Jan Lammers about the dangers of Formula 1: “You didn’t know if you were still there at night”

The young Jan Lammers grew up at the current location of the slip school in Zandvoort. “This used to be a garbage dump,” Lammers says, pointing over the site. “Here were old refrigerators and picture tubes from the TVs. For a brat who loved to romp, that was of course a party. In the dunes we made huts and you were climbing in the trees. You can go to the beach and also the football fields are here.”

Lammers was sixteen when he came to work at Slotemaker’s slip school. He washed the cars and kept the grounds wet for the students. But the best part was also being able to drive the cars for a while: from the parking lot to the washing place and back.

“For that fifty meters drive and fifty meters back, I did it all. If you had a busy day, you had to wash six cars and you could drive a little bit each time.”

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At the end of the day, Slotemaker also got to work with the track sprayers. “Then he would teach you that skidding. And of course driving, that was playful. When I drove and won my first race at 16, I got more and more self-confidence and I thought I could take on the whole world. The focus towards Formula 1 was there then. In 1976 I drove around with an Opel Kadettje, here on the circuit. And in 1978 I was testing Formula 1 here. It went fast.”

Racing was much more physical in the 1970s than it is today. “You had no power steering. The brakes were made of a different material, you really had to pedal as if you were in a truck. The gas went not only with a cable, but also with a very strong spring, because your gas was not allowed to stay fully open. We also had a clutch. You had to push the clutch hard when shifting. Nowadays they do that by hand.”

Looking back, Lammers also sees the dangers to which he was exposed at that time: “Actually you didn’t know in the morning whether you were still there in the evening. If you had a full tank, you had two hundred liters of petrol with you. “It was in an aluminum chassis. You knew if you had a huge crash, you were in the shriveled aluminum. The chance of surviving that was small, because you also had that large amount of gas with you.”

Focus

Lammers did not have time to think about all those possible dangers. “Then your focus is wrong. You block it or you turn it out of focus, whatever you want to call it. It is something that can keep you busy before bed or just before driving. But you find a connection along.”

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