May 8 - a day of mourning forever!
05/08/2012
Today, May 8th, should actually be a day of mourning forever. Because exactly 30 years ago today, at around 1.50 pm, we lost a racing driver whose name still makes many fans' hearts flutter. A man in the league of Clark, Rindt or Senna. A driver who was always about 100m off the limit. A man who desperately tried to win the 1979 Dutch GP on three wheels, who could not understand in the pits why his mechanics did not frantically try to repair his half total loss. He drove the rainy GP Canada blind, because after contact with an enemy, the nose of his car stood vertically in front of him. No one threw his rear axle further than he did at the 1980 San Marino GP in Imola.
Few manage to maintain the lead with inferior material and with a group of four cars (Laffite in the Ligier, Watson in the McLaren, Reutemann in the Williams and de Angelis in the Lotus) in tow, each of which was actually faster than he was and over a longer race distance. He won this Spanish GP in Jarama in 1981. Last but not least, he fought a lap-long duel with René Arnoux's Renault, with the cars practically driving side by side all the time and you could no longer count the number of times they touched. This happened at the 1979 French GP in Dijon!
I think now even the last person knows who we're talking about: Exactly, the Canadian Gilles Villeneuve!
A misunderstanding cost the Ferrari star his life on the way to his first world championship title. Final practice for the 1982 Belgian GP in Zolder: Gilles was on his last possible fast lap on his last set of qualifying tires. Jochen Mass, on his final lap, saw the Ferrari coming, knew what was going on and wanted to give the Canadian the racing line. Gilles, however, did not expect this clearance and wanted to pass March on the right, but their wheels touched and the Ferrari became a jet. After a long flight, it hit the ground with its nose and Gilles was catapulted out of the disintegrating racing car with his entire seat. He was flung across the track and presumably hit by a safety fence post on landing. Even Villeneuve did not have the slightest chance of survival in this insane crash.
Gilles Villeneuve made his F1 debut at the 1977 British GP in Silverstone in a McLaren. However, he only drove this one race for the English team and switched to Ferrari, where he stayed until the bitter end.
A little story in passing. As a big Jody Scheckter fan and young GP photographer, I used to bring my idol Swiss chocolate whenever possible. Gilles got really jealous and asked me to think of him too. No sooner said than done, I brought chocolate from Switzerland to both Ferrari drivers in Zolder. As a thank you, they invited me to eat spaghetti at the Ferrari Motorhome on Saturday lunchtime before qualifying. Thanks to the right chemistry, a certain friendship immediately developed. Unfortunately, it ended tragically just a little later. I stood by and had to watch helplessly as the doctors fought for Gilles' life. A few hours later, our premonition was confirmed on the radio: "Gilles Villeneuve has succumbed to his injuries!"
Salut Gilles, we will never forget you!
