So 10 place grid penalty for Perez right?
Does anyone else have anything of that sort? Anyone takin on an extra engine or changing something that will give them a grid penalty?
Nice memory of Roland Ratzenberger, as written by Allard Kalff ..
(google translated from dutch)
Roland
In the early eighties there had been that group, I was also one of them, of men who all wanted to become racing drivers, but did not have the money for it.
We all went to work as mechanics, or on circuits or racing schools, maybe to be able to race once and keep in touch. Roland was also a member of that club. He also had the disadvantage that he was so big and heavy. A Formula Ford only weighed 420 kilos, so if you were twenty kilos heavier, that made a difference. Roland worked in Germany and I had met him through Rob Potharst, a really good Formula Ford mechanic, if he wasn't drunk.
In 1983 Roland suddenly appeared in England. Not for racing, but for looking around. I asked: where do you sleep? He had no idea. So I said sleep with me then. He then paid for the food, because yes, neither of us had any money. But that is how it went. You drove each other left into the wall if you had to, but you also helped each other if you could.
In 1984 I was back in the Netherlands and when Roland had to race in Zandvoort, he always stopped with us. Then we unloaded the car at our home in the garden, he could prepare it there. He slept on our couch and the next day he went on to Zandvoort. He then had that accident with Bertrand Gachot. He drove on the back of Roland and flipped over a few times, even lost his helmet. He didn't race for a while ...
Meanwhile Roland went to England to do Formula Ford. He quickly became a national celebrity there. The BBC had a children's program with Roland the Rat, so he was soon called Roland the Rat. Don't forget his last name: Ratzenberger. They even did a TV recording with him. He ran his car down. With the left rear wheel against a truck. But that was also good for his fame. And he won the Formula Ford Festival, too! Against all expectations. But yes, Roland had no money, nothing at all. Fortunately, he got a touring car contract through Gerhard Berger, so he became a factory driver at BMW. Then he disappeared to Japan, doing touring cars, Sportscars, Formula Nippon. Then we lost sight of each other a bit. You didn't have a mobile phone yet, just texting Japan was not an option.
But at the first Le Mans I did with SportNet, he was there too. It was his second Le Mans, with a Toyota. And nothing has changed, just sit and chat again. And he still hoped that one day he would make it to Formula 1, via the Japan route. That was not surprising, because there was a lot of money in Japan and that Formula Nippon was a cool championship. Lola, Reynard, Dome, they all built cars for that class and there were several tire suppliers too.
In 1994, Roland suddenly had the budget to drive a number of Grands Prix. Barbara Behlau, a somewhat eccentric lady from Monaco, also sponsored him. So we met again at the very first Grand Prix of 1994. And there he still turned out to be that very beautiful, calm, cozy, quiet Austrian, always very intense and serious. He was also shaped by his Japanese years. He had really enjoyed it there, but Formula 1 of course remained the dream. And yes, then you will die on an afternoon in Imola ...
It has been a drama year with that Simtek. He failed qualifying at that first race. He couldn't drive on Friday because there was no fire extinguisher in that car. It was still on the way or lost, something like that. Roland let all of that come over him. He also understood: it was a new team. And there was no money either. At the second race in Aïda, Japan, he knew the track well. That was an advantage. He finished eleventh and last. And then Imola.
In the meantime, the pressure was apparently so high that, when he went off the track for a moment during qualifying, he decided to keep driving instead of having the car checked. Still, see if you could quickly set a good time. Life sometimes depends on simple decisions. It was, of course, a very strange accident, in a place where you normally don't crash.
So it was immediately clear that something must have been wrong with the car. Later they could see on the data that he had gone off track. That he then shook the gravel out of the sidepods. They could also see that he suddenly lost a lot of downforce and that a lot was wrong. It turned out that a vortex generator broke off and maybe a piece of the front wing. Such a vortex generator was a kind of half hose with which the air was guided along the front wheel. Those things were under the front wing and were sometimes forty or fifty centimeters long. It looked beautiful, but it was also extremely fragile. No wonder Max Mosley immediately banned them for the next race.
In the evening I went to visit his teammate David Brabham. I knew David and Lisa well. The whole team was in deep mourning. I saw Humphrey Corbett, Roland's engineer. Humphrey had also engineered Paul Warwick when he killed himself at Oulton Park. I remember Humphrey literally said to me, "Allard, could it have anything to do with me?" Terrible. A surreal situation.
No one had been killed in Formula 1 for years, during a Grand Prix weekend. J.J. Lehto had driven to Imola with Roland, in Roland's Porsche. He had to drive it back to Monaco. But J.J. didn't know he wouldn't get far on Sunday either. He stopped at the start and Pedro Lamy crashed on top of him, debris into the audience. All such things.
But yes, the most tragic is perhaps that many people conveniently forget that Roland died there on Saturday afternoon, because Ayrton Senna died the next day. I understand that people think more of Ayrton than of Roland, but that's why I don't want to forget him. He was a friend. He belonged to that group of Formula Ford drivers that made it to Formula 1, and there weren't many. You didn't forget that. He didn't forget me either.
It is a special kind of person, who now has no chance of success. Someone who becomes a mechanic in Formula 4 and says that he is going to become Formula 1 world champion, is now being declared crazy. Something like that no longer happens.
Nice memory of Roland Ratzenberger, as written by Allard Kalff ..
(google translated from dutch)
Roland
In the early eighties there had been that group, I was also one of them, of men who all wanted to become racing drivers, but did not have the money for it.
We all went to work as mechanics, or on circuits or racing schools, maybe to be able to race once and keep in touch. Roland was also a member of that club. He also had the disadvantage that he was so big and heavy. A Formula Ford only weighed 420 kilos, so if you were twenty kilos heavier, that made a difference. Roland worked in Germany and I had met him through Rob Potharst, a really good Formula Ford mechanic, if he wasn't drunk.
In 1983 Roland suddenly appeared in England. Not for racing, but for looking around. I asked: where do you sleep? He had no idea. So I said sleep with me then. He then paid for the food, because yes, neither of us had any money. But that is how it went. You drove each other left into the wall if you had to, but you also helped each other if you could.
In 1984 I was back in the Netherlands and when Roland had to race in Zandvoort, he always stopped with us. Then we unloaded the car at our home in the garden, he could prepare it there. He slept on our couch and the next day he went on to Zandvoort. He then had that accident with Bertrand Gachot. He drove on the back of Roland and flipped over a few times, even lost his helmet. He didn't race for a while ...
Meanwhile Roland went to England to do Formula Ford. He quickly became a national celebrity there. The BBC had a children's program with Roland the Rat, so he was soon called Roland the Rat. Don't forget his last name: Ratzenberger. They even did a TV recording with him. He ran his car down. With the left rear wheel against a truck. But that was also good for his fame. And he won the Formula Ford Festival, too! Against all expectations. But yes, Roland had no money, nothing at all. Fortunately, he got a touring car contract through Gerhard Berger, so he became a factory driver at BMW. Then he disappeared to Japan, doing touring cars, Sportscars, Formula Nippon. Then we lost sight of each other a bit. You didn't have a mobile phone yet, just texting Japan was not an option.
But at the first Le Mans I did with SportNet, he was there too. It was his second Le Mans, with a Toyota. And nothing has changed, just sit and chat again. And he still hoped that one day he would make it to Formula 1, via the Japan route. That was not surprising, because there was a lot of money in Japan and that Formula Nippon was a cool championship. Lola, Reynard, Dome, they all built cars for that class and there were several tire suppliers too.
In 1994, Roland suddenly had the budget to drive a number of Grands Prix. Barbara Behlau, a somewhat eccentric lady from Monaco, also sponsored him. So we met again at the very first Grand Prix of 1994. And there he still turned out to be that very beautiful, calm, cozy, quiet Austrian, always very intense and serious. He was also shaped by his Japanese years. He had really enjoyed it there, but Formula 1 of course remained the dream. And yes, then you will die on an afternoon in Imola ...
It has been a drama year with that Simtek. He failed qualifying at that first race. He couldn't drive on Friday because there was no fire extinguisher in that car. It was still on the way or lost, something like that. Roland let all of that come over him. He also understood: it was a new team. And there was no money either. At the second race in Aïda, Japan, he knew the track well. That was an advantage. He finished eleventh and last. And then Imola.
In the meantime, the pressure was apparently so high that, when he went off the track for a moment during qualifying, he decided to keep driving instead of having the car checked. Still, see if you could quickly set a good time. Life sometimes depends on simple decisions. It was, of course, a very strange accident, in a place where you normally don't crash.
So it was immediately clear that something must have been wrong with the car. Later they could see on the data that he had gone off track. That he then shook the gravel out of the sidepods. They could also see that he suddenly lost a lot of downforce and that a lot was wrong. It turned out that a vortex generator broke off and maybe a piece of the front wing. Such a vortex generator was a kind of half hose with which the air was guided along the front wheel. Those things were under the front wing and were sometimes forty or fifty centimeters long. It looked beautiful, but it was also extremely fragile. No wonder Max Mosley immediately banned them for the next race.
In the evening I went to visit his teammate David Brabham. I knew David and Lisa well. The whole team was in deep mourning. I saw Humphrey Corbett, Roland's engineer. Humphrey had also engineered Paul Warwick when he killed himself at Oulton Park. I remember Humphrey literally said to me, "Allard, could it have anything to do with me?" Terrible. A surreal situation.
No one had been killed in Formula 1 for years, during a Grand Prix weekend. J.J. Lehto had driven to Imola with Roland, in Roland's Porsche. He had to drive it back to Monaco. But J.J. didn't know he wouldn't get far on Sunday either. He stopped at the start and Pedro Lamy crashed on top of him, debris into the audience. All such things.
But yes, the most tragic is perhaps that many people conveniently forget that Roland died there on Saturday afternoon, because Ayrton Senna died the next day. I understand that people think more of Ayrton than of Roland, but that's why I don't want to forget him. He was a friend. He belonged to that group of Formula Ford drivers that made it to Formula 1, and there weren't many. You didn't forget that. He didn't forget me either.
It is a special kind of person, who now has no chance of success. Someone who becomes a mechanic in Formula 4 and says that he is going to become Formula 1 world champion, is now being declared crazy. Something like that no longer happens.
Yeah thanks for sharing that message. Honestly, I’d heard of the crash in qualifying but didn’t know much about it or about the driver. Reading that had me shedding a tear so I watched the entire quali session from that day YouTube. Absolutely devastating scenes. Also (obviously a different time and whatever) but quite disrespectful I felt? They showed them providing CPR on him (multiple times). That is an indication that he’s not breathing... I feel like they should have cut away immediately, but they just kept returning to it. Quite horrific really. Also my fault for watching it but hey here we are
Yeah thanks for sharing that message. Honestly, I’d heard of the crash in qualifying but didn’t know much about it or about the driver. Reading that had me shedding a tear so I watched the entire quali session from that day YouTube. Absolutely devastating scenes. Also (obviously a different time and whatever) but quite disrespectful I felt? They showed them providing CPR on him (multiple times). That is an indication that he’s not breathing... I feel like they should have cut away immediately, but they just kept returning to it. Quite horrific really. Also my fault for watching it but hey here we are
Watching at the time in the UK the BBC had a policy of not showing drivers undergoing medical treatment, the continental broadcasters did show it though.
There was a very nasty start line accident that tossed debris into the crowd also. It was an all round horrible weekend.
