Grand Prix Insider

30/4/1994, Roland Ratzenberger dies.

I first met Roland Ratzenberger back in 1982, I was racing in Formula Ford 2000 and he was wokring as a mechanic for German gentlemen drivers to finance his own first steps in Formula Ford 1600 in Austria. I was happy to learn that he’d won the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in 1986 and got a BMW factory touring car drive as a result. But trying to finance a season in British F3 failed, so Roland accepted to race in Japan as a well paid professional in Formula Nippon and sports car racing. With the support of Barbara Behlau, a Monaco-based sports manager, Ratzenberger was able to sign a deal with the new Simtek team at the start of 1994, hoping to raise money to complete the season as he went along. We had a chat in Interlagos about how that whole deal had come about and I couldn’t believe the story that got him the drive. He didn’t qualify for the Brazilian GP with the brand new chassis that hadn’t even seen a propore roll-out, but managed to get onto the grid of the Pacific GP at Aida. We last spoke on Saturday morning in the Imola paddock, he was cool, perhaps a bit more serious than usual. A couple of hours later I was among those assisting Roland being placed in a rescue helicopter. Little did we know, while ingeniously hoping for a positive outcome of the horrifying high speed crash he had suffered in practice for the San Marino Grand Prix, that our friend had left us upon impact at the Villeneuve bend.

Born: 4th of July 1962 in Salzburg, Austria;
Died: 30th of April 1994 at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy.

James Duncan Hamilton
Born the 30 april 1920 in Cork (Irlande)
Die the 13 may 1994 à Sherbourne – 74 years

Roland Ratzenberger
Born the 4 july 1960 in Salzburg
Die the 30 april 1994 à Bologne – 33 years – Accident durant les essais du GP de Saint Marin

29th of April – Riccardo Patrese’s record of 256 Grands Prix starts have been beaten by Rubens Barrichello in 2008 and this season his further record as the driver with the longest time span between his first and final point scoring season has als tunbled. However, back in 1984 the Italian might have been unsuspecting that his career might stretch that long at all. Here Patrese is shown at the Belgium GP in Zolder where he celebrated his 100th participation in a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

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28th of April – 35 YEARS AGO: Niki Lauda wins the 1974 Spanish Grand Prix at the Jarama circuit, his first victory in Formula 1 and the 50th win for Ferrari. To the left you see Luca di Montezemolo, then team manager of Scuderia Ferrari, celebrating the end of a winless streak of nearly two years.

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27th of April - In recent years Dr. Helmut Marko has been in the headlines for spotting talents for Red Bull-boss Dietrich Mateschitz. But back in 1972 Marko, shown above in a fight with Brazil’s José Carlos Pace during the Belgian GP, was Austria’s motor sport showcase talent on his own right while one Niki Lauda happened to be an also ran. Sadly his career was cut short by a stone hitting his visor at the French GP and severely damaging his left eye. Actually: Who was the first Austrian ever to score in the Formula 1 World Championship standings?

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26th of April – in Bahrain today, Jenson Button won for the 3rd time in 4 Grands Prix of the 2009 season, beating Sebastian Vettel and pole sitter Jarno Trulli to the flag as well as scoring Mercedes-Benz’ 70th win as Formula 1 engine supplier. Talking about Trulli. What amazing record has the Italian established on race day?

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25th of April – With Jarno Trulli on pole position for the 2009 Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix and Timo Glock alongside in the first row, Toyota scores its first 1-2 in the World Championship. It’s Toyota’s 3rd pole in total and Jarno Trulli’s 4th, the last one dating back to the 2005 US GP at Indianapolis, when the Italian scored the German based team’s 1st ever pole position. By the way: Which driver holds the biggest gap between 2 pole positions to date?

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24 th of April - Today’s the anniversary of Rolf Stommelen’s death and sadly in Germany he is mainly being remembered in connection with the ill fated Eifelland Formula 1 project. The pre-season testing version shown above was the original D1 layout created by exuberant German designer Luigi Colani. It was soon to be reduced to the cockpit scoop and its particular rear view mirror arrangement. Everything else turned out to be too bulky and causing the car to overheat. At temperatures near freezing point… Anyway: Which was the next German team owner to try to turn F1 upside down with his ideas of how aerodynamics (should) work?

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23rd of April – 20 YEARS AGO: Gerhard Berger’s crash at the Tamburello bend during the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix seemed to make the point, as fiery and gruesome looking it may have been, that nowadays race drivers don’t die in high speed crashes anymore. Five years on we would learn from Roland Ratzenberger’s tragic crash at the same circuit and Ayrton Senna’s fatal accident at precisely that same spot not to take things for granted. It is safe to say that Berger’s guardian angel was doing extra-hours that day.

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22nd of April – Today is Esteban Tuero’s birthday and the Argentine driver is perhaps best remembered when he cut the Tyrrell Racing Organisation’s last Grand Prix participation short at the Suzuka track in 1998 by taking Tora Takagi, the team’s sole driver to qualify for the race, out of the competition big style.

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