Remembering Roland Ratzenberger

 Roland Ratzenberger

4th July 1960 - 30th April 1994

Today marks the 29th anniversary of the passing of Austrian racer, Roland Ratzenburger. I'd actually not heard of Roland prior to me starting this blog, likely due to F1 legend Ayrton Senna being tragically killed on the same weekend and unfortunately, this event has over shadowed Ratzenberger's equally untimely death. With this in mind, I decided to do some research into the driver's life to educate myself and others who may be in the same boat.

Born in Salzburg, Austria, Ratzenberger's interest in motorsport and cars began after his Grandmother took him to a local hillclimb event, aged 7. He's career in motorsport was pretty much sealed a couple of years later with the opening of the Salzburgring and the discovery that Formula Ford owner and racer, Walter Lechner, was based locally.

At age 23, Ratzenberger began racing in German Formula Ford, going on to win both Central European and Austrian championships a couple of years later. In the following decade, Roland went on to compete in championships such as British F3 with West Surrey Racing, British Touring Car Championship (the series that got me into motorsport!) and Formula 3000. He eventually went onto achieve his dreams of becoming an F1 driver in 1994, joining his rivals from his F3000 days, Eddie Irvine & Johnny Herbert.

Sadly, this dream would be extremely short lived as, in what would have been his third race weekend in the championship, Roland suffered an accident during the second qualifying session that cost his life almost immediately. This was the final moment in a series of very unfortunate events to his weekend. And sadly, the incidents continued even after this fatal moment, seeing F1 legend, Ayrton Senna's life being taken 24 hours later on the bend just before the one that claimed Ratzenberger's. 

During the first qualifying session of the weekend he asked a more experienced driver to test his car out as Roland wasn't 100% with the brakes of the car. Eventually, both parties were satisfied with the cars performance and this was eventually over shadowed by Rubens Barrichello having an accident which put an early end to his weekend. The next day and second qualifying saw Ratzenberger have a minor incident at Acqua Minerale Chicane. His car was recovered, checked and seen as fit to continue in the session.

Unfortunately, nobody noticed the damage to the front wing of his car which ended up snapping and becoming lodge under the car, sending the car towards the track wall. This would end up being the highest G-Force crash recorded in Formula 1 history, hitting at 195.7MPH (314.9KM/H) equating to 500gn. Roland was pronounced dead on arrival at Maggiore Hospital, Bologna after suffering three different fatal injuries. He became the first F1 driver in 12 years to lose his life during a race weekend.

As mentioned, the death of Senna largely overshadowed Ratzenberger's especially in legacy terms, but this can also be noted through funeral attendance. Every active F1 driver at the time attended the 3x champion's funeral, whereas only five attended Ratzenberger's, including Johnny Herbert.

Tributes were made to Roland, his spot on the starting grid was left empty after Paul Belmondo declined to fill that spot, no champagne was sprayed by Michael Schumacher, Nicola Larini and Mikka Hakkinen on the podium ceremony and his name was left of the car he was due to drive at Le Mans later in the year. The Grand Prix Drivers' Association was also reformed following this fateful weekend in Imola.

It's so insane to me that his dream was only just getting started and was cut so short along with his life so fast. It's even crazier that two lives were claimed in the same weekend during the pinnacle of motorsport. The fact that he has barely got a legacy in the sport he gave his life for as well, that's wild... He clearly had promise through all of his previous racing experience and could have gone on to be a champion if the damage on his front wing was spotted sooner.

Sadly this weekend would not be the last fatalities in an F1 race but even with the sport implementing more and more safety protocols, motorsport will always have it's risks and be dangerous, but this is also part of the thrill.