Early race cars were not paragons of safety. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that Chapman intentionally made his cars less safe to make them faster, but I also don't know that he'd have spent any weight budget to make them safer than the regulations required.
IE
"if it's possible to make a winning car win by having the wheels fall off of it as it crosses the finish lines" -- that's okay
VS
"If it's possible to make a winning car win by having the wheels fall off of it as it crosses the finish line, then it bursts into flame and kills the driver" -- that's probably no okay.
But there's a lot of grey area between the two, and that's where winning teams won (and occasionally lost drivers / spectators). Old time car racing was blood sport.
IE
"if it's possible to make a winning car win by having the wheels fall off of it as it crosses the finish lines" -- that's okay
VS
"If it's possible to make a winning car win by having the wheels fall off of it as it crosses the finish line, then it bursts into flame and kills the driver" -- that's probably no okay.
But there's a lot of grey area between the two, and that's where winning teams won (and occasionally lost drivers / spectators). Old time car racing was blood sport.
https://petrolicious.com/articles/lotus-f1-cars-were-so-frag...