What happened next when a Formula 1 driver died?

We remember Jochen Rindt as F1's only posthumous champion, but we neglect to mention the ripple effect his death had on those around him.

On September 5, 1970, Formula 1 championship leader Jochen Rindt was killed during qualifying at Monza ahead of the Italian Grand Prix.

It is unclear how his Lotus lost control, but it is believed that Rindt was ultimately killed because he was strangled by his seatbelt; he never secured the crotch strap while he was racing, instead opting only for the lap belt. When the front end of his car was shorn away in the midst of a massive spin, the centrifugal force sucked Rindt out of the bottom. His body was trapped by the belt, killed by massive injuries to his chest and neck.

This is a story that many Formula 1 fans know, to some extent. We also know that, ultimately, no one could challenge Rindt's massive championship lead; he was crowned World Champion at the conclusion of the season. We know that safety measures were taken in the wake of his death, that the complexion of the sport we love needed to take a hard look at itself.

But we often neglect to discuss the human impact. How did Rindt's wife, Nina, cope? Who cleaned out Rindt's hotel room in Italy? What did Lotus do?

The Uncrowned King by David Tremayne does an exceptional job of discussing this impact — and today, I want to share that with you all, because I think it can be so easy to assume these major incidents only had an impact on the track.

Nina Rindt, Jochen's wife

When she learned that her husband had been killed, Nina Rindt was not surprised.

Just a few months earlier, at the Dutch Grand Prix, Piers Courage had been killed. The Rindts were close friends with Piers and his wife Sally, spending holidays and dinners and evenings together. And then suddenly, Courage was killed at a race Rindt ultimately won, and the shock destabilized Nina and Sally more than anyone else.

In the aftermath, Nina Rindt recalled, “It sounds really weird, but I was less shocked by Jochen's death than I was by Piers'. They were so close together. I wasn't surprised anymore. I had lived through so much by then. The first time it was really, ‘My God, it can actually happen.’ You're so young, so stupid, you have this defense and you don't think about it. And I don't think Sally did, either. I was in shock, but maybe not as much as I would have been if Piers had not died.”

While it was clear to many that Rindt had died at Monza, declaring a driver dead at an active race track would have required Italian authorities to cancel the grand prix; as such, no one would definitively tell Nina what had happened. She was told her husband had spun, then was escorted to the medical center. She was prevented from climbing into the ambulance that was departing with her husband. Jackie Stewart, shaken and pale, told her that Rindt had only broken his leg. But the priest who had just given Rindt his last rites told Nina to stay strong.

Nina was brought to the hospital, where doctors didn't want to tell her what had happened. It was left to Bernie Ecclestone, Rindt's manager and friend, to inform her that her husband was dead.

Team Lotus quickly collected its things and left the country; Italian officials were known to detain team bosses, mechanics, and car designers because any death was believed to require someone at fault. Ecclestone arranged for Nina to fly directly to Sally Courage.

Herbie Blash, then just a young mechanic at Lotus, was tasked with collecting Rindt's belongings from his hotel and driving Rindt's personal car to Switzerland, where Nina and Sally Courage had opted to stay with one another. He recalled:

As I drove up to the house Nina was at the bedroom window and waved like mad. I can imagine now that it was asa if it was Jochen returning home, although of course it couldn't have been. There was nobody in the house, just Sally and Nina. And there I was… what? Twenty-one years old? Sitting there on the settee between these two women, both of whom had lost their husbands in racing that year. What can you say in a situation like that?

All of a sudden, Natasha [Rindt, Jochen and Nina's daughter], who was two and upstairs, cried out, ‘Papa! Papa!’ Both girls burst into tears, and there I am, not knowing what life's about, with one arm round Sally Courage and the other round Nina Rindt.

Nina Rindt admitted that “I was fumbling in the dark. I don't remember much. I was very busy moving home, from the place we rented to the house at Le Muids that Jochen and I had been building. And I had to devote a lot of time to Natasha, who was only two.”

Indeed, she was tasked with carrying on her husband's legacy, which included having to make an appearance at the Jochen Rindt Motor Show — an automotive exhibition that her husband had established in an effort to bring more of the car industry to Austria.

“I was convinced by the people who were involved in its organization to do it in Jochen's name,” she said of the show's 1970 event. “It was terrible. I was on tranquilizers. I wasn't coping very well. There were photos of Jochen everywhere, and people wanting my autograph. Like I was the star… What had I ever done? I kept asking myself, ‘What do these people want from me?’ It was absolutely awful, just too much. I completely broke down, but behind closed doors.

“But Jochen loved the Show, and I'm sure it would have done a lot better if he has lived. After a couple of years I redid my contract and just had a retainer. Eventually it became the Essen Motor Show, because what did the Jochen Rindt bit mean?”

Lotus, Jochen's team

It was quickly apparent on the afternoon of September 5 that Jochen Rindt had been killed in an accident at Monza. The unique nature of Italian law meant that race organizers were reticent to officially state he had died at the track, because it would have forced the cancellation of the Italian Grand Prix. Italian law also dictated that for every death, someone must be at fault.

As such, Team Lotus fled the scene. The outfit had experienced a similar issue back in 1961, when driver Jim Clark was involved in an accident that led to the death of Ferrari driver Wolfgang von Trips and several spectators. Dick Scammell, racing manager in 1970, explained:

I went back to the pits and did the only thing I knew, which was carry on. We'd had all this before with Jimmy and the accident with von Trips in 1961, which was very difficult, so now I just said to the other guys, ‘Right, get this lot loaded up. Forget the car. And get to the Swiss border as quick as you possibly can, because otherwise we were all going to be in trouble.’ I was especially aware that it was the same team, a second time.

In 1961, the first time around, we all said, ‘Oh dead, oh dear, oh dear’ and then it all started getting very fraught. So this time we knew not to do that anymore. I know some people will think that was very hard, but it was the only way to deal with it. You had to go and get on with something. And whether you like it or not, life carries on. It was an awful thing, but that was the way I dealt with it, always. It gave all the mechanics something to do, too. Just put everything in the truck and let's get out of here. We weren't going to get the car."

The team was able to retrieve the engine and gearbox from a lock-up at Monza, but the remains of the chassis were contained as evidence for the ongoing investigation.

Jackie Stewart, Jochen's friend and colleague

Jackie Stewart was one of the first people to see Jochen Rindt.

In the immediate aftermath of the accident, Denny Hulme pulled into the Lotus pits to inform the team that he'd seen Jochen Rindt spin. Stewart — as a friend of Rindt's and as a staunch advocate for improving the safety of Formula 1 — was the next person Hulme informed.

Stewart remembered:

I knew something had happened. You always do. Cars started coming back into the pits. When that happens you know something is going on. Denny came in and called me over. He told me that Jochen had had a very big shunt. I immediately asked if he was okay. Whenever there was a big accident that is the first question I always asked: Is he okay? He said it looked bad, so I went to race control. They told me Jochen was out of the car. I asked them if he was okay, but I couldn't get a straight answer. I left the tower and then was told that Jochen had been taken to the medical center. I had to go through a series of gates to get there and access wasn't easy, but at that time, everybody knew who I was.

Jochen was just lying there, on his own. I will never forget that. There was nobody else there. I could immediately see that his ankles were very badly damaged, but there was no bleeding. If there is no bleeding it means the heart is not pumping. A priest came to give him the last rites while I was still there. I walked away knowing for myself that Jochen was not coming back. Nina, Helen, Bernie, and Colin went to the hospital, each at that point believing that he was still alive. In Italy, they never pronounced a driver dead at the scene of an accident, otherwise they would have to call off the event. Always they would say that they died on the way to the hospital, but I had seen Jochen's feet. I knew.

Stewart also knew that there was nothing he could do. He returned to the Tyrrell garage, where team boss Ken Tyrrell suggested Stewart get in the car. Stewart remembered:

I was really, really upset. I remember getting in the cockpit then bursting into tears because I knew Jochen was dead. I had tears in my eyes when I put my helmet on. I don't suppose anyone would have known. Ken maybe. I remember the sensation of salt in my eyes.

I drove out, put the visor down, and did a slow warm-up lap. I got to the Parabolica, had a look to see where Jochen had hit the barrier on the left-hand side. By doing that I had made my commitment to the Parabolica. I did two laps clean as a whistle and put it on provisional pole. I was not in any way distracted. They were the cleanest laps I had done that weekend, clinical. I was fine until I got round the Parabolica again on my in lap. I came into the pits and burst into tears again. I had somehow managed to tuck the incident away to another part of my mind. You close the visor and the lights go out. When I got out of the car I came back down to reality. I had been in a fantasy during those two laps.

My best friend, John Lindsay, handed me a bottle of Coca-Cola. I was staying out of the way of people, photographers, etc. At this point no one knew that Jochen was dead. I had not shared what I had seen. I was so angry at the stupidity of his death, that his life had been taken just like that, I threw the bottle against the back wall of the pit garage. It smashed into a million pieces.

I felt completely empty, drained, and exhausted. I felt capable of nothing, and absolutely lost.

Bernie Ecclestone, Jochen's manager, business partner, and friend

Bernie Ecclestone played an interesting role in Jochen Rindt's life. One could call Ecclestone his ‘manager,’ though that implies a hierarchy that didn't seem to exist. One could call Ecclestone his ‘business partner,’ though that fails to encompass the full depth of the relationship between the two. But to say they were friends leaves out the sheer amount of scheming the two did together.

Ecclestone had tried his hand at racing but decided his skills would be better suited to driver management. The first driver he signed was Stuart Lewis-Evans — and he was ultimately killed after succumbing to burns he sustained during the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix. Ecclestone then signed Rindt, only to lose him as well.

He recalled:

I'll tell you what happens, I think. The shock at the time doesn't hurt you as much as afterwards, because there's so much going on, you have to do so much… you just get swept along.

They were both very close with me, those guys. That's when I decided that maybe I would take a bit of a break. I did try to distance myself from getting close to drivers after that, but there was Carlos Pace, and Reutemann. It's difficult, when you are with nice people and they are friends. It's hard, then. All my drivers, Ive been good friends with, you know? Still today, all of them are close. It's hard to distance yourself, much as perhaps you'd want to.

When Ecclestone received the news that Rindt had crashed, he wasted no time in sprinting to the Parabolica, hoping to arrive before the scene was roped off. He collected Rindt's discarded helmet, a driving shoe, and the left front wheel, with suspension still attached. He handed most of those items off to Eddie Dennis, a mechanic, but chose to carry Rindt's helmet back to the paddock himself. Ecclestone remembered:

He was missing and somebody said there'd been an accident at Parabolica, so I ran to the corner. It's not a nice thing, but I remember carrying his helmet back. I didn't see him in the car or in the ambulance because by the time I'd got there, to the corner, he was gone.

When I got back to the paddock, I said, ‘Where's he gone?’ and they told me where, so I jumped in the car — I forgot who I was with — and he'd gone to the wrong place. I arrived at the hospital in Milan. Whether he was dead at the scene or died on the journey, I don't know. He was certainly dead when I saw him in the hospital.

I was told by people that he'd been in the medical center and they'd tried to revive him, banging on his chest. That was the root of the problems, the chest injuries from the seatbelt. He wasn't dead for sure when they first put him in the ambulance.