F1 Driver Died 2019 F1 deaths, the list below shows the names of F1 drivers that died because of a fatal crash or by their injuries caused by a crash during testing or racing in Formula 1 or other series, while being a F1 driver. KERRVILLE, Texas — A third person injured when a drag racer veered into a crowd and crashed during a racing event in Central Texas . The British driver stopped racing in 1962, but his star never really faded, and he was a fixture at vintage events. Stirling Moss was a top Formula One racer called "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship," though he was runner-up four times. COVID-19 killed race-car driver Bob Lazier and other sports figures in 2020.
Veteran race car driver David Steele died on Saturday during a race in Florida. Driver Shawn Balluzzo died Saturday night in a crash during a race at Langley Speedway, officials at the Virginia short track said. That's not to say Lauda lacked courage, he was fearless, exhibiting unwavering competitiveness on and off of the track—his will to persevere and his constant desire to embrace innovation went unmatched. After missing only two races, he returned to the track to take second place in the championship behind long-time friend and rival driver James Hunt.
His former teams, McLaren and Ferrari, sent condolances to the Lauda family. "Today is a sad day for F1. The big Ferrari family learns with deep sadness the news of the death of their friend Niki Lauda," the racing car giant said on Twitter. At grand prix, more marshalls have died in the last 20 years than F1 drivers. I think my point still stands that if the yellow flag rules had been properly enforced in the races and years leading up to suzuka 2014, bianchi would not have gone off at that point. Wet races need looking at from scratch as you have a situation where drivers can be driving around on the wrong tyres with no grip.
Slowing down just compounds the issue as the slick tyres lose even more temperature and pressure dropping the ride height of the car and losing grip. I think in such situations where you have cars on dry tyres on a wet track it should be a red flag to clear any accidents. They should then allow a tyre switch to the appropriate tyre for all cars still in the race and restart from either standing or rolling start depending on conditions. Four times a runner-up in the F1 drivers' championship, he was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1961. HAMPTON, Va. — A driver died Saturday night in a crash during a race at Langley Speedway, officials at the Virginia short track said.
He was the first driver to attempt the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 doubleheader in 1994, finishing 10th at Indy for A.J. PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — Bob Bondurant, a former champion race car driver who opened a high-performance driving school in 1968 and taught numerous A-list actors for their movie roles, has died. Born Andreas Nikolaus "Niki" Lauda, he was a prominent race car driver in the 1970s and 1980s, who first won the F1 championship driving for Ferrari in 1975. He's known by many for the serious crash he suffered the next year, in the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring race track, where he suffered third-degree burns to his head and face. At the hospital, Lauda fell into a coma, and also received last rites. Safety standards have improved since the first World Championship Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1950, where there was no medical back-up or safety measures in case of an accident.
It was not until the 1960s these were first introduced, as helmets and overalls became mandatory and the FIA assumed responsibility for safety at the circuits. The 1980s saw further improvement in the structure of the Formula One car, with the monocoque being made out of carbon fibre instead of aluminium, increasing protection upon impact. Grooved tyres were introduced in 1998 instead of racing slick tyres to reduce cornering speed. Safety measures continued to be introduced into the 21st century, with a number of circuits having their configuration changed to improve driver safety. Formula One is the highest class of open-wheeled auto racing defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile , motorsport's world governing body. The "formula" in the name refers to a set of rules to which all participants and vehicles must conform.
The F1 World Championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix, held usually on purpose-built circuits, and in a few cases on closed city streets. The results of each race are combined to determine two annual Championships, one for drivers and one for constructors. The Austrian-born Lauda first snatched the F1 drivers' title with Ferrari in 1975. After surviving the Nürburgring crash, he managed to recover and get back into the competition in just 42 days, finishing second behind UK's James Hunt. The Austrian won the championship again for Ferrari in 1977 and retired at the end of the 1979 season.
However, he came back to the paddock in 1984, joining McLaren, and in 1985 became the sole driver ever to win an F1 title after having returned from retirement. On the Nürburgring, Lauda's Ferrari crashed and went up in flames. In 1969, he began racing in earnest, and won eight races at a low level of competition.
Over the next few years he borrowed on his life insurance and, without authorization, used his family name to finance better cars for tougher racing events. His success drew the attention of Enzo Ferrari, the aging head of the Italian motor car company, who in 1973 invited him to join the Ferrari racing team. In 1979 Lauda retired from racing, saying he had better things to do than just "driving a car around in circles". However, in 1982 the Austrian was back in the driver's seat of an F1 car, this time at McLaren. Two years later he won his third and final drivers' title – by half a point over teammate Alain Prost .
This is the narrowest margin of victory in the history of the F1 title. Lauda missed just two races before making his comeback to finish fourth at Monza. He had a narrow lead over Hunt in the standings going into the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix. After just two laps on a track made slick by the pouring rain, Lauda parked his Ferrari. The crash, which involved multiple cars, occurred on the second lap of the race, with medical crews rushing to the scene before taking the drivers to the circuit's medical centre. Although the deaths of these racing legends were tragic events, they helped the sport to develop many of the modern safety devices and regulations that are used in the sport today.
As a result of this, Formula One celebrated the 20th fatality-free season in 2014, up until Bianchi's accident in Japan. The 2000's remains the only decade to date in which no driver was killed. The first driver fatality that occurred in the Formula One series was that of Cameron Earl. He was killed while working as an English Racing Automobiles team technical consultant. "He was a true giant of our sport that overcame the most difficult of challenges in life and battled every day to win on and off the track," Domenicali said.
"His incredible achievements and personality will be with etched on our sport forever. My thoughts are with all the Williams family and their friends at this sad time." His car, a Yoeman Credit Racing Cooper, crashed into an embankment on an extended fast right-hand curve. Bristow was flung into the barbed wire fence beyond, which decapitated him. At 22 years of age, Chris Bairstow remains the youngest driver to have died in an F1 championship race. Lauda raced in the 1973 F1 season as a member of the British Racing Motors team. In 1974 he signed with the prestigious Scuderia Ferrari team and garnered his first career F1 victory , finishing the season in fourth place.
He broke out in 1975, winning five races to capture his first world championship. Lauda was born into a wealthy paper-manufacturing family that disapproved of his interest in racing. Undaunted, he began racing Minis in 1968, moving on to Formula Vee and Formula Three thereafter.
In 1971 he secured a loan against his life insurance policy to buy his way into the March Engineering Formula Two team. While still primarily a Formula Two driver, Lauda participated in his first F1 race during his initial season with March, and in 1972 he raced in 12 F1 events. John Andretti, a member of one of auto racing's most famous families and the first driver to attempt the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's 600-mile race in North Carolina on the same day, has died. Stott won the first race for a Plymouth Superbird with the wing. The accident happened when Switzerland's MOTO 3 bike rider Dupascier was trying to overtake his opponent on the track in Italy.
Hubert, 22, lost control of his car on the second lap of the race at the top of the Raidillon corner, which follows the famous Eau Rouge section of the Belgian race track. After an initial impact with the barriers, Hubert's car came back onto the race track and was hit at upwards of 200 km/h by American driver Juan Manuel Correa. In 1975, his second year at Ferrari, Lauda rewarded the team's faith in him by winning Ferrari their first drivers' title since John Surtees had done so in 1964.
The Austrian took the checkered flag in five of the season's 14 races, including the French Grand Prix at Le Castellet, where he is seen with his British rival James Hunt . Hubert, 22, died on Saturday following an incident involving three cars on lap two of F2's feature race at Spa-Francorchamps. By the time three other drivers pulled him from the wreckage, he had severe burns of the face, head and hands, a concussion, a broken collarbone and other fractures. Noxious smoke and gases from the car's burning interior seared his lungs.
He was taken to a hospital in a coma, then to a burn center, seemingly near death. For a driver, it took guts, focus and precision moves among the shifting packs roaring at high speeds. The French racing driver was killed in a devastating 160mph Formula Two crash at Spa-Francorchamps.
He lost control of his car on the exit of the notorious uphill Eau Rouge corner before slamming into the far-side barrier. The Frenchman flew off the tyre wall and slid across the circuit before he was hit head on by the unsuspecting American Juan-Manuel Correa. In an age when racing drivers competed in several different disciplines alongside Formula One, Moss won a total of 212 of the 529 races he entered in his 14-year career, which began in 1948. Hubert's death is the first driver fatality at a Formula One race weekend since Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed at Imola in 1994.
Jules Bianchi, who suffered serious head injuries at the Japanese Grand Prix in 2014, succumbed to his injuries the following year. Davi Ferrer was a French racing driver who used to compete in historic grand prix racing. He had won two races prior to his death on 2 September 2017 while racing in the Zandvoort Historic Grand Prix. Peterson's Lotus hit the barriers, bounced back on the track and caught fire. He was pulled outt of the car with minimal burns but had severe leg injuries.
He died the following day in the hospital when his bone marrow entered his blood stream. Motorsport is mourning the death of Formula Two driver Anthoine Hubert, who was killed following a heavy crash at the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday. The 22-year-old Frenchman died following an estimated 160 mph collision with U.S. driver Juan-Manuel Correa's car. After finishing 1982 and 1983 in 5th and 10th place, respectively, he tallied five wins in 1984 to win his third career world championship by a half-point margin.
He retired from the sport for good after a 10th-place finish in 1985. After his retirement, he served in various executive capacities for a number of racing teams, was a television racing analyst, and founded another airline, NIKI . James Hunt had won the German Grand Prix, as well as one more contest in Lauda's absence, and he and Lauda entered into an electrifying chase for the 1976 title. Hunt was three points behind Lauda heading into the final event, the Japanese Grand Prix. Heavy rains on the day of the race led Lauda to withdraw because of safety concerns, and Hunt finished in third place to capture the championship by one point. The team has won 12 F1 Drivers' championships, eight Constructors' championships and the Indianapolis 500, and dominated Can-Am sports car racing.
The drivers have returned to Belgium ahead of this weekend's grand prix, most for the first time since the accident. Hubert was involved in a high-speed collision with Juan Manuel Correa and succumbed to his injuries on Saturday evening at Spa-Francorchamps. Formula One legend Niki Lauda, one of the greatest racing drivers in history, has died at age 70, his family has said. His first season in the series was winless, but he followed it up with a championship-winning campaign in 2018. This year he stepped up to F1's official feeder series and claimed victories at sprint races in Monaco and France.
Arriving at Belgium, hosting the 17th and 18th rounds of the 2019 season, he was eighth in the championship. Once he made his debut in single-seater racing in the French F4 championship in 2013, he rose through the ranks quickly. He won the French F4 series at the first attempt, before spending two seasons in Formula Renault 2.0. He stepped up to Formula 3, claiming a race win at the Norisring. Both Hubert's and Correa's cars were severed in two following the crash, with Correa's car flipped upside down.
Hubert's car sustained a huge impact and span around violently, as did Correa's, as debris from both cars was sprayed all over the track. Medics rushed to reach them on the 7-kilometre (4.3-mile) track located in the Ardennes forest. This ushered in what would be the most successful period of the Silver Arrows' history, with a Mercedes driver having won every title since 2014. His passion for the sport of Formula One driving was always evident to those around Lauda, whether he was behind the wheel, researching technology, or calling strategy from the side of the track. Acclaimed not only for his incredible racing skills but also his methodical approach to the mechanics of driving, Lauda earned himself the esteemed nickname 'The Computer Brain' by the press.
He was constantly refining his technique, in a time when many of his contemporaries took a more 'no-guts-no-glory' approach on the racetrack. Tracks have been redesigned and stronger barriers built to increase the safety of spectators. It had rained, and he hit a slippery patch at 140 miles per hour. He spun out, broke through a restraining fence, which snagged and tore away his helmet, then hit an embankment and bounced back onto the track, where he was hit by several following cars. His ruptured fuel tank burst into flames, which engulfed him in the cockpit. Lauda was injured many times in race crashes and once nearly killed.
He had kidney transplants in 1997 and 2005, and last August, while struggling with severe lung disease, he underwent what was described as a successful lung transplant at a hospital in Vienna. "I think we all had our moment on Saturday and obviously Sunday coming to the race track and driving the race. Moss retired in 1962 after a heavy crash at Goodwood which left him in a coma for a month. Born in London in 1929, Moss was the son of amateur racing driver Alfred and his wife Aileen. He was knighted in the New Year Honours list in 2000 for services to motor racing. "The driver of car #20 Giuliano Alesi was checked and declared fit at the medical centre.
"The driver of car number 12, Juan-Manuel Correa , is in a stable condition and is being treated at the CHU Liège hospital. More information on his condition will be provided when it becomes available. The driver of car number 20 Giuliano Alesi was checked and declared fit at the medical centre," it added.
Hubert's car sustained a huge impact and span around violently, as did Correa's, with debris from both cars sprayed all over the track. Medics rushed to reach them on the famed 7-kilometre (4.3-mile) tree-lined track located in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian racing driver who had won three World Driver's Championships in his eleven year Formula 1 racing career. He is widely considered as the greatest driver ever to grace Formula 1.
Senna died on 1 May at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, just a day after Roland Ratzenberger had died in qualifying. The rear wing of Angelis' Brabham detached at high speed causing the car to cartwheel over the side track barrier and catch fire. Although he was not killed by the crash itself, the delay in rescuing him led to excessive smoke inhalation. Joseph Siffert, a Swiss motorbike racer, won the Swiss 350 cc motorcycle championship before switching to car racing.
He won two Formula One races for the Rob Walker Racing Team and BRM. Ricardo Rodríguez was a Mexican motor racing driver who at 19 years of age, became the youngest F1 driver to ever race for Ferrari. At the 1962 Belgian Grand Prix he also became the youngest driver to score points in a Formula One race till the 2000 Braziian Grand Prix. Alan Stacey, another British F1 driver, crashed only two laps after Chris Bristow was killed on June 19, during the 1960 Belgium Grand Prix. The previous day, Stirling Moss had met with an accident on the same bend and was severely injured. The car swerved into the infield, before shooting straight back across the track into the outer wall.
