"Imagine yourself racing in a 917/10. You dive into a corner, all over the brakes and shifting down while the turbos more or less stop working. As you approach the apex, you crack the throttle and your 5-liter engine puts maybe 250 horsepower to the wheels; at the apex you squeeze on the power and get maybe 400 horsepower. As you exit onto the straight, you drop the hammer and get 500 as things start to work — and about one second later you’ve got 1,000 horsepower trying to find someplace to go, and you’re in the way.
This has been described as being like getting hit from behind by a truck, and even in the day, there were precious few drivers (Donohue and Follmer primarily) who were good enough to hang on. I personally know of two competent drivers in the vintage era who crashed badly when the boost got away from them — this is a car that will kill you"
Great, short article/history here