F1: Then vs. Now
in Formula 1 ·
urbanowl96 said:I have a question here, and I suspect stormyviper11 might have the answer, though if anyone else has heard anything regarding this, please do speak up.
Essentially, I am well aware of the incident at the 1977 German Grand Prix where Hans Heyer made an illegal appearance in the race🙏, but I have recently come across information suggesting that Harald Ertl pulled a similar stunt in France back in 1976.😲 I have done some digging, yet nowhere does it explicitly state he competed illegally, though there are several peculiar discrepancies. During that era, races typically featured about 26 drivers, yet in this specific instance, there were 27 (with Ertl being the 27th). Furthermore, most records indicate he posted the 29th fastest qualifying time. If the organizers had allowed a 27th driver to start for whatever reason, they logically would have selected those with the 27th or 28th fastest times (specifically Magee and Hoffmann). My question, then, is quite simple: why was Ertl able to participate in that race, and how on earth did he manage to pull it off?🤷
On another note, I simply cannot resist sharing this photo of Harald.😁
I think you might be slightly off there, because back in '76, there wasn't a fixed rule stating that 26 drivers would start every single race
instead, it really varied from one event to the next; for instance, during those street circuits that season, they’d often have
only 20 drivers starting (though more had the chance to qualify), and at the Spanish Grand Prix, there were 24...
...he entered the race illegally🙏, though I just stumbled upon some info suggesting Harald Ertl did the exact same thing in France back in 1976.😲 I’ve been digging around a bit, and I can't find anything explicitly saying he competed illegally, though there are a few odd details...
Every site I’ve looked at seems to say everything was fine (at least from what I’ve managed to find) 🤷
Which specific site were you looking at that claims his qualifying time was actually faster than
Damien Mageea or Ingo Hoffman's?
By the way, Hans Heyer was banned from further competition for that exact same reason in Formula 1, yet Harald Ertl was allowed to carry on racing without any issues, which makes me wonder if there really was anything controversial about it after all...