Piers Courage was killed during the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on 21 June 1970. Jochen Rindt won the race for Lotus, but the sporting result has always had to share the date with one of the grimmest accidents of the early 1970s.
Williams before Williams became Williams
Courage was driving for Frank Williams Racing Cars, the small operation that existed long before Williams became a grand prix-winning constructor. In 1969 Courage had delivered podiums for Williams with Brabham machinery, showing both speed and a strong partnership with the young team owner.
For 1970, Williams used a De Tomaso chassis. It was not a successful car, and at Zandvoort Courage crashed heavily at the fast Tunnel Oost section. The car broke up and caught fire. The use of magnesium components has long been part of the horror attached to the accident, because it made the fire especially severe.
Rindt wins, but the race changes colour
Rindt won in the Lotus 72, with Jackie Stewart second and Jacky Ickx third. The Lotus 72 would become one of the most important cars of its era, but Zandvoort 1970 is not remembered simply as a technical breakthrough or another Rindt win. Courage’s death overwhelms the day.
The accident sits in the safety story of a period when Formula 1 was still accepting levels of danger that later generations would find impossible to defend. For Williams, it was also a personal loss before the team had even become the institution that later fans know. On 21 June, the sport’s progress and its brutality arrived in the same race.
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