the 800hp and 505kg car weight.

The manual shifting, heel and toeing and double declutching we wont ever see again though unfortunately.

[digitalrurouni]

Man I could never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever get tired of hearing stories about all the behind the scenes stuff the F1 drivers went through in those days. Now the most we get is Hamilton vs Vettel at some lame media conference room about wiping each other's smiles off or something prepubescent like that. Handbags.

[Steven]

Oh how I'd love to see Formula One make cars be real challenges like they were these days. I can't get enough of these clips really.

Anyway, apart from the obvious lack semi-automatic quick shift gearboxes back, one of the reasons that makes these cars so speedy looking and a handful to drive is the stiffness of the suspension. It's very difficult to see any serious suspension travel throughout the entire lap, resulting in serious bumping.

Anyway, who's gonna start a thread for this kind of old-school clips?

Also: wow, that guy waving the finish flag! And undoing a helmet on victory lap! Words cannot express...
(vs FIA: "hey, you cannot take a driver along with you on your car at the end of a race")

[Gaz.]

Oh how I'd love to see Formula One make cars be real challenges like they were these days. I can't get enough of these clips really.

Anyway, apart from the obvious lack semi-automatic quick shift gearboxes back, one of the reasons that makes these cars so speedy looking and a handful to drive is the stiffness of the suspension. It's very difficult to see any serious suspension travel throughout the entire lap, resulting in serious bumping.

Anyway, who's gonna start a thread for this kind of old-school clips?

Also: wow, that guy waving the finish flag! And undoing a helmet on victory lap! Words cannot express...
(vs FIA: "hey, you cannot take a driver along with you on your car at the end of a race")

An enormous difference is the cameras, their mounts, aspect ratio, depth of field, definition, field of view etc.

Look at Hakkinen's helmet still bobbing about like the earlier 90s clips but with the camera technology of 2000 making it look far less dramatic, Montoya from 2004 shows this even better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myy4K9B9zT0

The next huge change is the aspect ratio from 4.3 to 16:9 in 2009 in the Buemi clip which basically means the top third of the screen has been chopped off (funnily enough it gives me neck ache like I'm peering underneath something).

The sound quality also plays a part.

Even a modern and affordable GoPro gives a higher quality view (from 2 mins):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm_qrmTBAgE

I think a lot of people will be surprised (and perhaps disappointed) at the result if Liberty put a modern 4k camera and mic on a 30 year old car and asked a current driver to go 100% at Suzuka/Monza/Paul Ricard.

[hollus]

Does this look equally fast?



Courtesy of https://ezgif.com/video-stabilizer

[DiogoBrand]

Does this look equally fast?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by-Lcgy ... e=youtu.be

Courtesy of https://ezgif.com/video-stabilizer

To me this looks way more shaky than original, barely watchable.