1. Ayrton Senna
At the start, Pedro Lamy and JJ Lehto were involved in an accident. Track officials deployed the Opel Vectra safety car, driven by Max Angelelli at the time, to slow down the field and allow the debris from the starting accident to be removed. The cars proceeded under the safety car for 5 laps. Before the sixth lap, David Brown told Senna via pit to car radio that the safety car was pulling off with the message being acknowledged.
On lap 7, the second lap at racing speed, Senna's car left the racing line at the 190 mph Tamburello corner, ran in a straight line off the track and struck an unprotected concrete barrier. Telemetry shows he left the track at 310 km/h (190 mph) and was able to slow the car down by braking to 218 km/h (135 mph) in slightly under 2 seconds before hitting the wall. The car hit the wall at a shallow angle, tearing off the right front wheel and nose cone, and spun to a halt. After Senna's car came to a halt, he remained motionless in the cockpit. What had likely happened was that the right front wheel had shot up upon impact and entered the cockpit area where Senna was sitting. It struck the right frontal area of his helmet, and the violence of the wheel's impact pushed his head back against the headrest, causing fatal skull fractures. A piece of upright attached to the wheel had partially penetrated his Bell M3 helmet and caused a trauma to his head. In addition, it appeared that a jagged piece of the upright assembly had penetrated the helmet visor just above his right eye. Senna was using a medium sized (58 cm) M3 helmet with a new "thin" Bell visor. Any one of the three injuries would probably have killed him.
After the crash it was immediately evident that Senna had suffered some form of injury, because of the manner in which his helmet was seen to be motionless and leaning slightly to the side. In the seconds that followed his head was seen to move to one side slightly, causing false hopes to be raised. Moments after the crash, Angelo Orsi, a photographer and a friend of Senna, took photographs of Senna in car after his helmet was removed and Senna being treated before marshals blocked his view. Despite receiving numerous offers, the photographs have only been seen by Orsi and the Senna family who insisted that Orsi did not publish the photographs.
A considerable amount of time passed before medical units came to his aid, with fire marshals having arrived at the car and unable to touch Senna before qualified medical personnel arrived. Senna was pulled out of the car minutes after the accident. Television coverage from an overhead helicopter was seen around the world, as rescue workers gave medical attention. Close inspection of the area in which the medical staff treated Senna revealed a considerable amount of blood on the ground. From visible injuries to Senna's head it was evident to attending medical professionals that Senna had sustained a grave head trauma. An emergency tracheotomy was conducted trackside to establish a secure airway through which the medical personnel could artificially maintain Senna's breathing. The race was stopped one minute and nine seconds after Senna's crash. Williams team manager Ian Harrison went up to race control. Harrison arrived to a scene where many race officials were sensing that Senna's crash had been serious. Bernie Ecclestone later arrived in race control to calm the situation and made use of proper organisation.
Professor Sidney Watkins, a world-renowned neurosurgeon, Formula One Safety Delegate and Medical Delegate, and the head of the Formula One on-track medical team, performed the on-sitetracheotomy on Senna.
Watkins later reported:
He looked serene. I raised his eyelids and it was clear from his pupils that he had a massive brain injury. We lifted him from the cockpit and laid him on the ground. As we did, he sighed and, although I am not religious, I felt his spirit depart at that moment.
Watkins cleared the respiratory passages, stemed the blood flow, replaced blood lost from the accident and immobilised the cervical area. Watkins radioed for a medical helicopter and asked the intensive care anaesthiest, Giovanni Gordini to escort Senna to Maggiore Hospital. Approximately 10 minutes after Senna's crash, a miscommunication in the pits caused a Larrousse car piloted by Érik Comas to leave the pit lane and attempt to rejoin the now red flagged Grand Prix. That incident with Comas was spotted by Eurosport commentator John Watson as the "most ridiculous thing I've ever seen at any time in my life".Frantic waving by the marshals at Senna's crash site prevented the Larrousse from risking a collision with the medical helicopter that had landed on the track.
Senna's car returned to the pitlane where officials impounded it. However, an unidentified person insisted that the data carried on the car should be removed with some data having been recovered. At 3:00pm, the helicopter landed in front of the Maggiore Hospital. Doctors rushed Senna into intensive care for a scan of the brain confirming the diagnosis made on the track. At 3:10pm, Senna's heart stopped beating which led to doctors restarting his heart and was placed on a life-support machine. Shortly before the end of the race, Italian police confiscated Senna's helmet. Senna's brother Leonardo arranged for a priest to perform the last rites which occurred at 6:15pm. Senna's heart stopped beating at 6:37pm and it was decided not to restart it. Senna was prounonced dead at 6:40pm with the official time of death at 2:17pm.
At the hospital it was revealed that nurses had discovered a small furled Austrian flag hidden in the sleeve of Senna's race overalls. Journalists concluded he had intended to fly it from his cockpit after the race, and dedicate what could have been his 42nd Grand Prix victory to the memory of Roland Ratzenberger.
Sometime after the race, Ian Harrison was called by an Italian lawyer informing Harrison of Senna's death and that it was being treated as a "road traffic accident". Early in the morning of 2 May, Harrison was called by another lawyer who took him to a mortuary. Harrison decided not to see Senna's body upon being asked.
2. Roland Ratzenberger
Ratzenberger was killed during qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit on Saturday 30 April 1994. He went off-track on the previous lap, damaging his front wing, but rather than come into the pits he continued since he was competing for the final grid spot. The high speed on the back straight, and therefore high downforce, finally broke the wing off, sending it under the car. His car failed to turn into the Villeneuve Corner and struck the outside wall at 195.68 mph (314.9 km/h).
The cause of death was a basilar skull fracture.
Bernie Ecclestone persuaded the Simtek team to take part in the race the following day to overcome the shock. Out of respect, Ratzenberger's spot on the starting grid was left empty. Ratzenberger's team mate,David Brabham, retired after 27 laps.He was the first racing driver to die at a Grand Prix weekend since the 1982 season, when Riccardo Palettiwas killed at the Canadian Grand Prix, coincidentally at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. He was the first driver to die in an F1 car since Elio de Angelis during testing in 1986.
Three-time world champion Ayrton Senna was killed in another accident that brought the sport of Formula One under international scrutiny. The double tragedy was marked before the start of the next race in Monaco, with the front row of the grid left empty and the two slots painted with a Brazilian and Austrian flag.
While Ratzenberger's death was overshadowed to some extent by Senna's, barely 24 hours later, his death nonetheless had one lasting legacy. On 1 May 1994, during the customary drivers' briefing, the remaining drivers agreed to the reformation of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, with Senna,Gerhard Berger and Michael Schumacher as its first directors. The Association subsequently pressed for improvements to car and circuit safety in the wake of Imola and other serious crashes during the 1994 season; in 2003 the FIA mandated the use of the HANS device, designed to prevent the type of injury suffered by Ratzenberger.
When track officials examined the wreckage of Senna's racing car, they found a furled Austrian flag. Senna had planned to raise it after the race, in honour of Ratzenberger.
FIA President Max Mosley attended the funeral of Ratzenberger, despite the overwhelming attention on Senna's funeral, both in the world of motorsport and worldwide. In a press conference ten years later Mosley said, "'Roland had been forgotten. So I went to his funeral because everyone went to Senna's. I thought it was important that somebody went to his." Other members of the Formula 1 community who attended were Ratzenberger's compatriots Karl Wendlinger and Gerhard Berger.
Ratzenberger was supposed to drive later that year in the Le Mans 24 Hours for Toyota. Eddie Irvine took his place in the team, and Roland's name was left on the car (which would go on to take second place overall) as a tribute.
Roland Ratzenberger is buried in Maxglan, Salzburg Austria.
3. Riccardo Paletti
Paletti qualified for the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday June 13, 1982, the first time he would start successfully in a full line-up. At the start, the lights took an unusually long time to turn to green. During this time, Didier Pironi, who had the pole position, stalled the engine of his Ferrari. Pironi lifted his hand to signal the problem, but there was no action for signalling the yellow to abort the start. The lights switched to green and the other cars swerved across the track, trying to squeeze past Pironi's stationary car. Raul Boesel just clipped the back left of the Ferrari, spinning his March into the path of Eliseo Salazar and Jochen Mass. Salazar, Boesel and Mass suffered minor impacts but it looked as if everyone had passed the Ferrari without serious consequences. However, Paletti could not react in time and slammed into the rear of the stranded Ferrari at 180 km/h (around 110 mph), catapulting it into the path of Geoff Lees. The Osella's nose was crushed in severely.
Due to the force of the severe impact, Paletti sustained heavy chest injuries and was lying unconscious in his car, wedged against the steering wheel. Didier Pironi and Sid Watkins, the FIA's head doctor, were on the scene to stabilise and assist Paletti. As Watkins climbed over the wreckage of the Osella, the petrol from the fuel tank ignited, enveloping the car in a wall of fire. When the fire was finally put out, the injured Paletti was without a pulse. It took the rescue workers 25 minutes to cut him out safely from his wrecked car, as the sparks caused by the cutting equipment threatened to re-ignite the petrol on the track. He was flown by a medical helicopter to the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he died soon after arriving. His mother was watching from the stands, where they were to celebrate his 24th birthday later that week. It is said that Paletti was heavily intoxicated from breathing in the exhausting foam used to contain the car fire, and that this could have been fatal given the chest injuries that made the respiration difficult.
Paletti was the second fatality in Formula One that year. Just five weeks before, Gilles Villeneuve had a fatal crash during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. Paletti would be the last driver to die at a Grand Prix meeting for the next 12 years until the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, which took the lives of Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying and triple world champion Ayrton Senna during the Grand Prix itself.
As a tribute to the young Italian, the racetrack at Varano de' Melegari, in the province of Parma (northern Italy) is now called the Autodromo Riccardo Paletti.
His body is buried in the Cimitero Maggiore di Milano.
4. Gilles Villeneuve
On May 8, 1982, Villeneuve died after an accident during the final qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder. At the time of the crash, Pironi had set a time 0.1s faster than Villeneuve for sixth place. Villeneuve was using his final set of qualifying tyres; some say he was attempting to improve his time on his final lap. Some suggest he was specifically aiming to beat Pironi. However, Villeneuve's biographer Gerald Donaldson quotes Ferrari race engineer Mauro Forghieri as saying that the Canadian, although pressing on in his usual fashion, was returning to the pits when the accident occurred. If so, he would not have set a time on that lap.
With eight minutes of the session left, Villeneuve came over the rise after the first chicane and caught Jochen Mass travelling much more slowly through Butte, the left-handed bend before theTerlamenbocht double right-hand section. Mass saw Villeneuve approaching at high speed and moved to the right to let him through on the racing line. At the same instant Villeneuve also moved right to pass the slower car. The Ferrari hit the back of Mass' car and was launched into the air at a speed estimated at 200–225 km/h (120–140 mph). It was airborne for more than 100 m before nosediving into the ground and disintegrating as it somersaulted along the edge of the track. Villeneuve, still strapped to his seat, but without his helmet, was thrown a further 50 m from the wreckage into the catch fencing on the outside edge of the Terlamenbocht corner.
Several drivers stopped and rushed to the scene. John Watson and Derek Warwick pulled Villeneuve, his face blue, from the catch fence. The first doctor arrived within 35 seconds to find that Villeneuve was not breathing, although his pulse continued; he was intubated and ventilated before being transferred to the circuit medical centre and then by helicopter to University St Raphael Hospital where a fatal fracture of the neck was diagnosed. Villeneuve was kept alive on life support while his wife travelled to the hospital and the doctors consulted with specialists worldwide. He died at 9:12 that evening.
5. Ronnie Peterson
The 1978 Italian Grand Prix at Monza started badly for Peterson. In practice he damaged his Lotus 79 race car beyond immediate repair and bruised his legs in the process. Team Lotus had a spare 79, but it had been built for Andretti, and the taller Peterson did not fit comfortably inside. The team's only other car was a type 78, the previous year's car, which had been dragged around the F1 circuit that season with minimal maintenance.
At the start of the race, the race starter threw the green light before the field was ready. The cars from fourth row onwards (Peterson started from the third) were rolling when the green light came on and got a jump on those ahead, resulting in an accordion effect as the cars approached the chicane, bunching them tightly together. The front four, Andretti, Villeneuve, Jabouille and Lauda, were far enough ahead to avoid any drama, but Peterson had made a poor start from fifth and was immediately passed by Alan Jones, Jacques Laffite and John Watson.
Jody Scheckter and Riccardo Patrese, starting 10th and 12th, had moved to the right across the line that separated the Grand Prix front straight from the approach to the old Monza banking. While Scheckter's Wolf was able to rejoin the track well ahead of the bunching pack, Patrese moved back in just ahead of James Hunt, who feinted left and collided with Peterson, with Vittorio Brambilla, Carlos Reutemann, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Patrick Depailler, Didier Pironi, Derek Daly, Clay Regazzoni and Brett Lunger all involved in the ensuing melee.
Peterson's Lotus went into the barriers hard and caught fire before bouncing back into the middle of the track. He was trapped in the burning wreck, but Hunt, Regazzoni and Depailler managed to free him before he received more than minor burns, while track marshals were extinguishing the car. He was dragged free and laid in the middle of the track fully conscious, his severe leg injuries obvious to all. Hunt later said he stopped Peterson from looking at his legs to spare him further distress.
At the time there was more concern for Brambilla, who was hit on the head by a flying wheel and was slumped comatose in his car (he later recovered and drove on in F1 until 1980). Peterson's life was not seen to be in any danger. Sid Watkins and his medical team headed over Peterson's car to extract him from the wreckage. The injured drivers along with Peterson were taken to a hospital in Milan and the race was restarted when the track had been cleaned up.
At the hospital, Peterson's X-rays showed he had seven fractures in one leg and three in the other. After discussion with him, Peterson was sent to intensive care so that the surgeons would be allowed to operate to stabilize the bones. During the night, bone marrow went into Peterson's bloodstream through the fractures, forming fat globules on his major organs including lungs, liver and brain. By morning he was in full renal failure and was declared dead at 9:55am on September 11, 1978. The cause of death was given as fat embolism.
Teammate Mario Andretti clinched the championship at the race. "It was so unfair to have a tragedy connected with probably what should have been the happiest day of my career", Andretti said, "I couldn't celebrate, but also, I knew that trophy would be with me forever. And I knew also that Ronnie would have been happy for me".
At his funeral, the pallbearers included Ken Tyrrell, Colin Chapman, James Hunt, Jody Scheckter, John Watson, Emerson Fittipaldi and Niki Lauda. Peterson ran a total of 123 Grand Prix races during his career, winning ten of them.
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