I think having recently been through WW2 where "reasonable things" included tasks like "hey let's disarm this unexploded bomb by chilling it in liquid oxygen." fundamentally altered people's risk calculus for a generation or two.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/feb/08/secondworldwar...

I mainly talking about driving styles, modern F1 drivers pull all kinds of maneuvers and drive so close to the limit that would be totally suicidal back in those days (especially for overtaking, you aren't going to fight as hard when you know that any crash might result in death or severe injury)

Of course a lot of that is because of the cars. 50s to 60s cars had basically no downforce and would be undriveable on modern tracks amongst other things.

I'm certainly not implying that modern drivers are less risk-averse these days, just that the risks were massively higher and drivers generally took that into account.