Stuntman lost his leg in a crash

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The Sun has come up. Ferrari 8 has spun and sits across the track. A flag marshall stands at the rear of the car (Something no worker is supposed to do). Ferrari 7 arrives and, in an attempt to avoid 8, spins and clears the Armco barrier and an embankment. Piper gets out of the car. He can be seen limping away just before the explosives are set off.

A few seconds later, Porsche 20 arrives and fails to see a Porsche 911, a slower car. 20 crashes into the guardrail. If you look carefully, you will see that 20 is just a body over a yellow car, probably one of the older Lotuses (Loti?) used in the filming.

Hollywood plays too great a role here. The announcer, in English although this is France, tells the spectators that there has been an accident. Never, ever, in all the many races I ran and worked, including the Daytona 24 Hour, was there such an announcement. The immediate effect of such an announcement would be for all the morons and ghouls to rush to the area to take a look at where someone may have died. That clogs the access roads needed for evacuation.

More Hollywood fakery: Cars did not explode in crashes. They may have burned but they did not explode. Today, due to fuel cells and other safety features, they rarely burn.

You could write a book with all the safety improvements since this film was made.