Something was clearly wrong. Legendary F1 commentator Matti Kyllönen had seen one or two accidents from his commentary booth, but never anything like this.
The cockpit of an F1 car is designed to withstand massive impacts. When the international director of the F1 series on Saturday, April 30, 1994, picked up his photos by Roland Ratzenberger the wrecked Simtek, a hole torn in the side of the car by the force of the collision clearly revealed the Austrian’s light driving overalls.
What was happening above the cockpit was even more worrying. When the Simtek car finally stopped in the middle of the Tosa corner of the Imola circuit, Ratzenberger’s nodding head swung uncontrollably from side to side and then came to rest against the edge of the car’s cockpit. The 33-year-old Austrian was clearly unconscious. At least.
– We saw the commentator Keke Rosberg’s with how Ratzenberger’s head snapped up. It was immediately clear that things had gotten really bad, Kyllönen recalls 30 years after the event.
The Imola race held on May Day 1994 has gone down in F1 history as a pitch-black weekend.
Events are best remembered as legendary Ayrton Senna death in Sunday’s race, but the whole weekend was dark even before Senna’s tragic death at the Tamburello bend.
As soon as Friday, young man Rubens Barrichello lost control of his Jordan at the fast final part of the track and flew into the tire embankment.
The impact affected Barrichello’s legs, and he would have choked on his own tongue if it weren’t for the F1 doctor by Sid Watkins quick action.
Barrichello survived his concussion with a broken nose, concussion and a sprained wrist, so by Friday evening the F1 circus had already moved its eyes forward towards Saturday’s time trials. The F1 race had not seen a driver die since 1982.
– I remember the atmosphere that prevailed in the pit before Saturday’s qualifying sessions. Barrichello’s accident was a serious one, but he was already back in the pit on Saturday with his hand in the package, watching the qualifying sessions. The prevailing imagination was that we had survived yet another accident and it was time to move on, Kyllönen recalls.
Just a few hours later, the atmosphere at the pit would change from cheerful to grave.
Ratzenberger’s fatal decision
Born in 1960 in Salzburg, Austria, Roland Ratzenberger traveled – or drove – a long way before ending up in the F1 pit. In the junior classes, Ratzenberger did well, but not dazzlingly. So he had to watch from the sidelines how the talents who went through the junior classes with him, such as Johnny Herbert and Eddie Irvine found their way into the F1 series.
Nowadays, when the junior academies of different F1 teams pick up talented drivers in their early teens, the idea of an F1 debutant over 30 years old may sound absurd. It wasn’t common even in the 1990s, but Ratzenberger refused to give up on his dream. He was already close to a team place in the 1991 season, but vital financial backers pulled out of the Austrian’s background at the last minute.
In the winter of 1994, Ratzenberger got acquainted To Barbara Behlau, to a wealthy German lady living in Monaco. Charismatic and with a captivating smile, Ratzenberger got Behlau as his backer, and they built a total financial package that opened Ratzenberger’s doors to the entry stable Simtek.
In the opening race of the season in Brazil, Ratzenberger was eliminated from the race due to a too slow qualifying performance. In the second race in Japan, Ratzenberger made it to the race, and finished respectably in 11th place.
After Japan, the F1 circus packed its things and headed to Europe, to the Imola track. Barbara Behlau decided to travel from Monaco to central Italy to witness her protégé’s actions on the spot for the first time. The Imola weekend was supposed to be a joyous reunion of the racing driver and his sponsor.
In qualifying on Saturday, in the penultimate lap of his life, Ratzenberger lost control of his Simtek car at the slow Acque Minerali corner. His car ran over the track’s curb and onto the grass, from where the Austrian steered Simtek safely back onto the track.
– From the telemetry of the car, I saw afterwards that after a driving mistake, he pulled the steering wheel a couple of times from one extreme to the other. It is typical of a driver trying to determine if the car is damaged. He must have thought everything was fine, Ratzenberger’s team mate David Brabham told later.
So Roland Ratzenberger decided to continue on the track. He did not return from the next round.
CPR was shown on live TV
About 18 minutes into qualifying, Ratzenberger lost control of his car and went off the track at the high-speed Villeneuve corner. He hit a concrete wall at a speed of 314 kilometers per hour and the wrecked Simtek bounced back onto the track, stopping in the middle of the Tosa needle’s eye, where television cameras picked up Ratzenberger dozing in the cockpit for their pictures.
In less than a minute, the medical staff arrived to examine the condition of the injured driver. Soon, Ratzenberger was lifted from his wrecked Simtek and laid on the asphalt next to his car.
F1 Chief Medical Officer Sid Watkins began CPR less than three minutes after the accident; a helicopter camera hovering above the bend sent a live image of the events to millions of home viewers around the world.
– Injuries rarely happen these days, but the practice of the F1 series is that treatment measures or slowdowns are not shown until it is known that the driver is fine. I understand that very well. However, it was a different time then, recalls Kyllönen, who wrote the events for Finnish television.
About ten minutes after the accident, Ratzenberger was transferred to the Imola track hospital and from there by helicopter to the nearby Maggiore hospital in Bologna. The 33-year-old Austrian was pronounced dead immediately after arriving at Maggiore Hospital.
The doctor advised Ayrton Senna to end his career
According to an autopsy conducted by doctors, Ratzenberger suffered three separate fatal injuries in the accident; a basilar skull fracture, a blunt impact caused by the left front tire penetrating the car cabin, and a ruptured aorta.
The cause of the accident was determined to be a damaged front wing at the exit of the Acque Minerali bend. When Ratzenberger continued on the track and accelerated to a speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour for the first time in the lap following the exit, the damaged front wing could not withstand the stress placed on it, and instead came off and got stuck under the front tires of the car. So Ratzenberger lost the ability to steer or slow down his car just before the fateful Villeneuve corner.
In the F1 pit, the news of Ratzenberger’s death caused a collective shock. Years past had lulled drivers and series leaders into a false sense of security; Of course, you could get hurt behind the wheel of an F1 car, but you no longer had to fear for your life.
Three-time world champion Ayrton Senna broke down in tears when he met Dr. Watkins on Saturday night. Watkins urged his old friend to end his career, because in his eyes the Brazilian had nothing more to prove in the sport. Senna refused.
– Sid, there are things we cannot control. I have to go on, he stated.
Senna died the very next day in the race on Sunday after hitting a concrete wall at the Tamburello bend.
In the same weekend, two drivers died, one of whom was perhaps the sport’s brightest star.
Ratzenberger’s death had been a shock, but it was possible to explain it as an isolated unfortunate event. When the same thing happened to Senna the very next day, the F1 world fell into a complete depression. Suddenly, a weekend had been experienced that had turned the sport into a scene of life and death. The press around the world questioned whether the season or even the whole sport should continue anymore.
– I remember how after the race we looked at each other in the pits and wondered what was really going on here. Commentator Keke Rosberg was a great support when we dealt with our feelings from both sides, Kyllönen recounts the moments of initial shock.
Few people have to explain another person’s death live on air. This happened to Matti Kyllönen two days in a row.
– It had never crossed my mind when I started working with the sport. Of course, Ratzenberger and Senna were declared dead only after the TV broadcasts ended, so when explaining, we were not sure of their fate, but yes, those situations seemed bad. There you could place your words very carefully. Very sensitive moments.
Despite the tragedies at Imola, the F1 season continued as planned in Monaco. Ratzenberger’s compatriot in the first training sessions on Friday Karl Wendlinger ran into the wall in the chicane after the tunnel. He fell into a coma for weeks, but eventually recovered.
– At that point, you started to wonder how on earth my work suddenly became like this, Kyllönen recalls.
Ratzenberger was forgotten: “They were equal people after all”
More than 100 million people watched Ayrton Senna’s state funeral on television in Brazil alone. In Senna’s hometown of São Paulo, televisions remained switched off as hundreds of thousands of people followed the funeral procession along the streets. President Itamar Franco declared three days of official mourning in the country. All the active drivers of the F1 series and countless other influencers of the sport participated in Senna’s funeral.
Ratzenberger was buried with modest expenses in Salzburg. Five drivers attended his funeral.
– Without a doubt, Roland was overshadowed by Senna. Ratzenberger’s death was big news in the European media on Saturday, but after Sunday it became a mere side plot. It’s tragic in itself, because they were equal people, even though the other was a better driver, Kyllönen reflects.
Roland Ratzenberger’s most significant legacy is his impact on F1 safety. The GPDA, a trade union promoting driver safety that had been closed years earlier, was re-established just hours after Ratzenberger’s death.
After the Imola weekend, the F1 series went through countless safety reforms, the effectiveness of which can be seen from a simple statistic: in the 30 years following Imola, only one driver has died in the series, Jules Bianchi following an accident at the 2014 Suzuka race.
In 2003, the FIA introduced a mandatory HANS device for all cars, which prevents the driver’s head from jerking forward or to the side in an accident in the way that killed Ratzenberger. Since the introduction of the device, the number of head injuries in the series has decreased to a minimum; even mild concussions don’t happen every year.
The destinies of Ratzenberger and Senna have been forever intertwined, and Brass’s legacy in F1 is significantly greater than Ratzenberger’s. It’s easy to forget that the Austrian in his early thirties was just at the beginning of his dream when his life ended. He had worked his whole life to get into the F1 series, and only had time to spend three race weekends there.
As a driver, he didn’t have time to achieve much, but Roland Ratzenberger’s legacy is still visible in the series today every time the driver gets out of his wrecked car on his own two feet.