If there's a dispute of any kind at Circuit de Barcelona-Cataluña this weekend, it will be nothing compared to what happened down the road at Montjuich Park 40 years ago. I've no hesitation in saying that the weekend of the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix was one of the most terrifying I've ever experienced.
There was trouble from the word go. As we emerged from the Metro near the bottom of the circuit, there was silence - which was strange because first practice should have been under way. Making our way through the streets and climbing towards the pits and paddock, we could only speculate.
Then, the sound of a Ford-Cosworth DFV. Jacky Ickx came by in the black Lotus. But no one else. This narrowed the guesswork. Ickx was not a member of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association and his presence on the track suggested his colleagues were in dispute about something. When we finally reached the top of the circuit, we discovered what that was.
Montjuich was a magnificent temporary circuit falling and rising through the parkland and streets, passing a palace on the way. It was, in parts, a very quick Monaco - with all the safety concerns that implied.
The teams had arrived to find the crash barriers, increased to three layers, were loose and, in some cases, not bolted at all. Some pieces of Armco were old and worn, did not fit properly and sections threatened to open if hit by a car. When the GPDA took action, the organisers promised the necessary work would be done overnight.
Inspection the following morning showed the repairs to be cosmetic. The majority of drivers refused to go out, Ickx being joined on track this time by a BRM and an Ensign driven by non-GPDA members. When the so-called practice session ended, team owners and mechanics tried to bring a resolution by working on the barriers. The drivers, however, remained edgy, a meeting in the Texaco trailer resulting in agreement not to get into their cars.
Since the circuit had been given the blessing of the governing body (the CSI), the teams were in danger of being in breach of their contract. Even worse, all of the trucks and the few motorhomes of the day were gathered in a former Olympic arena (the site of the present stadium built for the 1992 Olympics). Knowing it would be the work of a moment for the organisers to lock the gates, team managers bent the ears of their drivers.
One by one, the cars appeared on track for the Saturday afternoon session, only Emerson Fittipaldi remaining defiant as the reigning world champion, fist raised above his head, completed a few slow laps in his McLaren. The entire affair left everyone on edge. The race was on - but what terrible dramas would unfold, particularly on an awesome track such as this?
With the city spread out far below, the first mile of Montjuich Park characterised it perfectly. Cars would accelerate hard from a wide grid and head towards a blind crest before plunging downhill and immediately onto the brakes and through the gearbox for a tight hairpin left at the bottom.
I chose to stand inside the barrier, on the right-hand side at the bottom of the hill. I must have been out of my mind. Fancying myself as a photographer, I leaned over the barrier and focussed on the hill. You could hear the crescendo of the start, then the rapid rise in sound as 25 cars rushed towards the crest before hurtling over, lemming-like, and diving towards us.
But here's the thing. I can recall as if it was yesterday looking through the viewfinder and swearing I could see one of the leading Ferraris broadside with the rest bearing down on the red car. I looked up (this is why I never made a photographer) and discovered I hadn't imagined it. All hell was surely about to break loose.
Niki Lauda, tapped from behind, had been turned sharp right and was about to shove the other Ferrari of Clay Regazzoni into the barrier. With journalists, photographers and not a few hangers-on all around me, there was nowhere to run. Not that there would have been time. Frozen to the spot, I watched with a mix of terror and amazement as the weaving, snarling pack of cars braked like crazy for the hairpin to my right. Remarkably, only two drivers made light contact. The huge increase in pulse rate and exhaling of breath was accompanied by that strange empty silence as the field heads into the distance.
As often happens in such moments post-stress, anything remotely light-hearted is hugely magnified. As I gathered my senses, it became apparent that Arturo Merzario had stopped in what there was of an escape road, climbed from his car, pulled out a pack of Marlboro and lit up, clearly never having had any intention of going further. It was the funniest thing I'd seen in ages.
Meanwhile, the race was on. For more than 20 massively tense laps, there was incredible action from the likes of James Hunt in the Hesketh, Mario Andretti in the Parnelli and John Watson driving the wheels off his Surtees. Having unfamiliar names at or near the front somehow accentuated this bizarre weekend. Even more so when Rolf Stommelen took the lead in his Hill Lola.
Waiting for him to appear for the 26th time, I remember seeing a sudden flash of white, going from right to left at the top of the hill. It was Stommelen, the carbon rear wing support having failed, sending the Lola into the barrier on the left which buckled (but did not break) and cannoned the car, now airborne, to the right where it scraped across the top of the barrier and flew into a forbidden area where several people were mown down, four of them fatally.
If the weekend had been tense, now it became highly charged to a truly terrifying degree. The race ran for three more laps before it was stopped. Police appeared on the track with instructions to keep it clear.
Stuck behind the barrier, unable to move back up the hill (because of the accident scene at the top) and with no retreat thanks to people pushing forward while trying to return from the lower reaches of the circuit, there was nowhere to go. Not knowing how to deal with the situation, young policemen with batons were lashing out if you tried to climb over the barrier.
Subsequent reports stated that there was no fuel leakage from Stommelen's wrecked car. I can assure you there was. It was running down the gutter in which we were standing. Crowding against the wire mesh fence immediately alongside, some spectators were smoking. There was the increasingly desperate feeling that the blaring ambulances in the background would soon be coming for us.
While experiencing the contradiction of carrying such spooky memories from a truly wonderful race track, I picked up a bolt lying beneath one of the barriers. The irony was that the barrier had actually done its job. But the bolt remains on my desk as a reminder that if things occasional seem bad in the world of F1, it's unlikely to be as terrifying as Barcelona 1975.
Maurice Hamilton
Follow on Twitter @MauriceHamilton
This article first appeared at http://www.espn.co.uk/f1/story/_/id/12832577/barcelona-1975-scary-make-start
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Memory added on May 7, 2015
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