Thirty years ago, Roland Ratzenberger had a fatal crash in Imola – F1sport.cz

In 1994, Italy’s Imola experienced a tragic weekend of the F1 grand prix, which became fatal for two drivers.

The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix went down in F1 history in a very tragic way. There were several serious accidents and incidents during the weekend, two of which resulted in the death of a competitor.

Even before the legendary Ayrton Senna crashed fatally on the Imola circuit on the first Sunday of May, tragedy struck the Austrian pilot Roland Ratzenberger on April 30, 1994.

Photo: Getty Images

The then 33-year-old native of Salzburg crashed in Saturday’s qualifying after first damaging his front wing and then crashing at the fast Villeneuve corner.

Although the Simtek driver was immediately taken to the circuit’s medical center, the doctors could no longer help him and he was pronounced dead after being transported to a hospital in Bologna.

Thorny road to F1

Ratzenberger made his F1 debut just a few weeks before the fateful moment in Imola.

Before the season, he signed a contract with the new Simtek team for five grand prix. In the end, however, he only participated in three race weekends. Although he did not qualify in Brazil, he got a taste for it three weeks later in Japan, where he finished eleventh in the VC Pacific. However, it was the turn of the already mentioned unfortunate VC San Marina.

Ratzenberger’s path to the queen of motorsport was very thorny, which is also confirmed by the fact that the Austrian did not get his first start in F1 until he was 33 years old.

Before that, Ratzenberger gained experience both in Europe (he raced mainly in Britain, where he took third place in the British F3000) and in Japan, where he participated in the local F3000 car championship for three years (he won one). He also appeared five times in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he raced with Porsche and Toyota specials, while in his last race he was happy with the win in the C2 class and fifth place overall.