35 replies to this topic

[jemstride]

Mine was when Damon announced his retirement - I even cried (i'm a grown man)

[schumi13]

jemstride, on Sep 14 2005, 04:02 PM, said:

Mine was when Damon announced his retirement - I even cried (i'm a grown man)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mine was the fatal crash of F1 great Aryton Senna.

[jemstride]

Yes I had a feeling that would be the response from most people!

[duest]

Senna's death.

[CC]

Mine was when Murray Walker left the commentary box for the last time

[Sato]

hmm i have 4 All but one have been mentioned so far...

Senna's Death
Damon Hill being cheated in 94
Damon Hill Retiring
Murray Walker's last call

[rock]

Saddest moment : the day GillesV died  
Happiest moment : the day JV became WC  

[Senna]

Without a doubt, the death of Ayrton Senna.

[Karta]

My saddest moment i guess would be what F1 has come or is becoming. And by that i dont mean Max, oh no i mean all parties evolved (all teams, manufacturers).


P.S. Maybe do a new topic excluding the deaths and political play...i.e. track event that did not have fatal results?

[ecapdeville]

Senna, on Sep 14 2005, 01:45 PM, said:

Without a doubt, the death of Ayrton Senna.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah...a really sad and black sunday it was  

[Jenson_Rules]

The tragic death of the great Ayrton Senna!

Also when Murray retired and james allan took over    

[pumpdoc]

F. Cevert a bright light snuffed out

[cavallino]

I have been fortunate in my short time of watching F1 to not see anything tragic. silverstone 2000 was sad, but I guess the worst was seeing Zanardi's crash (not in F1 obviously) on TV.

[AutoRacer5]

Senna's death
JV's downfall by joining BAR
MS at Silverstone
GV's death (matter of fact anyone's death in F1)
Damon Hill at Hungary 97' (Hell, Arrows deserved that race)

[nojvnof1]

"F. Cevert a bright light snuffed out"

from what I have read, his crash was a very grisly site.

As for me personally, any day an F1 driver is killed or seriously injured is sad, but I have only seen two die , being Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna, so that would be my saddest moment, and I hope I never have to see anything like that again.

After that follows seeing JV waste his career away at BAR, followed by the day Jacques was dropped from BAR and forced into a sabbatical, followed by a day in August last year when Williams confirmed Jenson Button to drive for them in 2005. That was the time when I honestly felt as though Jacques was gone from F1 and I remember I wasn't a pleasant guy to be around for a day or two, as I had really thought it was the end of Jacques in F1. Glad I was wrong!!!

[Ash]

schumi13, on Sep 14 2005, 03:24 PM, said:

Mine was the fatal crash of F1 great Aryton Senna.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Were you even around then?

[Knight The Prof]

Seeing the decline of Lotus from those wonderful JPS cars and innovation to pay drivers struggling to qualify and their ultimate demise

Lotus are my all time favourite team

[kup]

1994 imola - i saw it live ...
other deaths are very sad too, but they were before i saw it ...

[ykickamoocow]

Sato, on Sep 15 2005, 02:13 AM, said:

Damon Hill being cheated in 94

What happened. I keep hearing people mention this on the forums but i dont know what happened. In 94 i was 6 and i didnt watch alot of F1 when i was 6. Would somebody please explain what actually happened to Damon Hill in 1994.

[AutoRacer5]

look for a video of Adelaide 1994 on the internet, like a clip, they are easy to find. MS was simply defending the corner, the corner goes to the person in front *retreats to bunker*.

[kup]

Knight The Prof, on Sep 19 2005, 08:27 PM, said:

Seeing the decline of Lotus from those wonderful JPS cars and innovation to pay drivers struggling to qualify and their ultimate demise
Lotus are my all time favourite team

My too ... Team from golden "real pure racing" era, not for the "business brands and advertizing" era ...

[Kopite Girl]

Murray Walkers last day commentating.

Jim Clark's fatal @ Hockenheim.

Senna and Roland Ratzenberger's deaths.

[ecapdeville]

kup, on Sep 25 2005, 04:20 PM, said:

My too ... Team from golden "real pure racing" era, not for the "business brands and advertizing" era ...

ahhh...I miss that...too

[Lure]

I remember Higel Mansell Blowing a tyre when he was leading the race at Adelaide years ago. I think that cost him the WDC. This obviously pales in comparison to any injuries or deaths.

[monza gorilla]

I remember being completely stunned when Ronnie Peterson died. We just couldn't believe it.

Unfortunately nearly all of my saddest moments involve death: Jimmy Clark, Francois Cevert, Jochen Rindt et al.

Oh, and James Allen being given the job of commentator.....

It was sad, but somehow inevitable that teams like Lotus and Brabham would wither and die without the people who made them what they were: Chapman, Murray and the rest.

Let's do a thread on our happiest memories, instead. This is depressing.

[Kopite Girl]

Oh yeah. And the day they introduced the stupid aggregate qualifying system. Thank god THATS over!

[Senna]

ykickamoocow, on Sep 24 2005, 04:49 PM, said:

What happened. I keep hearing people mention this on the forums but i dont know what happened. In 94 i was 6 and i didnt watch alot of F1 when i was 6. Would somebody please explain what actually happened to Damon Hill in 1994.

Michael cracked under the intense pressure and hit a concrete wall.  He came back onto the circuit with a fatally damaged car and deliberately hit Damon when he went to make his opportunistic overtaking manoeuvre.  Damon was of course unaware that Michael could not continue, he didn’t see Michael crash, and hence when he saw an opening he pounced… damage to the front wheel and wishbone forced him to retire and gifted the 1994 title to Michael.  1994 was a year of controversy and tragedy.

[MontoyaFan-HatesJenson]

Senna...
Hill retiring...
Murray Walker retiring (WHY?!)

[jimmyk]

Sato, on Sep 15 2005, 02:13 AM, said:

hmm i have 4 All but one have been mentioned so far...

Senna's Death
Damon Hill being cheated in 94
Damon Hill Retiring
Murray Walker's last call

This may make you even sadder, but Damon wasnt cheated in 94, he simply failed to read a situation correctly....If he just lifted throttle for a moment on entry, he could have exited the chicane inside of Micheal a gear lower and blown him away,he made a choice to make contact and that contact was made ON RACING LINE...the saddest moment in 94 would be Senna's death, but next saddest is Damon putting on his skirt and trying to beat Schu with protests and unsportsmanlike behaviour, rather than utilising his superior Williams package to win WDC on the track as Ayrton, or JV would have....

[funkejay]

I wasn't watching F1 in '82 when GV died at Zolder (though I have seen clips of the accident since), but that would have to be one of the darkest days in F1 history, as not only was Gilles almost universally admired and liked, but also because he so epitomized the spirit of the sport (as it was in its heyday).

On a more personal note, I watched the events of the Imola race in '94 live on television, and was completely shocked. I didn't see Ratzenberger's crash live (they didn't used to televise qualifying live on Cdn television back then), but instead watched the coverage of it before the live race coverage on Sunday. As a result, there was already a distinct pall over the race even before it began, and I was reeling from having just learned of RR's death, as I was a big fan of the then up and coming racer. But as anyone who watched it live will recall, it was absolutely UNTHINKABLE that anything like that could ever happen to Senna, he was just too good to ever make a serious enough mistake, and the generally accepted wisdom was that the Williams cars were so well engineered that a catastrophic failure seemed impossible.

But the most interesting thing of all, was that I watched the race again later that evening (they always used to replay the races at midnight on Sunday) and the coverage was totally different. As I recall, that morning they showed the Italian feed of the race, which had been directly controlled by the director and his crew who were all on site. They were aware that members of Senna's family were also at the track and were watching the race on TV's located around the paddock, and, in a demonstration of tremendous sensitivity (which I fear we would never see in today's time) the director decided not to show the events as they unfolded, in deferrence to the family. It was not until I watched the international feed later that evening that I saw the full extent of the carnage, and witnessed the immediate aftermath from the overhead shots provided by the helicopter mounted cameras. They showed the entire event, in real time, from the moment of the crash, through the excrutiatingly delayed extraction of Senna from his car, to his transport into the ambulance and away from the track to the circuit medical center, and then the eventual airlift to hospital.

I have certainly seen far more grisly and explicit pictures of human suffering throughout my career as a criminal defence lawyer, but, perhaps becuase of the personal significance I attached to Senna, I shall never rid my mind of the images I saw that spring day in '94. In retrospect, it has made me appreciate even more the discretion and respect shown by the director that day.

Edited by funkejay, 11 November 2005 - 05:52 AM.