Bernie Ecclestone and Max
Mosley have both attracted publicity for not exactly positive reasons,
but this film presents their genuine determination to stop Formula One being
a sport where the public tuned in to watch their heroes die, having lost
friends and colleagues in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Of course, as told in the film, this was not a simple or straightforward task,
as the untimely deaths of Austrian Roland
Ratzenberger and Senna himself in the same weekend at Imola in 1994
show; the first fatalities at a race meeting for 12 years. But as Martin
Brundle’s accident two years later in Melbourne – which is used to as
the opening and climax of Life On The Limit – demonstrates, Formula One
could be and was becoming safer, as a whole host of huge accidents since
have shown.
No Formula One driver will have died for 20 years this May, and Life On The
Limit is the compelling – if at times slightly uneven – tale of how a sport
no longer stood for its competitors and chief attractions having to play
Russian roulette with their lives.
1: Life On The Limit is in cinemas on January 10th. A digital release
follows on March 7th, with a Blu-ray and DVD release on March 17th
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Jim Clark – Hockenheim, 1968
The death of Jim Clark, the darling of Formula One, who many believed was on
his way to to becoming the greatest ever before his death in a Formula Two
race at Hockenheim, Germany, marked the beginning of the sport’s most
dangerous period.
As his fellow drivers express in the film, before Clark’s death, many believed
that while others crashed and died, it wouldn’t happen to them, because
there was always some explanation as to why they had crashed. But when
Clark, the best in the paddock at the time, died, the realisation dawned on
the other drivers that it could happen to any of them.
With no barriers around the edge of the track, Clark’s Lotus veered off and
crashed into the trees. He broke his neck and fractured his skull, dying
before he reached hospital, marking what became an almost permanent state of
mourning in the Formula One paddock over the following decade.
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Jochen Rindt – Monza, 1970
Jochen Rindt’s death during qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix in 1970,
capped a bleak and tragic year in the history of Formula One, with several
other drivers losing their lives in the same season. His death was made all
the more heartbreaking by his wife’s plea in a television interview for
Jochen to stop racing shortly before his death.
At the extremely fast Monza circuit just before the final corner, the
Parabolica, the brake shaft on Rindt’s Lotus failed and the car swerved
right then violently left, ploughing into a barrier which gave way, tearing
the car’s nose off. In the habit of not wearing the car’s crotch straps, so
he could get out of the car quickly in case there was a fire, Rindt slid
under the belts and suffered fatal injuries.
He became the only posthumous world champion in the history of Formula One,
with the trophy presented to his widow, Nina.
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Roger Williamson – Zandvoort, 1973
British driver Roger
Williamson‘s death is one of the most distressing of the period, simply
because it exposed how inadequate Formula One’s approach to safety was at
the time.
After crashing at Zandvoort, Holland, and his car becoming engulfed in flames,
fellow driver David
Purley stopped at the side of the track, and desperately tried to free
his friend from the inferno. But he received no help whatsoever from other
marshalls or people, who simply watch him singlehandedly try and lift the
car over.
He frantically waves to his fellow racers as they drive past, but the race
continues seemingly as normal.
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Niki Lauda – Nurburgring, 1976
At the Nurburgring Nordschleife, a track measuring more than 20 kilometres and
widely regarded as one of the most dangerous in the history of Formula One,
three-time champion Niki Lauda came close to death after inhaling hot toxic
gases and suffering severe burns.
For those who have seen Rush, the context of Lauda’s rivalry with the
flamboyant James Hunt, as well as his remarkable return to racing just six
weeks later, will be familiar.
A week before the 1976 meeting Lauda had urged his drivers to boycott the race
because of the Nurburgring’s safety arrangements, and on the second lap at a
very fast left kink, his Ferrari swerved off the track, hit an embankment
and burst into flames, leaving the Austrian inside the inferno.
He lost most of his right ear and suffered extensive scarring but miraculously
survived, winning the championship the following year and once more in 1984.
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Gilles Villeneuve – Zolder, 1982
Gilles Villeneuve was one of the sport’s most exciting and popular drivers at
the time of his horrific, harrowing accident in qualifying for the Belgian
Grand Prix at Zolder in 1982.
With around 10 minutes of the final qualifying session remaining, Villeneuve
caught the back of another car travelling around 140 mph, and was launched
into the air.
His Ferrari was airborne for more than 100 metres before crashing into the
ground and somersaulting along the track. Villeneuve’s helmet was torn from
his head by the crash as he was thrown a further 50 metres from his
destroyed car into the fencing around the edge of the circuit. He died of a
fatal neck fracture and was pronounced dead in hospital that evening.
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Ayrton Senna – Imola, 1994
Although many years after Formula One’s deadliest period in the 1970s,
Brazilian Ayrton Senna’s death marked the unthinkable. The sport’s greatest
driver at the time – and in many people’s eyes, the greatest to have lived –
whose appeal extended well beyond motorsport, died on television in front of
millions of people, in an era when fans did not expect drivers to die in the
name of sport.
His death marked a particularly black weekend for the sport. It is often
forgotten that Austrian Roland Ratzenberger died in qualifying the day
before at Imola, Italy, and that Senna’s Brazilian protege Rubens
Barrichello was lucky to survive a crash in Friday practice.
For the 1994 season, the electronic aids which helped drivers were banned,
making the cars instantly more unpredictable and uncontrollable, while the
construction of the chassis had not kept pace with the phenomenal cornering
speeds the cars could now achieve.
The exact reason for Senna’s crash has been hotly debated, but whatever the
cause, the three-time world champion plunged into the wall at Tamburello at
around 145 mph. A piece of the suspension assembly penetrated his helmet
visor, and he died of fatal skull fractures. To this day, no driver has been
killed in a Formula One car since.
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Given the above, it seems all the more remarkable that the three crashes below
resulted in no injuries to the drivers whatsoever. Martin Brundle (at 0:28)
even jogged back to the pitlane to hop into the spare car, to the
astonishment and delight of the Melbourne crowd.
Martin Brundle – Melbourne, 1996
Robert Kubica – Montreal, 2007
Mark Webber – Valencia, 2010