Have A Nice Birthday, Roland Ratzenberger's Ghost

Roland Ratzenberger and his MTV Simtek-Ford S941

18 years ago today, the much-liked Austrian Formula 1 driver Roland Ratzenberger suffered a fatal accident at Imola while qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix, when the front wing - which had become loose on a previous lap - broke off at high speed after turn 1 and got caught under his front wheels, sending him into a concrete wall at 195mph and causing a basal skull fracture, despite the car absorbing enough of the crash to rip off the entire right-hand side of the car. Of course, this was in an age before ear-height driver protection and the Head And Neck Safety (HANS) device drivers now put on their necks to avoid whiplash or worse. The day after this tragic accident, well, you know what happened, but I'll touch on that more tomorrow. After the last black weekend in Formula 1, the safety element of the sport was very closely examined, and it has been assured that no drivers have died since then.

Roland was only in his first Formula 1 season, racing for the seriously underfunded Simtek team. Unfortunately, in the two races he was, ahem, able to start, he got one DNQ (did not qualify, i.e. the car wasn't fast enough to even enter) in Brazil and one 11th place at the Pacific Grand Prix at Aida (now called Okayama) in Japan, a result which back then was five places off the points. Considering he won his class at Le Mans in 1993 and came third in British Formula 3000 (kind of like GP2, which didn't exist then) in 1989, this F1 record isn't really indicative of his talent, and it's a shame he was taken before he had a chance to get his F1 career off the ground.

If you want to see the crash, it's on YouTube, as well as in the Senna movie near the end. For now though, I hope that, if he's up there somewhere, he's happy. I don't actually believe in ghosts, but thinking of today as his ghost having an 18th birthday rather than a sad anniversary of his violent death is slightly more positive...