Just a quick note: Gilles actually lost his helmet in the accident. Pironi, who had left the pits to see what had happened and stopped at the scene of the accident, retrieved it from the catch fencing and carried it back to the pits. There's a picture of him strolling, grim-faced, away from the crash scene carrying his own and Gilles' helmets.
I dont think he lost his helmet in the crash so much as the medical staff took it off when they were giving him cpr at the catch fencing. At least thats what I saw in the video since you can see him flying thru the air with his red helmet still on his head, altho it might have fallen off when he impacted the ground im pretty sure the medics removed it
@@Oblio1942 No, his helmet did indeed come off during the crash. This is pretty well documented. It was lying several feet from him when Dr. Watkins and the medical team arrived. Gilles, like half the 1982 grid, wore a GPA helmet which utilized a snapping mechanism to secure the helmet instead of a traditional chin strap. Drivers felt the GPA helmet offered a better fit and comfort than helmets using a strap. The helmet snapping mechanism failed and this accident was the beginning of the end of GPA in F1. Drivers gradually abandoned using GPA helmets and GPA's fate was sealed when they couldn't receive the certification necessary to be a helmet provider in F1 (believe following the 1986 season). However, GPA is a leading helmet manufacturer for equestrian related uses and competitions today. Christopher Hilton's book, 1982, verifies all of this. He interviewed several drivers, including John Watson and Derek Warwick, who were one of the first drivers at the scene of the crash. Both pulled Gilles out of the catch fence. Both said that his helmet was off. Warwick went as far to say that Villeneuve's helmet was broken. They also said both of his shoes (and socks?) had been pulled off his feet as well. Such was the ferociousness of his crash. Pironi, who was preparing for a final run when the crash happened, followed the medical car out of the pits and stopped at the scene to see what was up. However, Watkins turned him away. He was apparently given Gilles's helmet to take back with him to the pits. This is the true story. Not sure what the creator of this video was insinuating about how the story has changed over the years.
I remember being a preteen buying the 1982 season review VHS learning about previous F1 seasons and watching Paletti being burned alive in the Osella and Villeneuve being thrown to his death still rank up in the worst things i saw in my youth. Clive James as usual put it perfectly and hauntingly with the words "The quarrel would have faded away with time, alas Villeneuve had no time"
No, i agree, with daniel it sounds like Paletti was busted up badly by the accident, but the fire was fought off very effectively by fire marshals and one Didier Pironi, who was actually showing the fire marshals the best way to keep the fire away from the driver. Also, refueling or not era (I don't remember) this accident happened on the starting grid- so Paletti's fuel tanks were likely full. It was due to those fighting the fire that the entire car was not involved. Go watch again & you'll be amazed what a great job they did of keeping the fire out of the driver's cockpit
I live approx 10 miles from circuit Zolder. In the pits there is a small statue of Gilles Helmet and his Ferrari. What most people don't know is that at the crash site there is a small memorial plaque, but you can't reach or see it from where people normally are allowed to walk. I was 10 when it happened. I was at Zolder that day although i did not see it happen since i was in the grandstands. But i still remember it like it was yesterday. Every time i go to Zolder i visit the small statue in the pitlane. And every year, in the beginning of may, i walk towards the memorial plaque. Just to remember Gilles. The best F1 driver there has ever been.
Thanks for your story. It gives me the chills. I was a year or so away from leaving school when it happened, so even though I've never been to Zolder, I can imagine that like Monza, there's a place where fans go and it's unnaturally quiet, especially if the visitors are old enough to remember the shocking news. Onto a tangent (as I am wont to drift...), what language is spoken in that area? Dutch? Flemish? It doesn't sound French! I only ask because I'm teaching myself Dutch (for fun. Hoping to visit one day, only to be shown up by how many Dutch people speak terrific English 😉) and whenever I hear the name of the track, my brain automatically thinks "attic"! But it sounds like a weird name for a place. And this is coming from someone who has lived directly opposite the Netherlands for the last 32 years, a place heavily influenced by Dutch engineers a few centuries ago (gawd bless 'em. We have our Broads to sail on thanks to their initial work). Though I doubt they had any influence on place names like "Six Mile Bottom," "Nedging Tye" (one of a bunch of Tyes), "Shimpling", "Saxlingham Nethergate", "Hardley" and many more! (I love silly names! 😂 Being Welsh I could list a lot of tongue-twisters for English people 😆. To be fair, my English husband has a good crack at them!) Anyway, I hope one day you'll see this and I'll remember to come back to look! It's something that has been bugging me for years! Als u Nederlands spreekt, dank u wel voor uw begrip!
@@y_fam_goeglyd Looks like i got a notification so i read it immediately. First things first. People speak flemish here. But flemish is actually the same as dutch. Maybe a few words are different but flemish speaking people know those different dutch words and vice versa. And yes, almost everybody speaks english here. So you don't need to learn dutch to come here. You are right about Zolder meaning attic. It is a weird name for a track or a place, but it actually is the name of the town where the track is located. Heusden-Zolder, or shortened Zolder. The track is actually called circuit de Terlaemen, after the baron who lived in the castle nearby. In the middle of the track in Zolder there is a small hill, with a little chapel on top. It is always very quiet there. People aren't even allowed there. It's very close to the crashsite of Gilles, where it also always is very quiet. I always feel a strange atmosphere when i am there, but it probably is my own imagination. Moest je ooit naar Zolder komen mag je me altijd contacteren. Ik geef je heel graag een rondleiding, al heb ik er niks te zeggen. Maar ik ken het circuit wel als mijn broekzak dus ik raak wel binnen.
Gilles' death at Zolder was the only driver death that deeply affected the usually stoic and emotionally removed Enzo Ferrari. In fact Enzo thought so highly of Gilles as a driver, he considered Villeneuve to be a son of his. Part of me wonders if some of the sadness Enzo felt was a personal feeling of guilt born out of a sense that he betrayed Gilles by not backing him over Pironi during that rivalry. We sadly will never know as all three main parties in the rivalry in Gilles, Pironi, and Enzo are all gone. It's just a damn shame that Gilles, or Didier for that matter, never got that driver's crown.
Ironically, this was a situation that Ferrari himself created. I would argue that it was a situation that could only have existed in a team like Ferrari. They were always my favourite team and although I swore off F1 after the 1982 season, the team is an object lesson in how not to do it. They designed some great cars - the 126C2 was actually one of them - but their own management always made sure their chances of World Championships were torpedoed before they could secure them. Perhaps the best case I can remember was Eddie Irvine. He made a critical pit sop for tyres while challenging for the World Championship and the team brought out three wheels…
@@guillaumelussier7492 Enzo Ferrari himself wrote in both his memoirs and his book "Pilote, Che gente" how highly he thought of Gilles Villeneuve saying, and I quote, "I loved him like a son. I was affectionate to him." Enzo also remarked in a documentary the following "His death has deprived us of a great champion - one that I loved very much. My past is scarred with grief; parents, brother, son. My life is full of sad memories. I look back and see the faces of my loved ones, and among them I see him." If that isn't someone who sounds like they have utter grief and sadness for losing a dear friend, than I don't know what is. Enzo clearly felt like it was his fault on some level for not backing Villeneuve.
There's a story that Villeneuve contacted Ron Dennis post-race and said he wanted to go to McLaren in 1983. Beyond the betrayal he felt from Pironi, Ferrari had not post-race supported Gilles' position regarding the "Slow" pit board. Ferrari didn't care, because it had a 1-2 in Italy, scoring maximum constructors points. Who won wasn't important to the Scuderia, just that a Ferrari won. Ferrari would win the 1982 Constructor's championship, but with neither of the drivers they'd started the season with. Patrick Tambay would replace Villeneuve, and Mario Andretti would sit in for Pironi for the last two races.
@@paulo9504 You're right about that, thank you for correcting about the 1983. The 1999 tho i did say up till 1999, and yes they only won the constructors championship at that year
@@GloomGaiGar I don't think it's a full consequence of their action because tbf around those time they hired drivers that theoretically would bring championship. Guys like Prost, Mansell, and Alesi are no big slouch of their own. Although it might be true it's part of consequence of overproud or overlook themselves, i still consider it as a punishment from a third party of whom living up in the skies.
The smash with Prost was what led Alain to become 'The Professor' Also as you know Jacques would have a similar crash with Ralf Schumacher that claimed the life of Graham Beveridge
Gille had paid his dues to Ferrari by being loyal and followed team orders the previous year to help Jody Schecter with the title and he expect Ferrari to return the favour but instead, they betrayed him by allowing Pepperoni to pass him.
@henryreid3562 I can understand Villeneuve’s anger up to a point. I just don’t understand why he apparently allowed it to consume him. I thought he was the best I ever saw. But in his last weeks his behaviour was not a credit to him. I have always said that those who talk about debts owed by teams forget that such an arrangement might not even have been recognised by Ferrari. Furthermore, it doesn’t apply to the other team member (aside from the other assumptions it makes). I have also always said that those who blamed Pironi for Villeneuve’s fatal crash do him a disservice. I thought Villeneuve a far more professional driver than to allow such personal problems into the cockpit. I am starting to wonder if I was wrong about both.
“Turbos, ground effect and Enzo Ferrari had two drivers certain to bring the drivers and constructors back to Maranello” Sounds very similar to how a lot of people think this year is going to be
I kinda think '22 Ferrari will let a lot of people down. Too high of expectation yet history tells otherwise: Ferrari had been bad when new major regulation overhauls took place, at least for the last 2 decades ('03, '05, '09, '12, and '14)
Agreed with you both. I think they’ll be up there but I don’t see a championship coming this year. I’m very much looking forward to testing and seeing these cars run together
@@haryosoo siting 03 as pproof of Ferrari's inability to cope with sweeping regs changes is kind of a really poor choice, 00 to 04 was ferrari dominance at its finest...
I have 2 heroes in racing . Alex Zanardi is first , Gilles Villeneuve is second I am Canadian. If you ever watched Gilles race , he had an aggression to his driving. almost impatience on the next corner. Coupled with car control that was amazing. His own aggression killed him. He certainly would have wore the drivers championship if things had been different. Jacques has his fathers aggression, in a more tempered version. It led him to a career any driver would dream of.
Gilles Villeneuve reminded of Mansell very aggressive driving but missing some race smarts. Prost, Piquet or Lauda always had the championship in their mind and not only the race at hand.
Long live Gilles Villeneuve! Gone before I was born but looking back one of the hardest driving most dedicated F1 drivers of all time. Thanks for the video Aidan 👍
i actually was born later that year when Gilles died. yet I know that this bloke was one hell of a driver who like aiden said had only two speeds either zero or the full throttle. Yet he was also the nicest bloke and it's devastating that he died.
Keke's career deserves coverage at some point imho - when he became World Champion he'd not only won just a single race that year, he'd won only a single race in his entire career. That career went on to include just... 5 wins, from memory? But every one of them was weird as hell, and usually in a car that shouldn't have been up to it. 1982 was a cursed season, though. Gilles and Paletti compromised to a permanent end; Pironi physically crippled; Prost traumatised for life (his later issues with Ayrton really need to be considered through the lens of Hockenheim...); Arnoux learning nothing and unmasking himself as another backstabber; politics leaving the future uncertain; Keke left reigning over the ashes; and it all wound up under the burning desert sun in a goddamned car park in the most awful city on Earth (since Dubai hadn't been built yet). Whenever I cover it in my own writing, I always come away bummed out and depressed.
Gilles was my childhood hero, 79 may also have had a bearing on this as well, as I've heard stories that Giles yielded to Jody for the title on the basis that he would be no.1 from 80 and allegedly Enzo didn't really care that Didier had "stolen" the win, only that Ferrari got the 1-2. Regardless of the reasons behind it, to a 9 year old kid seeing the accident on a news broadcast was devastating.
@@AidanMillward both of them went for it , the last few laps laps are incredible,find it, watch it! Gilles career was incredible never give up is where he started from and I can't understand why his story is so undertold
@@jamesdyer7960 Enzo adored Gilles like no other driver but said nothing to pironi post race, I could understand Gilles being pissed after giving up a title to Sheckter but we will never know the truth because of the legends surrounding both enzo and Gilles.
Has ir really been 40 years? Wow. I was 11, I remember that day Gilles died, my mother came into my room and told me he had a crash and was in a coma. I didn't here about the Pironi controversy till years after, so I actually became a Pironi fan after Gilles died, and thought his actions were heroic at the Canadian Grand Prix after Paletti crashed into him, still do actually. As a Canadian, Gilles was "our guy", had nothing to do with the reputation he has now....but I LOVE that he has been put on such a high pedestal.
I would like a video on the 1982 season as a whole. There was the FISA-FOCA war, the South African Grand Prix boycott, the controversial Ferrari 1-2 at Imola etc. Like there was a LOT of controversy in that season but it was the season where 9 different drivers won in 9 consecutive races and 11 different drivers won from 7 teams. No one won more than twice. It was the last season to have ground effect cars and now we're getting them back after 40 years. There were cars with V6 turbos and inline 4 turbos competing against naturally aspirated V8s and V12s. There is a lot to talk about and I would love to see it all (or at least most of it) covered in a video.
*_" It was the last season to have ground effect cars and now we're getting them back after 40 years."_* Ground effect never went away. That's what the splitter plates and diffusers and blown diffusers and Coanda effect were all about.
This was brilliant, thank you, vey interested in more about the politics of this year. Would also love an episode on Bernie...might be a few episodes...but that is me being greedy, you are a star!
Convenient timing given that his son has just qualified for the Daytona 500. Hope he does well but I'm not expecting him to win given that he's in an open entry.
It's Daytona... If you are on the lead lap on the last lap, you have just as good of a shot as anyone. Well, only if you are in the pack that doesn't get taken out in the last lap crash anyway...
1:35 - 1:45 Villneuve was like how people *think* racing iactually is while Pironi was like how racing *actually* is. First of all: Yeah, kinda :D Second of all: Damn they were really Senna vs Prost before Senna vs Prost
Great video thanks Aidan, I was at Silverstone in 1981 as a 10 year old boy when Gilles Villeneuve pulled up and retired directly opposite me and my dad after he had tried to resume the race after a multi car crash at the Woodcote chicane, car was absolutely trashed but he had tried to carry on racing! An absolute hero in my eyes and was gutted when he was killed my first F1 death experience sadly. Number 27 is still my lucky number to this day. Have you read the Gerald Donaldson autobiography? It’s a good read.
I saw Gilles for the first time at Long Beach in 1979. He was aggressive, flamboyant, and wild. I was not a Gilles fan, and I was not a Senna fan for the same reasons. I had seen Gilles at Long Beach in 1982, that was my fourth USGP-West race I had seen in a row, though I was not a fan I was very saddened to hear of his death. Back then you had to wait to see something on the nightly news. Since I live in the US there was no coverage really of his death. It would be years later before I got to see the accident to know why he died.
Imagine the accident happening now, with modern cars Gilles would have walked away. I often wonder with Max and Romain and some of the accidents they have caused through "going for it" whether they would have even survived back in the late 70s/early 80s
*_"Imagine the accident happening now, with modern cars Gilles would have walked away."_* When Dr Harvey Postlethwaite moved to Ferrari in 1981, he knew that carbon fibre was the answer to their problems. He also knew that the team were not ready for it. Postlethwaite designed the first ever Ferrari monocoque chassis and had it built from aluminium-Nomex honeycomb sandwich by a company called Hexel in Belgium. This new chassis stood out from the crowd because it was bonded, rather than rivetted. It was very light and very stiff, compared with the other chassis of that era. In the early part of the season, the car used rocker arm front suspension but that proved to be quite hard on tyres so Postlethwaite replaced it with a pullrod front suspension and cut off the blended fairings, giving the car a slimmer appearance. In this guise it was an absolute weapon. Unfortunately, whatever its merits - and there were many - it proved to have the crash resistance of a blancmange. In Villeneuve's crash, the panel behind the seat was completely ripped out, exposing the fuel bladder. In so doing, it released the anchor bolts of Villeneuve's harness and he was thrown from the car and killed. Pironi's car came apart at about the driver's hip and everything forward of that, including the front suspension and the instrument panel, was torn off. McLaren were already building cars from carbon so the change was underway. Lotus followed suit quickly after. So the fact is that had Postlethwaite been hired a year earlier, carbon might have been available. It would almost certainly have resulted in lesser injury to both men, though I suspect Pironi would still have been pretty smashed up but Villeneuve might have survived. In 1983, Ferrari switched to carbon, like everyone else. It seems to me that carbon fibre has saved more lives in F1 than any other factor and if it had arrived a year earlier or the crashes had been a year later, the results could have been very different.
Been waiting nearly two years for this one. Thanks Aidan, fantastically well put as always. Cheers 🍻 Also I got on iRacing back in Jan and scored my first victory this week, in a USF2000 on the streets of Long Beach...sporting Gilles helmet of course ;)
At a race later in the season, Pironi told an interviewer "we all wish Gilles was here." It was broadcast over the PA. Keke Rosberg said "if it weren't for you Gilles WOULD be here."
*_"At a race later in the season, Pironi told an interviewer "we all wish Gilles was here." It was broadcast over the PA. Keke Rosberg said "if it weren't for you Gilles WOULD be here.""_* What does that say about Villeneuve's level of professionalism?
Not many people know Pironi, Villeneuve and Prost were very close friends, and always hung out between races, except Pironi and Villeneuve were a bit unhinged, to put it mildly. A game they loved to play was to each one rent a car, and try to crash it as spectacularly as possible, which led to them being blacklisted from just about every car rental company in Europe. As it happens with unhinged clicks, when things went bad, it led to disaster, as it did. I remember reading an interview with Jaques Villeneuve where he mentions, as a child, the number of times his father put his life at risk doing crazy things. Which brings to mind another rather unhinged driver, Colin McRae
I always found it odd that Pironi gets some of the blame. If Gilles allowed him to get under his skin and then take unreasonable risks, that just shows Gilles was not mentally strong enough in my opinion.
You only have to look at Jarama '81 for proof of his mental strength!. Gilles was one of those generational talents who could produce something sensational at any time, when others could not. Clark, Rindt, Pryce, Gilles, Mansell, Bellof, Senna, Schuey, Montoya, Alonso, Lewis, Max and I am going to say Leclerc. These are they types of drivers, personalities that ignite the passion with F1.
@@jamesdyer7960 Pironi, from a political standpoint, was far more ruthless and stronger than Villeneuve. Villeneuve was used to being friends with his teammate, like in the case of Jody Scheckter. In this regard, Gilles was naive. His own wife warned him that Pironi was not his friend and could not be trusted when he didn't invite him to his wedding but did invite key members of Ferrari. Pironi did undermine Villeneuve's postion within the team and wanted to be the undisputed #1.
@@paulo9504 Pironi waited until the last lap to eff GV over, that is essentially cowardice. Up until then Gilles had just been keeping him at bay and following team instructions. GV was naive, yes, but he wasn't 'beaten'. Ferrari failed to haul Didier over the coals afterwards, so it's no wonder GV was going so sign elsewhere for '83. Even though he would have been a better bet for honours in a farrari than Arnoux or Tambay in '83.
@@paulo9504 That story about the wedding invitation has been debunked. It’s just part of the hero v villain soap opera that was created by people like Nigel Roebuck and Gerald Donaldson to sell books.
Someone commented during that season that Villeneuve learnt a circuit by deliberately taking his car beyond its limit at various corners so that, if his car was still in one piece, he would set the ultimate lap next time round!. That didn't result in the tragedy at Zolder, it was simply that Mass turned where Villeneuve was already going and was too late to pull out of the move.
looking at the footage, it just seems like everything that was wrong safety wise about the 80s came together, "who cares just send it in there" attitude mixed with the FIA wanting to create premodonna's mixed with Gilles everything or nothing attitude came together at the worst possible time...
Mass was driving in the middle of the track when Villeneuve approached him. Had he been on either side of the track I don't think the accident would have happened. Edied: Mass not Made- auto correct strikes again
Well, when someone comes up on you that quick - and those cars were hard to see out of, especially when Villeneuve was both on a curve and creating a hill - you’d need mental telepathy to know he was coming right up to the last second. Blaming Jochen Mass for Villeneuve’s death is a cheap shot at best.
The speed differentials seen during qualifying now still concerns me. The safety of the cars has obviously improved greatly, but I feel it's inevitable there's going to be a big shunt from a similar misunderstanding. Hopefully a sporting incident shakes that up before an accident does.
Gilles Villeneuve: “ When I was behind Jody, in South Africa in 79, I overtook him only when he went into the pits. When I was in Monza, which was the last possibility for me, my last chance of becoming world champion, I stayed behind Jody without even trying to overtake him. When I was in Monte Carlo, when I was in Monte Carlo, my gearbox failed but, before that happened, Jody was driving slowly because he had the advantage but I never tried to overtake him. Here, instead it was different. When the slow down sign is out, I slow down, making the other drivers slow down too. And then, Didier overtook me and if you look at the lap times for Imola, every time that I’m in front I lap at 37.5 to 37.8 to save petrol and the engine also because I have a 45 second lead over Alboreto. When Pironi is leading, we lap at 35.5”.
I remember watching a John Watson interview (might have been the sky F1 legends series) where he is asked about Villeneuve's accident.. He would say he felt "nothing" and once he saw Gilles he knew he was gone, went back to the pits and shut himself in the motorhome with a cup of tea. Sounds like he completely disconnected emotionally the moment he saw him, amazing insight into how some drivers coped with the grim realities of racing in that era
Gilles would have been a champion for sure. Imagine Fangio dying in 1950, Senna dying in early 1988 or Schumacher being the third casualty at Imola '94. That's what Villeneuve's death was IMO. What a loss.
According to a biography I read, prior to this WDC year he was already psychologically compromised. He had issues with family, fear of aging, and afraid that he doesn't have long enough time to win a title etc etc. Perhaps that's why he was so mad at the time.
*_"According to a biography I read, prior to this WDC year he was already psychologically compromised."_* ^^ THIS ^^ If Villeneuve had survived, I think Pironi would have eaten him.
1:52: Looking at the front end, with the driver's feet ahead of the wheels, the cars in those days were Driver We Want You To Be on Crutches For The Rest of Your Life If You Do Indeed Survive a Front End Crash mobiles. Paletti's crash and death at Canada and then Pironi's ramming of Prost at Hockenheim and his injuries bore this out.
R.I.P Gilles Villeneuve. Also, all hail the Hans Device, one of the most important inventions that motorsport has ever had the benefit of. It has, and continues to, save lives. Invented by Dr Robert Hubbard (1943-2019) it protects drivers from Basilar skull fracture, and though that was not the cause of Gilles Villeneuve's death, it's ponderous to think whether it may have made a difference.
No. Hans works if you're still strapped in the car. Villeneuve was catapulted out of the car when the car nose dived and hit the ground and then he flew to the catch fence
@@bmwzaxos5264 If the safety belt would have been attached to the chassis he might have survived. Unfortunately the harness was attached to his seat. Watch the images closely (you can find them on YT) and you can see the seat still attached to his back after the car disintegrated.
It was my understanding that Villeneuve had quickly switched cars earlier in the session which included moving his seat over from the other car. The belts were attached to the seat not the chassis to make this move quicker. That’s why when he was ejected the seat and belts were still on him.
Yeah not sure about that. The belts were attached and anchored to the rear bulkhead, not the seat back. They could swap seats without messing with the belts. The belts may have run thru slots in the seat back but I believe the belts broke free from the rear bulkhead but the anchors prevented Villeneuve and the seat becoming detached from one another. It was a brutal crash in which the monocoque went through a catastrophic failure.
@@paulo9504 If you watch the TV images (you can find them on YT) you can see that the seat is still attached to his back when he gets thrown out of the car.
The force of the impact ripped off the panel behind the drivers seat with Villeneuve still attached to it. The main problem was the anchoring points on the bottom of the tub. They all ripped apart, thus enabling the driver to be thrown out.
The problem was that the panel behind the driver's seat was torn away, exposing the fuel bladder. Pictures of this are easy to find. This was what released the seatbelt anchors.
GV was one of the few, if not the only driver that Enzo didn't treat like garbage. IMHO, he was responsible for a number of deaths throughout his time running that team. Some call him a genius, others - me included - consider him to have been a tyrant on a good day, and thoroughly overrated.
09:28 Prost didn't forget this and allegedly vetoed a proposal by Ron Dennis to have Pironi as a stop-gap teammate for the 1987 season. Dennis had been impressed by Pironis Ligier test. With that failure to secure a F1 seat, Pironi went powerboating full time. The Pironi family no longer mention Prost name to this day. Ref: Pironi:The Champion That Never Was - Sedgewick
Huh, what I've heard about the potential Pironi comeback that didn't happen was that he had signed an insurance policy which would've been voided had he returned to F1.
Very sad story - but what is incredible is the fact Didier named his son with a name Gilles. And Gilles Pironi at 2020 British GP was getting the Constructors' Trophy for the win of Hamilton and Mercedes
The way Gilles' seat ejected was absolutely crazy. Seeing the footage there is no doubt it was unsurviveable. Greg Moore's crash in CART while different had a similar look in that I had no doubt he had perished.
Don't forget that the accident with Martin Donnnely at Jerez in 1990 also need with him in the middle of the track also in his seat strapped in. He was lucky to survive and did race in other categories. I was at that race and saw the accident in the distance.
Belgian here. You botched the name of the corner, but Dutch is a fracking hard language to pronounce correctly even for native speakers. So don't beat yourself up over it. Love the vids. Keep up the bloody stellar job you are doing. 🤟
On the 1994 quip at the start, when I think of a driver injured in that season I immediately think of Karl Wendlinger who was comatose for weeks after his accident at monaco as well. The man would have certainly been successful in F1 if it werent for that accident.
From what I have read about it, Villeneuve wanted another stab at it but it already was the last set of quali tyres he was on. The chance of improving was neigh zero, but desperate people can do desperate things.
Yep, I had heard he was on his last set of qualifying tires and that they were completely shot when the crash happened. Back in 1982 they used super soft and sticky qualifying tires that were know as 2 lap qualifying specials. One lap to get them up to temp and then one flying lap to get a time. Guys took all sort of risks in qualifying that year, not just Villeneuve. Traffic was always an issue since they usually had around 28 cars at any given race.
I never saw this accident when it happened, I was just like 1 year old at the time. But from a very young age I very quickly developed a love and fascination for F1, so I have studied the history of it quite well all my life, and from what I can discern from the Villeneuve death, I believe the theory that he was just out there pushing too hard to beat Pironi's time. It's the only explanation that makes sense. If he were on his in lap, I can see no reason he would be driving so fast. And although Mass did everything right when he saw the Ferrari coming up behind fast, he slowed and moved off the racing line to let it pass unhindered, Villeneuve just made a catastrophic and tragic bad judgement call to also move off the racing line at the same time but of course by then couldn't do anything to avoid his date with destiny. Had he not been fighting Pironi, I'm confident that accident wouldn't have happened.
What made those cars even more dangerous is the fact they didn't use front wings in 1982 or they used a tiny bit of it. So it didn't prevent tyres touching each other making the cars flying very easily. (Front wings doesn't always prevent cars from flying, but it can help)
On a side note to 1982 and Ferrari. After Pironi's accident in Germany, the Scuderia contacted Alan Jones with a view to having him take over the seat for the remainder of the year. Jones, who was bitter at being given the runaround by Ferrari in the late 70s when they actually decided to sign Villeneuve instead, gave the Scuderia the runaround to the point where they eventually gave up and signed Mario Andretti instead. Now here is the kicker. Andretti made it perfectly clear that he had no intention on it being a long term return to F1, while Jones was actually looking to make a full time comeback. Jones now admits (regrets) that he did the wrong thing. Because with him looking at a comeback, Ferrari would have viewed Jones, a World Champion, as a must keep. He could have ended up in their 1983 car which was a championship winner (Constructors') and a contender in the Drivers' title. Who knows? Jones could have had 2 World Championships to his name instead of one.
I seem to remember something about qualifying tires that only lasted for a lap or two as a reason Villeneuve didn't back down as approaching Mass.. I may be mistaken.
People absolutely slate Didier Pironi because of Gilles tragic death, but to my mind he was the World Champion that never was, he had the 1982 championship in his hands but lost it due to a horrendous accident in Germany …RIP both drivers, they were truly great.
There is a whole documentary that aired in 2012-ish about the story of Gilles Villeneuve: it was a part of a program named "Sfide" (or "Challenges" for my english friends), which was hosted by Alex Zanardi. One of Gilles' mechanics went on record saying that Pironi gained the nickname "babyface" due to his appearance: blonde hair, round cheeks, bright eyes... Forghieri himself was interviewed and revealed many behind the scenes situation during Villeneuve's tenure at Ferrari, like in '79 when Gilles came back to the pits with three wheels and pleaded the mechanics to "change the tires so he can go back to the track".... let's just say the team laughed it off because they knew Gilles and he was indeed something else entirely: he would've driven a car with no wheels if he could. Also, during the San Marino GP Forghieri was not present, and he stated that he wouldn't have shown the "SLOW" sign - he rather wouldn't have shown anything and let the drivers duke it out by themselves (and be called out as dumbasses if they didn't settle it on their own and crashed out). Either way, both Forghieri and then-Ferrari president Luda di Montezemolo still put the blame on Pironi, because given the car at hand and how competitive the 126-C2 was, it was Villeneuve's title to take, since he was the clear cut number 1 driver in the team and undisputed fan favorite: he's still immensely loved to this day - many people who attended the 2021 Italian GP (at which I worked at) came wearing t-shirts or bearing flags with Gilles' Ferrari and the number 27. Lastly, Enzo attending races, let alone so late in his life, is a pretty much false myth: it's widely known now that he barely moved outside of Maranello, let alone the Scuderia's HQ, and in a very rare interview he confirmed that he stopped attending Formula 1 events since his son Dino's death in 1956.
I think Ferrari hung out the slow sign because of worries over fuel consumption? With all their rivals out, they wanted the drivers to cool it, and the Ferrari was thirsty (I think Pironi ran out of fuel on the last lap in Monaco). But Pironi would overtake Gilles and speed off, Gilles would take the position back, and slow it down, and Pironi world overtake again and so on
When romance meets shrewdness, in an environment that exacerbates every good or bad decisions made, carnage ensues. Didier's actions were justified in itself, the object is to win. Gilles' grievances were justified, there is a loyalty you should feel to the order established due to the work you have put in a team, as he showed in his deference towards Jody Scheckter in 79. The Ferrari higher ups should have addressed this instead of letting it fester. Gilles died prematurely, Didier became a haunted man for the rest of his remaining life . Due to this we lost a phenomenal driver and a great one. Just thinking what Senna vs Villeneuve might have been is enough to make you cry
Senna would have absolutely destroyed him. GV was prone to making unforced errors and a bit reckless. You left Prost out of the equation who would have had his way with him also.
@@ctibpo991 actually I did. I'm 58 years old so I remember this well. I remember the recklessness and the rashness that was coupled with an innate talent. I'll continue to stand by my opinion that he would have never withstood the pressure of a Senna or Prost in their prime.
I whatch the documentary about prof Cid Watkins, Pironi begged him to save his legs, which they managed todo, Pironi then go into power boat racing, which he ended up die in from a crash
The more I think about it, the more I understand Prost wanting to redflag the Monaco '84 GP... It looks like he didn't want to get involved in another crash in bad weather.
I know, this video is now 3 months old - but I just found another video about this incident: th-cam.com/video/JrxkTN1XgT8/w-d-xo.html Around 14:20, there is the mentioned podium. The look on Villeneuve's face says it all!
Villeneuve, it is theorized, mistook Mass's March for that of his teammate's, Raul Boesel's car. He figured the rookie would stay on line and not move over so that is why Gilles took the line he did and why Mass was taken totally by surprise. I also heard that Villeneuve was on his in lap and that his qualifying was basically over. There were no more attempts to be made that day had he safely returned to the pits. There were also stories and rumors of woman trouble in Pironi's life. He got married in 1982 and then allegedly hooked up with another woman that he deemed better than the woman he had just married. Something straight out of the movie, Grand Prix. TMZ level shit for the kiddos out there! Pironi was definitely an odd character for sure.
The mind of a racer is a complex and scary one. Ego always plays a part regardless of how calm and collected a driver is, but how one approaches their craft and what they take from it can be some of the most illogical pleasures. An odd example is this guy. I know motorcycles aren't your forte but humour the notion. This guy has lived and served probably the last remnants of the glory side of motorsport. What he knew and what he dealt with is down right insane and to think he knew it on such an intimate level, it gives his insight so much more meaning th-cam.com/video/MsZBXlTHPCg/w-d-xo.html Now translate that insight to 4 wheels and motorsport in general. The mind of a racer is a scary one and what motives such risk is never certain.
How many people here actually saw these guys race? I was 23 and I watched every single race that seas, including the farces at Imola and Caesar’s Palace. Yet there are those who’ve decided that this is partisan matter and that you have to pick a side without knowing or seeing what was going on at the time. How many people here are involved in competitive sport? I still am and I compete every week. Nobody with any amount of bottle throws a race. If Pironi had backed off, Ferrari would have eviscerated him. This was his chance and it may even have been his only chance. Who knew?
Wow. I was just teen when this happened. But remember it so well. Gilles had taken up the title of my favourite driver. Which had previously been Ronnie Peterson. Both Balls to wall drivers who would take a car by the scruff of the neck and beat it up. As the saying goes. There are old drivers and bold drivers. But no old, bold drivers. But gee werent they good to watch. Cheers gents. 🍻
Gilles Ferrari had an on off throttle that Gilles reacted to by slamming it to the floor everytime he got the car straight. Mass and him were not the best of friends and when Mass drove cleanly away from Gilles through the twisties before the downhill to the turn that set up his death,Gilles gave the Ferrari all the beans he could give it . Gilles damn near drove out of the corner at the bottom of the hill. His brakes were absolutely screaming ,you can hear them in the video. Gilles was looking at the open space to right of Mass when he came out of the turn and aimed his Ferrari right at the hole to the right of Mass. Mass seeing Gilles coming had already decided to go right to get out of the way. But it was too late for Gilles to turn. Gilles car handled like crxp at low speeds and the ground effects only worked at high speeds. At exact moment Gilles had enough speed to stick his Ferrari to the track... to turn...his car was at Mass's back tire...absolutely flying ...at full throttle. From there the aluminum construction design that was very light and never meant to protect anyone ....did just that. It came apart,and with one flip where the car slammed the ground and broke itself apart,the car flung Gilles ...still in his seat...across the track. One of the brightest drivers to ever live, was betrayed because his front tires would simply not turn the car in time. From there, Gilles was simply a passenger and then a projectile. Thank God above race car designers never build race cars like this anymore. Rest In Peace Gilles.
1994 it was more like 9 of which 5 were very serious…read John Barnard’s book if you haven’t already…in true Ferrari fashion, the composites used in the 1982 Ferrari were not done correctly, meaning the tub was little better than an aluminium one and tore in half in both Villeneuve and Pironi’s accident…the MP4/1, built by an actual aerospace company wound not have failed like that…
Two drivers killed, but I count nine that could have been, including Senna and Ratzenberger Alesi (spinal injuries in testing) Lehto (spinal injuries in testing) Brundle (hit in head by Verstappen’s car) Barrichello (Imola crash) Senna (Imola) Roland (Imola) Lamy (testing crash) Wendlinger (Monaco crash) Verstappen (Hockenheim BBQ) But when you say “two drivers killed in one season” 1994 comes to mind before 82.
@@AidanMillward JJ was a broken neck I think? Also Montermini's shunt in Spain was pretty awful too. The cars were not very safe when pushed too hard. Most of them were basically like the '93 cars but without the gizmos, and weren't designed to be passive as such.
@@AidanMillward Good points, well made. However my ninth was Montermini (Simtek - again), who broke his foot and totalled another tub at Barcelona. The Brundle crash was spectacular and certainly could have been a lot worse injury wise, but they all walked away with just bumps and bruises… …you’d also have got unbelievable odds on Rosberg as champion and Ferrari finishing the season with Tambay and Andretti as drivers in March 1982…
@@jamesdyer7960 Lehto and Alesi both hurt their necks, but Lehto’s was much worse…he was rushed back when he wasn’t ready for it and was in agony every time he braked. He hurt his neck in the first place as the B194 was by all accounts bordering on uncontrollable without the blown diffuser to stabilise the aero and you couldn’t get the most out of that without being an excellent left foot braker, which Lehto wasn’t. He binned it hard trying to get to within even a respectable distance to Schumacher. When he eventually made it back, possibly his lack of readiness led to that stall at Imola…crash, safety car, another driver in an unstable car goes into the wall hard trying to keep Schumacher at bay. There were so many weird coincidences and overlaps that season, but to elaborate on your point, the cars were an early 80’s design, with smaller wings and tyres, 90’s engines and a rushed transition to passive running that left a lot of teams (including Williams) not enough time to transition back to a more stable aero philosophy. Active aero can chase peak downforce numbers with aplomb as the platform will always be stable and thus in the aero operating window. If you look at the FW16B vs the FW16 it was basically a different car. The 1994 regs in their pre Monaco drafting was basically a death trap waiting to happen. There’s a really good book on that season simply called ‘1994’ if you are interested…
The 126C2's monocoque used aluminum panels that were folded in a seamless fashion. The bulkheads were glued and riveted to the bottom portion of the monocoque. I believe there was kevlar reinforcement between the aluminum panels to provide strength and stiffness. The monocoque was a thing of beauty. However, it was still a death trap. That monocoque collapsed and disintegrated within seconds of impacting the tarmac at Zolder. After the crash, Ferrari added carbon fiber reinforcement panels but it offered only minimal extra protection and slightly better outcome as Pironi's German GP qualifying crash proved.
Had that crash didn't happen, I always wonder what would happen years later when Gilles will battle Senna. Even I always wonder what would happen should the two will stack up against each other.
@@AidanMillward Hmmm, Da Silva was not immune to high profile impetuous moments. Senna would have won the qualy battle but Gilles could make up soo much ground off the start. I reckon the two would have been fantastic to watch toe to toe
There's also the whole thing that because of the unpredictable nature of Ferrari's turbos, plus the "deal" between the Ferrari drivers and Renault drivers according to Pironi. My own understanding was that Gilles was very naive to the political machinations and got caught out. This is what endears him to the likes of Roebuck and Windsor because they think of him as a pure racer. Plus because he always felt like he was "owed" for the way he helped Scheckter to the 79 championship - that led to his anger and violent death. Pironi was a crafty bugger who liked the political aspect of it - he was the head of GPDA at the time after all and along with Lauda orchestrated the strike in South Africa. All in all, it was all about misunderstandings and someone who was politically naive in F1 - a recipe for disaster whatever way you look at it.
The story that ‘Gilles was naive and Pironi was a scheming politician’ denies the hard reality. No F1 driver worth his salt throws a race. If you think the guy behind you is going to be content to stay there, think again because you just became a bunny.
So modern day car, somehow the seat separates from the chassis with you in it at speed but you have your hans on still. That’s a “survivable” crash today
I still don't understand the hate towards Pironi because it's simply not a betrayal. Both of them battle for the lead of the race for at least 2/3 of the race as Arnoux was leading in the beggining. So Villeneuve knew Pironi was fighting him, and Villeneuve did many mistakes, going of the track quite a few times. But the real problem is the "slow" because both vision of the drivers are right, both of them wanted to win for Ferrari in Imola. The overtake of Pironi is one of the best I ever seen and not a lot of driver could have done this on Villeneuve. At the end of 1982 season Enzo Ferrari went to the hospital and gave Pironi a trophy and he said "To the true 1982 world champion".
The hate was because Villeneuve was seen as the more daring driver, and Pironi was "boring". Unless there was literally an agreement in place before the race not to race each other, there was no betrayal. I hate to say it, but Gilles basically was at fault for throwing a wobbly and not sorting things out like an adult.
@@MrSniperfox29 Nah Gilles was playing with Pironi! Yes, he may have been naive but Gilles was driving for the team and keeping to their instructions. Pironi was not. If the shackles were off Pironi wouldn't have seen him for dust!
@@MrSniperfox29 You can dress it up all you like! GV was never a loser. He was mugged that race. Naive, maybe, but always a better pedaller than Pironi.
Great video. Gilles was definitely very angry and felt betrayed after Imola. From what I understand he had sacrificed his own chances of the world championship in 79, out of loyalty to Jody and the team. He believed his time would come and finished 4 points behind Jody that season. It seems reasonable to assume his anger was so strong that it affected his decision making two weeks later. I made a little video about it after researching it a bit more th-cam.com/video/EQyhozjYGHw/w-d-xo.html It was good to see Jacques back racing this weekend at 51. 😊
‘Angry’ and ‘betrayed’ are pretty loaded words and the idea that Villeneuve sacrificed a championship to a guy like Jody Scheckter is just unrealistic. I remember 1979. Anyone who thinks it would have been a simple matter for Villeneuve to just walk away from him at Monza 1) doesn’t know anything about Jody Scheckter or F1 drivers generally and 2) is making assumptions about Scheckter that are a bit naive. If Villeneuve allowed those emotions into the cockpit at Zolder then he had no business driving an F1 car that day.
Just a quick note: Gilles actually lost his helmet in the accident. Pironi, who had left the pits to see what had happened and stopped at the scene of the accident, retrieved it from the catch fencing and carried it back to the pits. There's a picture of him strolling, grim-faced, away from the crash scene carrying his own and Gilles' helmets.
It’s amazing how the stories change over the years isn’t it?
@@AidanMillward Are you able to elaborate?
@@AidanMillward yeah it is! Great video, though - thought you told the story really well. Really enjoy your content, look forward to more 🙂
I dont think he lost his helmet in the crash so much as the medical staff took it off when they were giving him cpr at the catch fencing. At least thats what I saw in the video since you can see him flying thru the air with his red helmet still on his head, altho it might have fallen off when he impacted the ground im pretty sure the medics removed it
@@Oblio1942 No, his helmet did indeed come off during the crash. This is pretty well documented. It was lying several feet from him when Dr. Watkins and the medical team arrived. Gilles, like half the 1982 grid, wore a GPA helmet which utilized a snapping mechanism to secure the helmet instead of a traditional chin strap. Drivers felt the GPA helmet offered a better fit and comfort than helmets using a strap. The helmet snapping mechanism failed and this accident was the beginning of the end of GPA in F1. Drivers gradually abandoned using GPA helmets and GPA's fate was sealed when they couldn't receive the certification necessary to be a helmet provider in F1 (believe following the 1986 season). However, GPA is a leading helmet manufacturer for equestrian related uses and competitions today.
Christopher Hilton's book, 1982, verifies all of this. He interviewed several drivers, including John Watson and Derek Warwick, who were one of the first drivers at the scene of the crash. Both pulled Gilles out of the catch fence. Both said that his helmet was off. Warwick went as far to say that Villeneuve's helmet was broken. They also said both of his shoes (and socks?) had been pulled off his feet as well. Such was the ferociousness of his crash. Pironi, who was preparing for a final run when the crash happened, followed the medical car out of the pits and stopped at the scene to see what was up. However, Watkins turned him away. He was apparently given Gilles's helmet to take back with him to the pits. This is the true story. Not sure what the creator of this video was insinuating about how the story has changed over the years.
I remember being a preteen buying the 1982 season review VHS learning about previous F1 seasons and watching Paletti being burned alive in the Osella and Villeneuve being thrown to his death still rank up in the worst things i saw in my youth. Clive James as usual put it perfectly and hauntingly with the words "The quarrel would have faded away with time, alas Villeneuve had no time"
Wasn’t burned alive actually he was probably dead before the fire
No, i agree, with daniel it sounds like Paletti was busted up badly by the accident, but the fire was fought off very effectively by fire marshals and one Didier Pironi, who was actually showing the fire marshals the best way to keep the fire away from the driver. Also, refueling or not era (I don't remember) this accident happened on the starting grid- so Paletti's fuel tanks were likely full. It was due to those fighting the fire that the entire car was not involved. Go watch again & you'll be amazed what a great job they did of keeping the fire out of the driver's cockpit
Paletti was killed instantly in the impact. The fire had nothing to do with it and made no difference to the outcome.
I live approx 10 miles from circuit Zolder. In the pits there is a small statue of Gilles Helmet and his Ferrari. What most people don't know is that at the crash site there is a small memorial plaque, but you can't reach or see it from where people normally are allowed to walk. I was 10 when it happened. I was at Zolder that day although i did not see it happen since i was in the grandstands. But i still remember it like it was yesterday. Every time i go to Zolder i visit the small statue in the pitlane. And every year, in the beginning of may, i walk towards the memorial plaque. Just to remember Gilles. The best F1 driver there has ever been.
Thanks for your story. It gives me the chills. I was a year or so away from leaving school when it happened, so even though I've never been to Zolder, I can imagine that like Monza, there's a place where fans go and it's unnaturally quiet, especially if the visitors are old enough to remember the shocking news.
Onto a tangent (as I am wont to drift...), what language is spoken in that area? Dutch? Flemish? It doesn't sound French! I only ask because I'm teaching myself Dutch (for fun. Hoping to visit one day, only to be shown up by how many Dutch people speak terrific English 😉) and whenever I hear the name of the track, my brain automatically thinks "attic"! But it sounds like a weird name for a place. And this is coming from someone who has lived directly opposite the Netherlands for the last 32 years, a place heavily influenced by Dutch engineers a few centuries ago (gawd bless 'em. We have our Broads to sail on thanks to their initial work).
Though I doubt they had any influence on place names like "Six Mile Bottom," "Nedging Tye" (one of a bunch of Tyes), "Shimpling", "Saxlingham Nethergate", "Hardley" and many more! (I love silly names! 😂 Being Welsh I could list a lot of tongue-twisters for English people 😆. To be fair, my English husband has a good crack at them!)
Anyway, I hope one day you'll see this and I'll remember to come back to look! It's something that has been bugging me for years! Als u Nederlands spreekt, dank u wel voor uw begrip!
@@y_fam_goeglyd Looks like i got a notification so i read it immediately.
First things first. People speak flemish here. But flemish is actually the same as dutch. Maybe a few words are different but flemish speaking people know those different dutch words and vice versa.
And yes, almost everybody speaks english here. So you don't need to learn dutch to come here.
You are right about Zolder meaning attic. It is a weird name for a track or a place, but it actually is the name of the town where the track is located. Heusden-Zolder, or shortened Zolder. The track is actually called circuit de Terlaemen, after the baron who lived in the castle nearby.
In the middle of the track in Zolder there is a small hill, with a little chapel on top. It is always very quiet there. People aren't even allowed there. It's very close to the crashsite of Gilles, where it also always is very quiet. I always feel a strange atmosphere when i am there, but it probably is my own imagination.
Moest je ooit naar Zolder komen mag je me altijd contacteren. Ik geef je heel graag een rondleiding, al heb ik er niks te zeggen. Maar ik ken het circuit wel als mijn broekzak dus ik raak wel binnen.
Gilles' death at Zolder was the only driver death that deeply affected the usually stoic and emotionally removed Enzo Ferrari. In fact Enzo thought so highly of Gilles as a driver, he considered Villeneuve to be a son of his. Part of me wonders if some of the sadness Enzo felt was a personal feeling of guilt born out of a sense that he betrayed Gilles by not backing him over Pironi during that rivalry. We sadly will never know as all three main parties in the rivalry in Gilles, Pironi, and Enzo are all gone. It's just a damn shame that Gilles, or Didier for that matter, never got that driver's crown.
Ironically, this was a situation that Ferrari himself created. I would argue that it was a situation that could only have existed in a team like Ferrari. They were always my favourite team and although I swore off F1 after the 1982 season, the team is an object lesson in how not to do it. They designed some great cars - the 126C2 was actually one of them - but their own management always made sure their chances of World Championships were torpedoed before they could secure them. Perhaps the best case I can remember was Eddie Irvine. He made a critical pit sop for tyres while challenging for the World Championship and the team brought out three wheels…
come on , villeneuve was not like a chid for enzo ... it was sadly pironi
@@guillaumelussier7492 Enzo Ferrari himself wrote in both his memoirs and his book "Pilote, Che gente" how highly he thought of Gilles Villeneuve saying, and I quote, "I loved him like a son. I was affectionate to him." Enzo also remarked in a documentary the following "His death has deprived us of a great champion - one that I loved very much. My past is scarred with grief; parents, brother, son. My life is full of sad memories. I look back and see the faces of my loved ones, and among them I see him." If that isn't someone who sounds like they have utter grief and sadness for losing a dear friend, than I don't know what is. Enzo clearly felt like it was his fault on some level for not backing Villeneuve.
thanks man , i hope that im wrong
There's a story that Villeneuve contacted Ron Dennis post-race and said he wanted to go to McLaren in 1983. Beyond the betrayal he felt from Pironi, Ferrari had not post-race supported Gilles' position regarding the "Slow" pit board. Ferrari didn't care, because it had a 1-2 in Italy, scoring maximum constructors points. Who won wasn't important to the Scuderia, just that a Ferrari won.
Ferrari would win the 1982 Constructor's championship, but with neither of the drivers they'd started the season with. Patrick Tambay would replace Villeneuve, and Mario Andretti would sit in for Pironi for the last two races.
And Ferrari never won any championship anymore up until 1999, a punishment of their greed or pride? (or maybe gluttony )
@@homeperson11244 Ferrari did win the Constructors Championship 1983 and 1999, just not the Driver's until 2000
@@paulo9504 You're right about that, thank you for correcting about the 1983. The 1999 tho i did say up till 1999, and yes they only won the constructors championship at that year
@@homeperson11244 more of consequence. punish means some 3rd party is actively penalizing them
@@GloomGaiGar I don't think it's a full consequence of their action because tbf around those time they hired drivers that theoretically would bring championship. Guys like Prost, Mansell, and Alesi are no big slouch of their own. Although it might be true it's part of consequence of overproud or overlook themselves, i still consider it as a punishment from a third party of whom living up in the skies.
The smash with Prost was what led Alain to become 'The Professor'
Also as you know Jacques would have a similar crash with Ralf Schumacher that claimed the life of Graham Beveridge
Gilles death and Pironis accident were what lead Prost to become "the professor" rather than taking the Senna approach.
Gille had paid his dues to Ferrari by being loyal and followed team orders the previous year to help Jody Schecter with the title and he expect Ferrari to return the favour but instead, they betrayed him by allowing Pepperoni to pass him.
Pironi didn’t owe him anything.
1979 with Schecter wasn't the previous year.
@henryreid3562 I can understand Villeneuve’s anger up to a point. I just don’t understand why he apparently allowed it to consume him.
I thought he was the best I ever saw. But in his last weeks his behaviour was not a credit to him.
I have always said that those who talk about debts owed by teams forget that such an arrangement might not even have been recognised by Ferrari. Furthermore, it doesn’t apply to the other team member (aside from the other assumptions it makes).
I have also always said that those who blamed Pironi for Villeneuve’s fatal crash do him a disservice. I thought Villeneuve a far more professional driver than to allow such personal problems into the cockpit. I am starting to wonder if I was wrong about both.
“Turbos, ground effect and Enzo Ferrari had two drivers certain to bring the drivers and constructors back to Maranello”
Sounds very similar to how a lot of people think this year is going to be
I kinda think '22 Ferrari will let a lot of people down. Too high of expectation yet history tells otherwise: Ferrari had been bad when new major regulation overhauls took place, at least for the last 2 decades ('03, '05, '09, '12, and '14)
I am very curious as to what Maranello has up their sleeves. But I am thinking Sainz over Leclerc..
Agreed with you both. I think they’ll be up there but I don’t see a championship coming this year. I’m very much looking forward to testing and seeing these cars run together
@@haryosoo 03 was not a major regulation overhaul and they still won the double that year lmao.
@@haryosoo siting 03 as pproof of Ferrari's inability to cope with sweeping regs changes is kind of a really poor choice, 00 to 04 was ferrari dominance at its finest...
I have 2 heroes in racing . Alex Zanardi is first , Gilles Villeneuve is second I am Canadian. If you ever watched Gilles race , he had an aggression to his driving. almost impatience on the next corner. Coupled with car control that was amazing. His own aggression killed him. He certainly would have wore the drivers championship if things had been different. Jacques has his fathers aggression, in a more tempered version. It led him to a career any driver would dream of.
Gilles Villeneuve reminded of Mansell very aggressive driving but missing some race smarts. Prost, Piquet or Lauda always had the championship in their mind and not only the race at hand.
Long live Gilles Villeneuve! Gone before I was born but looking back one of the hardest driving most dedicated F1 drivers of all time. Thanks for the video Aidan 👍
i actually was born later that year when Gilles died. yet I know that this bloke was one hell of a driver who like aiden said had only two speeds either zero or the full throttle. Yet he was also the nicest bloke and it's devastating that he died.
Keke's career deserves coverage at some point imho - when he became World Champion he'd not only won just a single race that year, he'd won only a single race in his entire career. That career went on to include just... 5 wins, from memory? But every one of them was weird as hell, and usually in a car that shouldn't have been up to it.
1982 was a cursed season, though. Gilles and Paletti compromised to a permanent end; Pironi physically crippled; Prost traumatised for life (his later issues with Ayrton really need to be considered through the lens of Hockenheim...); Arnoux learning nothing and unmasking himself as another backstabber; politics leaving the future uncertain; Keke left reigning over the ashes; and it all wound up under the burning desert sun in a goddamned car park in the most awful city on Earth (since Dubai hadn't been built yet). Whenever I cover it in my own writing, I always come away bummed out and depressed.
Gilles was my childhood hero, 79 may also have had a bearing on this as well, as I've heard stories that Giles yielded to Jody for the title on the basis that he would be no.1 from 80 and allegedly Enzo didn't really care that Didier had "stolen" the win, only that Ferrari got the 1-2. Regardless of the reasons behind it, to a 9 year old kid seeing the accident on a news broadcast was devastating.
Also Giles and rene in dijon79 greatest battle of all time, completely overshadowed the first turbo win in the sport
@@Alnilam1973 that was the one where he just fucking launched it final lap, wasnt it?
It was more Picinini's machinations behind the scenes than either of the drivers. Certainly not Enzo - he adored Gilles.
@@AidanMillward both of them went for it , the last few laps laps are incredible,find it, watch it! Gilles career was incredible never give up is where he started from and I can't understand why his story is so undertold
@@jamesdyer7960 Enzo adored Gilles like no other driver but said nothing to pironi post race, I could understand Gilles being pissed after giving up a title to Sheckter but we will never know the truth because of the legends surrounding both enzo and Gilles.
Has ir really been 40 years? Wow. I was 11, I remember that day Gilles died, my mother came into my room and told me he had a crash and was in a coma. I didn't here about the Pironi controversy till years after, so I actually became a Pironi fan after Gilles died, and thought his actions were heroic at the Canadian Grand Prix after Paletti crashed into him, still do actually. As a Canadian, Gilles was "our guy", had nothing to do with the reputation he has now....but I LOVE that he has been put on such a high pedestal.
Tragic. A good video, the way you can go from whimsical to serious and still be the authentic you is remarkable.
I would like a video on the 1982 season as a whole. There was the FISA-FOCA war, the South African Grand Prix boycott, the controversial Ferrari 1-2 at Imola etc. Like there was a LOT of controversy in that season but it was the season where 9 different drivers won in 9 consecutive races and 11 different drivers won from 7 teams. No one won more than twice. It was the last season to have ground effect cars and now we're getting them back after 40 years. There were cars with V6 turbos and inline 4 turbos competing against naturally aspirated V8s and V12s. There is a lot to talk about and I would love to see it all (or at least most of it) covered in a video.
*_" It was the last season to have ground effect cars and now we're getting them back after 40 years."_*
Ground effect never went away. That's what the splitter plates and diffusers and blown diffusers and Coanda effect were all about.
This was brilliant, thank you, vey interested in more about the politics of this year. Would also love an episode on Bernie...might be a few episodes...but that is me being greedy, you are a star!
Convenient timing given that his son has just qualified for the Daytona 500. Hope he does well but I'm not expecting him to win given that he's in an open entry.
JV races in Daytona?
@@parrotantics2046 yes. For hezeberg Motorsport. A Dutch team that mainly competes in euronascar.
Jacques also has just had another son whom he named Gilles in honour of his dad.
@@F1wgp7 it's nice that he finally made peace with his father I suppose.
It's Daytona... If you are on the lead lap on the last lap, you have just as good of a shot as anyone. Well, only if you are in the pack that doesn't get taken out in the last lap crash anyway...
1:35 - 1:45
Villneuve was like how people *think* racing iactually is
while Pironi was like how racing *actually* is.
First of all: Yeah, kinda :D
Second of all: Damn they were really Senna vs Prost before Senna vs Prost
Great video thanks Aidan,
I was at Silverstone in 1981 as a 10 year old boy when Gilles Villeneuve pulled up and retired directly opposite me and my dad after he had tried to resume the race after a multi car crash at the Woodcote chicane, car was absolutely trashed but he had tried to carry on racing! An absolute hero in my eyes and was gutted when he was killed my first F1 death experience sadly.
Number 27 is still my lucky number to this day.
Have you read the Gerald Donaldson autobiography? It’s a good read.
Great video as usual. Just wish your stories were on Spotify so I could listen at work
I saw Gilles for the first time at Long Beach in 1979. He was aggressive, flamboyant, and wild. I was not a Gilles fan, and I was not a Senna fan for the same reasons. I had seen Gilles at Long Beach in 1982, that was my fourth USGP-West race I had seen in a row, though I was not a fan I was very saddened to hear of his death. Back then you had to wait to see something on the nightly news. Since I live in the US there was no coverage really of his death. It would be years later before I got to see the accident to know why he died.
Imagine the accident happening now, with modern cars Gilles would have walked away. I often wonder with Max and Romain and some of the accidents they have caused through "going for it" whether they would have even survived back in the late 70s/early 80s
*_"Imagine the accident happening now, with modern cars Gilles would have walked away."_*
When Dr Harvey Postlethwaite moved to Ferrari in 1981, he knew that carbon fibre was the answer to their problems. He also knew that the team were not ready for it. Postlethwaite designed the first ever Ferrari monocoque chassis and had it built from aluminium-Nomex honeycomb sandwich by a company called Hexel in Belgium. This new chassis stood out from the crowd because it was bonded, rather than rivetted. It was very light and very stiff, compared with the other chassis of that era.
In the early part of the season, the car used rocker arm front suspension but that proved to be quite hard on tyres so Postlethwaite replaced it with a pullrod front suspension and cut off the blended fairings, giving the car a slimmer appearance. In this guise it was an absolute weapon.
Unfortunately, whatever its merits - and there were many - it proved to have the crash resistance of a blancmange.
In Villeneuve's crash, the panel behind the seat was completely ripped out, exposing the fuel bladder. In so doing, it released the anchor bolts of Villeneuve's harness and he was thrown from the car and killed. Pironi's car came apart at about the driver's hip and everything forward of that, including the front suspension and the instrument panel, was torn off.
McLaren were already building cars from carbon so the change was underway. Lotus followed suit quickly after. So the fact is that had Postlethwaite been hired a year earlier, carbon might have been available. It would almost certainly have resulted in lesser injury to both men, though I suspect Pironi would still have been pretty smashed up but Villeneuve might have survived.
In 1983, Ferrari switched to carbon, like everyone else.
It seems to me that carbon fibre has saved more lives in F1 than any other factor and if it had arrived a year earlier or the crashes had been a year later, the results could have been very different.
Thank you Aidan. I really like these.
Great video! Just one small correction: Pironi's accident happened after the qualifying in a tyre testing session
Been waiting nearly two years for this one. Thanks Aidan, fantastically well put as always. Cheers 🍻 Also I got on iRacing back in Jan and scored my first victory this week, in a USF2000 on the streets of Long Beach...sporting Gilles helmet of course ;)
At a race later in the season, Pironi told an interviewer "we all wish Gilles was here." It was broadcast over the PA. Keke Rosberg said "if it weren't for you Gilles WOULD be here."
Yeah, Keke is a real jerk. Frank Stallone paid him to say it.
That was the Canadian GP when Pironi took pole.
Probably not the smartest thing to say.
Pironi should have responded "well if you guys hadn't tried to get the race cancelled, none of this would ever have happened"
*_"At a race later in the season, Pironi told an interviewer "we all wish Gilles was here." It was broadcast over the PA. Keke Rosberg said "if it weren't for you Gilles WOULD be here.""_*
What does that say about Villeneuve's level of professionalism?
Also , after Pironi died (after a powerboat crash) , his girlfriend gave birth to a twin named…. Gilles and Didier
Gilles Pironi works for that Brackley lot too!
@@jamesdyer7960 haha i saw it on his FB nice , in a way , to work on his dad "old" team.. (Tyrrell after a lot of purchages is now Mercedes ;)
Not many people know Pironi, Villeneuve and Prost were very close friends, and always hung out between races, except Pironi and Villeneuve were a bit unhinged, to put it mildly. A game they loved to play was to each one rent a car, and try to crash it as spectacularly as possible, which led to them being blacklisted from just about every car rental company in Europe. As it happens with unhinged clicks, when things went bad, it led to disaster, as it did. I remember reading an interview with Jaques Villeneuve where he mentions, as a child, the number of times his father put his life at risk doing crazy things. Which brings to mind another rather unhinged driver, Colin McRae
I always found it odd that Pironi gets some of the blame. If Gilles allowed him to get under his skin and then take unreasonable risks, that just shows Gilles was not mentally strong enough in my opinion.
You only have to look at Jarama '81 for proof of his mental strength!.
Gilles was one of those generational talents who could produce something sensational at any time, when others could not. Clark, Rindt, Pryce, Gilles, Mansell, Bellof, Senna, Schuey, Montoya, Alonso, Lewis, Max and I am going to say Leclerc. These are they types of drivers, personalities that ignite the passion with F1.
@@jamesdyer7960 Pironi, from a political standpoint, was far more ruthless and stronger than Villeneuve. Villeneuve was used to being friends with his teammate, like in the case of Jody Scheckter. In this regard, Gilles was naive. His own wife warned him that Pironi was not his friend and could not be trusted when he didn't invite him to his wedding but did invite key members of Ferrari. Pironi did undermine Villeneuve's postion within the team and wanted to be the undisputed #1.
@@paulo9504 Pironi waited until the last lap to eff GV over, that is essentially cowardice. Up until then Gilles had just been keeping him at bay and following team instructions. GV was naive, yes, but he wasn't 'beaten'. Ferrari failed to haul Didier over the coals afterwards, so it's no wonder GV was going so sign elsewhere for '83. Even though he would have been a better bet for honours in a farrari than Arnoux or Tambay in '83.
No F1 driver is there to finish second.
@@paulo9504 That story about the wedding invitation has been debunked. It’s just part of the hero v villain soap opera that was created by people like Nigel Roebuck and Gerald Donaldson to sell books.
Love your analysis and incredible memory and knowledge!
Someone commented during that season that Villeneuve learnt a circuit by deliberately taking his car beyond its limit at various corners so that, if his car was still in one piece, he would set the ultimate lap next time round!. That didn't result in the tragedy at Zolder, it was simply that Mass turned where Villeneuve was already going and was too late to pull out of the move.
looking at the footage, it just seems like everything that was wrong safety wise about the 80s came together, "who cares just send it in there" attitude mixed with the FIA wanting to create premodonna's mixed with Gilles everything or nothing attitude came together at the worst possible time...
Mass was driving in the middle of the track when Villeneuve approached him. Had he been on either side of the track I don't think the accident would have happened. Edied: Mass not Made- auto correct strikes again
@@simonkevnorris You’re blaming Jochen Mass…? Seriously?
@@thethirdman225 Yes, he was in the middle of the road. Gilles had to go either to the left or right - then Mass went the same way.
Well, when someone comes up on you that quick - and those cars were hard to see out of, especially when Villeneuve was both on a curve and creating a hill - you’d need mental telepathy to know he was coming right up to the last second.
Blaming Jochen Mass for Villeneuve’s death is a cheap shot at best.
Wendlinger always seems to get forgotten when it comes to the fall-out of 1994. Still a wonder he survived his crash.
Never drive angry, eh? Great story. Thanks.
If Villeneuve was in that state of mind, he had no business driving an F1 or any other car that day.
The speed differentials seen during qualifying now still concerns me. The safety of the cars has obviously improved greatly, but I feel it's inevitable there's going to be a big shunt from a similar misunderstanding. Hopefully a sporting incident shakes that up before an accident does.
Thankyou from Canada
WARP 9 and STOP! I love your Star Trek reference and it describes Gilles Villeneuve well. That's why there's a statue of him in Maranello.
The risk Gilles took in the qualifying at Zolder to pass Mass was however not unusual by his extraordinary standards.
It sounds like it was more miscommunication rather than Gilles trying to overtake. Like I say, Mass moved off line and Gilles went the same way.
@@AidanMillward yes and the slight cresl left less time to react.
Interestingly, there is a photograph of Villeneuve on his very last lap, just before the crash, that shows his tyres were utterly shot.
Gilles Villeneuve: “ When I was behind Jody, in South Africa in 79, I overtook him only when he went into the pits. When I was in Monza, which was the last possibility for me, my last chance of becoming world champion, I stayed behind Jody without even trying to overtake him. When I was in Monte Carlo, when I was in Monte Carlo, my gearbox failed but, before that happened, Jody was driving slowly because he had the advantage but I never tried to overtake him. Here, instead it was different. When the slow down sign is out, I slow down, making the other drivers slow down too. And then, Didier overtook me and if you look at the lap times for Imola, every time that I’m in front I lap at 37.5 to 37.8 to save petrol and the engine also because I have a 45 second lead over Alboreto. When Pironi is leading, we lap at 35.5”.
That just sounds like loser talk. It's beneath the way I prefer to remember him.
It's a statement of fact, period.@@thethirdman225
I remember watching a John Watson interview (might have been the sky F1 legends series) where he is asked about Villeneuve's accident..
He would say he felt "nothing" and once he saw Gilles he knew he was gone, went back to the pits and shut himself in the motorhome with a cup of tea.
Sounds like he completely disconnected emotionally the moment he saw him, amazing insight into how some drivers coped with the grim realities of racing in that era
Good video. Sad but good
Very sad. He was driving that cool-down lap as if it were qualifying. Way too fast for a cool-down lap.
Gilles would have been a champion for sure. Imagine Fangio dying in 1950, Senna dying in early 1988 or Schumacher being the third casualty at Imola '94.
That's what Villeneuve's death was IMO. What a loss.
There was never any guarantee that Villeneuve would be World Champion. His personality was against it.
According to a biography I read, prior to this WDC year he was already psychologically compromised. He had issues with family, fear of aging, and afraid that he doesn't have long enough time to win a title etc etc. Perhaps that's why he was so mad at the time.
lol, he is just like me fr
*_"According to a biography I read, prior to this WDC year he was already psychologically compromised."_*
^^ THIS ^^
If Villeneuve had survived, I think Pironi would have eaten him.
1:52: Looking at the front end, with the driver's feet ahead of the wheels, the cars in those days were Driver We Want You To Be on Crutches For The Rest of Your Life If You Do Indeed Survive a Front End Crash mobiles. Paletti's crash and death at Canada and then Pironi's ramming of Prost at Hockenheim and his injuries bore this out.
Wasn’t until the crash at the start of the 86 race at Brands they shifted the drivers legs back.
R.I.P Gilles Villeneuve. Also, all hail the Hans Device, one of the most important inventions that motorsport has ever had the benefit of. It has, and continues to, save lives. Invented by Dr Robert Hubbard (1943-2019) it protects drivers from Basilar skull fracture, and though that was not the cause of Gilles Villeneuve's death, it's ponderous to think whether it may have made a difference.
No.
Hans works if you're still strapped in the car.
Villeneuve was catapulted out of the car when the car nose dived and hit the ground and then he flew to the catch fence
@@bmwzaxos5264 If the safety belt would have been attached to the chassis he might have survived. Unfortunately the harness was attached to his seat. Watch the images closely (you can find them on YT) and you can see the seat still attached to his back after the car disintegrated.
Pironi's crash at Hockenheim was during a tyre testing session. Goodyear said he was going about as fast as he was expected to go on the new west.
It was my understanding that Villeneuve had quickly switched cars earlier in the session which included moving his seat over from the other car. The belts were attached to the seat not the chassis to make this move quicker. That’s why when he was ejected the seat and belts were still on him.
Yeah not sure about that. The belts were attached and anchored to the rear bulkhead, not the seat back. They could swap seats without messing with the belts.
The belts may have run thru slots in the seat back but I believe the belts broke free from the rear bulkhead but the anchors prevented Villeneuve and the seat becoming detached from one another. It was a brutal crash in which the monocoque went through a catastrophic failure.
@@paulo9504 If you watch the TV images (you can find them on YT) you can see that the seat is still attached to his back when he gets thrown out of the car.
The force of the impact ripped off the panel behind the drivers seat with Villeneuve still attached to it. The main problem was the anchoring points on the bottom of the tub. They all ripped apart, thus enabling the driver to be thrown out.
The problem was that the panel behind the driver's seat was torn away, exposing the fuel bladder. Pictures of this are easy to find. This was what released the seatbelt anchors.
Gilles' death also really affected Enzo Ferrari himself who by that point had created a father and son like bond with Villeneuve.
GV was one of the few, if not the only driver that Enzo didn't treat like garbage. IMHO, he was responsible for a number of deaths throughout his time running that team. Some call him a genius, others - me included - consider him to have been a tyrant on a good day, and thoroughly overrated.
@@y_fam_goeglyd Enzo overrated, not Gilles presumably?
09:28 Prost didn't forget this and allegedly vetoed a proposal by Ron Dennis to have Pironi as a stop-gap teammate for the 1987 season. Dennis had been impressed by Pironis Ligier test. With that failure to secure a F1 seat, Pironi went powerboating full time. The Pironi family no longer mention Prost name to this day.
Ref: Pironi:The Champion That Never Was - Sedgewick
Huh, what I've heard about the potential Pironi comeback that didn't happen was that he had signed an insurance policy which would've been voided had he returned to F1.
Very sad story - but what is incredible is the fact Didier named his son with a name Gilles. And Gilles Pironi at 2020 British GP was getting the Constructors' Trophy for the win of Hamilton and Mercedes
his wife named their kids didier and gilles because a few months earlier didier died on a tragic racing boat accident
my 1st GP, kyalami 82. memories
The way Gilles' seat ejected was absolutely crazy. Seeing the footage there is no doubt it was unsurviveable. Greg Moore's crash in CART while different had a similar look in that I had no doubt he had perished.
Don't forget that the accident with Martin Donnnely at Jerez in 1990 also need with him in the middle of the track also in his seat strapped in. He was lucky to survive and did race in other categories. I was at that race and saw the accident in the distance.
3:35 I was today years old when I realized the LEGEND Markus Winkelhock had a dad in F1.
And an uncle. Joachim
Belgian here. You botched the name of the corner, but Dutch is a fracking hard language to pronounce correctly even for native speakers. So don't beat yourself up over it. Love the vids. Keep up the bloody stellar job you are doing. 🤟
You mean I… boch’d it 😎
Better would be " I bocht'd it" . Good attempt though, honestly. 😉
On the 1994 quip at the start, when I think of a driver injured in that season I immediately think of Karl Wendlinger who was comatose for weeks after his accident at monaco as well. The man would have certainly been successful in F1 if it werent for that accident.
Look at where the steering wheel is in relation to the front wheels. It is amazing there weren’t even more crippling injuries and deaths.
From what I have read about it, Villeneuve wanted another stab at it but it already was the last set of quali tyres he was on. The chance of improving was neigh zero, but desperate people can do desperate things.
Yep, I had heard he was on his last set of qualifying tires and that they were completely shot when the crash happened. Back in 1982 they used super soft and sticky qualifying tires that were know as 2 lap qualifying specials. One lap to get them up to temp and then one flying lap to get a time. Guys took all sort of risks in qualifying that year, not just Villeneuve. Traffic was always an issue since they usually had around 28 cars at any given race.
@@paulo9504 There is a photograph taken on the very last lap, just before the crash, that shows his tyres were absolute toast.
Your channel is fucking amazing, keep it up my man!!!!!!
I never saw this accident when it happened, I was just like 1 year old at the time. But from a very young age I very quickly developed a love and fascination for F1, so I have studied the history of it quite well all my life, and from what I can discern from the Villeneuve death, I believe the theory that he was just out there pushing too hard to beat Pironi's time. It's the only explanation that makes sense. If he were on his in lap, I can see no reason he would be driving so fast. And although Mass did everything right when he saw the Ferrari coming up behind fast, he slowed and moved off the racing line to let it pass unhindered, Villeneuve just made a catastrophic and tragic bad judgement call to also move off the racing line at the same time but of course by then couldn't do anything to avoid his date with destiny. Had he not been fighting Pironi, I'm confident that accident wouldn't have happened.
What made those cars even more dangerous is the fact they didn't use front wings in 1982 or they used a tiny bit of it. So it didn't prevent tyres touching each other making the cars flying very easily. (Front wings doesn't always prevent cars from flying, but it can help)
Christopher Hilton wrote a very good book "1982" about that season. If you can find a copy, it's well worth the read.
I don't remember grille's death at the belgium gp at zolda i was to young but i saw it on video on youtube🖥🏎🏁
Clark, Rindt, Peterson, Villeneuve, and Senna. Five drivers with two close similarities; they were all extremely fast and bold, they died racing.
I’m sure I’ve read that Pironi was essentially testing new wet tyres when he had his accident, rather than him just going out for the hell of it.
On a side note to 1982 and Ferrari. After Pironi's accident in Germany, the Scuderia contacted Alan Jones with a view to having him take over the seat for the remainder of the year. Jones, who was bitter at being given the runaround by Ferrari in the late 70s when they actually decided to sign Villeneuve instead, gave the Scuderia the runaround to the point where they eventually gave up and signed Mario Andretti instead.
Now here is the kicker. Andretti made it perfectly clear that he had no intention on it being a long term return to F1, while Jones was actually looking to make a full time comeback. Jones now admits (regrets) that he did the wrong thing. Because with him looking at a comeback, Ferrari would have viewed Jones, a World Champion, as a must keep. He could have ended up in their 1983 car which was a championship winner (Constructors') and a contender in the Drivers' title. Who knows? Jones could have had 2 World Championships to his name instead of one.
FWIW, Gilles wife Joanne was weary of Didier character and previously warned her husband not to trust him.
One day, Aidan will tell me about Steve Robertson, who played all the big teams, to make Kimi Räikkönen rich.
th-cam.com/video/sKyCYsLJdXk/w-d-xo.html Not exactly the Steve Robertson story, but it does have some of it.
I seem to remember something about qualifying tires that only lasted for a lap or two as a reason Villeneuve didn't back down as approaching Mass.. I may be mistaken.
Ah the Rosberg "1 and done" mentality
People absolutely slate Didier Pironi because of Gilles tragic death, but to my mind he was the World Champion that never was, he had the 1982 championship in his hands but lost it due to a horrendous accident in Germany …RIP both drivers, they were truly great.
great video, we will probably never truly know the answaer to wheather or not Pironi's actions at Imola caused Giles Vilenueve's death
There is a whole documentary that aired in 2012-ish about the story of Gilles Villeneuve: it was a part of a program named "Sfide" (or "Challenges" for my english friends), which was hosted by Alex Zanardi.
One of Gilles' mechanics went on record saying that Pironi gained the nickname "babyface" due to his appearance: blonde hair, round cheeks, bright eyes...
Forghieri himself was interviewed and revealed many behind the scenes situation during Villeneuve's tenure at Ferrari, like in '79 when Gilles came back to the pits with three wheels and pleaded the mechanics to "change the tires so he can go back to the track".... let's just say the team laughed it off because they knew Gilles and he was indeed something else entirely: he would've driven a car with no wheels if he could.
Also, during the San Marino GP Forghieri was not present, and he stated that he wouldn't have shown the "SLOW" sign - he rather wouldn't have shown anything and let the drivers duke it out by themselves (and be called out as dumbasses if they didn't settle it on their own and crashed out).
Either way, both Forghieri and then-Ferrari president Luda di Montezemolo still put the blame on Pironi, because given the car at hand and how competitive the 126-C2 was, it was Villeneuve's title to take, since he was the clear cut number 1 driver in the team and undisputed fan favorite: he's still immensely loved to this day - many people who attended the 2021 Italian GP (at which I worked at) came wearing t-shirts or bearing flags with Gilles' Ferrari and the number 27.
Lastly, Enzo attending races, let alone so late in his life, is a pretty much false myth: it's widely known now that he barely moved outside of Maranello, let alone the Scuderia's HQ, and in a very rare interview he confirmed that he stopped attending Formula 1 events since his son Dino's death in 1956.
@AidanMillward Ironic too that both Senna & Gilles died at the Grand Prix preceding the Monaco GP, have u covered the ‘82 🇲🇨 GP yet?
Would have loved to see Gilles live and race on, just like Senna too
Why show the Brabham when discussing Ferrari?
I think Ferrari hung out the slow sign because of worries over fuel consumption? With all their rivals out, they wanted the drivers to cool it, and the Ferrari was thirsty (I think Pironi ran out of fuel on the last lap in Monaco). But Pironi would overtake Gilles and speed off, Gilles would take the position back, and slow it down, and Pironi world overtake again and so on
This is correct. They were very marginal on fuel.
When romance meets shrewdness, in an environment that exacerbates every good or bad decisions made, carnage ensues. Didier's actions were justified in itself, the object is to win. Gilles' grievances were justified, there is a loyalty you should feel to the order established due to the work you have put in a team, as he showed in his deference towards Jody Scheckter in 79. The Ferrari higher ups should have addressed this instead of letting it fester. Gilles died prematurely, Didier became a haunted man for the rest of his remaining life . Due to this we lost a phenomenal driver and a great one. Just thinking what Senna vs Villeneuve might have been is enough to make you cry
Senna would have absolutely destroyed him. GV was prone to making unforced errors and a bit reckless. You left Prost out of the equation who would have had his way with him also.
@@Dashriprock4 Yes, maybe, no. Prost highly regarded Villeneuve and he himself was able to handle Senna.
@@Dashriprock4 Ayrton was also prone to unforced errors though remember...
@@Dashriprock4 You're highly delusional in your opinion. Doubt you ever saw him actually race.
@@ctibpo991 actually I did. I'm 58 years old so I remember this well. I remember the recklessness and the rashness that was coupled with an innate talent. I'll continue to stand by my opinion that he would have never withstood the pressure of a Senna or Prost in their prime.
1982
I whatch the documentary about prof Cid Watkins, Pironi begged him to save his legs, which they managed todo, Pironi then go into power boat racing, which he ended up die in from a crash
Reading up on it they only saved his legs to make it easier to get him out the car. Or words to that effect.
Do bear in mind the pre race agreement between the Renault and Ferrari drivers. In this endless debate this key point is always forgotten.
The more I think about it, the more I understand Prost wanting to redflag the Monaco '84 GP... It looks like he didn't want to get involved in another crash in bad weather.
The question is, though, what was Ferrari's definition of the "SLOW" signal? Leaving it up to the drivers to determine seems a receipt for disaster.
If i`m not mistaken, Pironi got killed few years later in a motorboat accident. So he did not live too long to tell the tale.
I know, this video is now 3 months old - but I just found another video about this incident:
th-cam.com/video/JrxkTN1XgT8/w-d-xo.html
Around 14:20, there is the mentioned podium. The look on Villeneuve's face says it all!
Villeneuve, it is theorized, mistook Mass's March for that of his teammate's, Raul Boesel's car. He figured the rookie would stay on line and not move over so that is why Gilles took the line he did and why Mass was taken totally by surprise.
I also heard that Villeneuve was on his in lap and that his qualifying was basically over. There were no more attempts to be made that day had he safely returned to the pits.
There were also stories and rumors of woman trouble in Pironi's life. He got married in 1982 and then allegedly hooked up with another woman that he deemed better than the woman he had just married. Something straight out of the movie, Grand Prix. TMZ level shit for the kiddos out there! Pironi was definitely an odd character for sure.
The mind of a racer is a complex and scary one. Ego always plays a part regardless of how calm and collected a driver is, but how one approaches their craft and what they take from it can be some of the most illogical pleasures. An odd example is this guy. I know motorcycles aren't your forte but humour the notion. This guy has lived and served probably the last remnants of the glory side of motorsport. What he knew and what he dealt with is down right insane and to think he knew it on such an intimate level, it gives his insight so much more meaning th-cam.com/video/MsZBXlTHPCg/w-d-xo.html Now translate that insight to 4 wheels and motorsport in general. The mind of a racer is a scary one and what motives such risk is never certain.
How many people here actually saw these guys race? I was 23 and I watched every single race that seas, including the farces at Imola and Caesar’s Palace.
Yet there are those who’ve decided that this is partisan matter and that you have to pick a side without knowing or seeing what was going on at the time. How many people here are involved in competitive sport? I still am and I compete every week. Nobody with any amount of bottle throws a race. If Pironi had backed off, Ferrari would have eviscerated him. This was his chance and it may even have been his only chance. Who knew?
An Enzo Ferrari storytime would be a hell of a tale to tell.
Whilst waiting for these 100k subscribers
agree.. put that on my whishlist
Wow. I was just teen when this happened. But remember it so well. Gilles had taken up the title of my favourite driver. Which had previously been Ronnie Peterson.
Both Balls to wall drivers who would take a car by the scruff of the neck and beat it up.
As the saying goes. There are old drivers and bold drivers. But no old, bold drivers.
But gee werent they good to watch. Cheers gents. 🍻
Gilles Ferrari had an on off throttle that Gilles reacted to by slamming it to the floor everytime he got the car straight.
Mass and him were not the best of friends and when Mass drove cleanly away from Gilles through the twisties before the downhill to the turn that set up his death,Gilles gave the Ferrari all the beans he could give it .
Gilles damn near drove out of the corner at the bottom of the hill.
His brakes were absolutely screaming ,you can hear them in the video.
Gilles was looking at the open space to right of Mass when he came out of the turn and aimed his Ferrari right at the hole to the right of Mass.
Mass seeing Gilles coming had already decided to go right to get out of the way.
But it was too late for Gilles to turn.
Gilles car handled like crxp at low speeds and the ground effects only worked at high speeds.
At exact moment Gilles had enough speed to stick his Ferrari to the track... to turn...his car was at Mass's back tire...absolutely flying ...at full throttle.
From there the aluminum construction design that was very light and never meant to protect anyone ....did just that.
It came apart,and with one flip where the car slammed the ground and broke itself apart,the car flung Gilles ...still in his seat...across the track.
One of the brightest drivers to ever live, was betrayed because his front tires would simply not turn the car in time.
From there, Gilles was simply a passenger and then a projectile.
Thank God above race car designers never build race cars like this anymore.
Rest In Peace Gilles.
1994 it was more like 9 of which 5 were very serious…read John Barnard’s book if you haven’t already…in true Ferrari fashion, the composites used in the 1982 Ferrari were not done correctly, meaning the tub was little better than an aluminium one and tore in half in both Villeneuve and Pironi’s accident…the MP4/1, built by an actual aerospace company wound not have failed like that…
Two drivers killed, but I count nine that could have been, including Senna and Ratzenberger
Alesi (spinal injuries in testing)
Lehto (spinal injuries in testing)
Brundle (hit in head by Verstappen’s car)
Barrichello (Imola crash)
Senna (Imola)
Roland (Imola)
Lamy (testing crash)
Wendlinger (Monaco crash)
Verstappen (Hockenheim BBQ)
But when you say “two drivers killed in one season” 1994 comes to mind before 82.
@@AidanMillward JJ was a broken neck I think? Also Montermini's shunt in Spain was pretty awful too. The cars were not very safe when pushed too hard. Most of them were basically like the '93 cars but without the gizmos, and weren't designed to be passive as such.
@@AidanMillward Good points, well made. However my ninth was Montermini (Simtek - again), who broke his foot and totalled another tub at Barcelona. The Brundle crash was spectacular and certainly could have been a lot worse injury wise, but they all walked away with just bumps and bruises…
…you’d also have got unbelievable odds on Rosberg as champion and Ferrari finishing the season with Tambay and Andretti as drivers in March 1982…
@@jamesdyer7960 Lehto and Alesi both hurt their necks, but Lehto’s was much worse…he was rushed back when he wasn’t ready for it and was in agony every time he braked.
He hurt his neck in the first place as the B194 was by all accounts bordering on uncontrollable without the blown diffuser to stabilise the aero and you couldn’t get the most out of that without being an excellent left foot braker, which Lehto wasn’t. He binned it hard trying to get to within even a respectable distance to Schumacher.
When he eventually made it back, possibly his lack of readiness led to that stall at Imola…crash, safety car, another driver in an unstable car goes into the wall hard trying to keep Schumacher at bay.
There were so many weird coincidences and overlaps that season, but to elaborate on your point, the cars were an early 80’s design, with smaller wings and tyres, 90’s engines and a rushed transition to passive running that left a lot of teams (including Williams) not enough time to transition back to a more stable aero philosophy. Active aero can chase peak downforce numbers with aplomb as the platform will always be stable and thus in the aero operating window.
If you look at the FW16B vs the FW16 it was basically a different car. The 1994 regs in their pre Monaco drafting was basically a death trap waiting to happen.
There’s a really good book on that season simply called ‘1994’ if you are interested…
The 126C2's monocoque used aluminum panels that were folded in a seamless fashion. The bulkheads were glued and riveted to the bottom portion of the monocoque. I believe there was kevlar reinforcement between the aluminum panels to provide strength and stiffness. The monocoque was a thing of beauty. However, it was still a death trap. That monocoque collapsed and disintegrated within seconds of impacting the tarmac at Zolder. After the crash, Ferrari added carbon fiber reinforcement panels but it offered only minimal extra protection and slightly better outcome as Pironi's German GP qualifying crash proved.
No betrayal, one guy wanted to win, the other assummed he was going to
Had that crash didn't happen, I always wonder what would happen years later when Gilles will battle Senna. Even I always wonder what would happen should the two will stack up against each other.
Senna would have probably destroyed him. Gilles crashed too often.
@@AidanMillward Hmmm, Da Silva was not immune to high profile impetuous moments. Senna would have won the qualy battle but Gilles could make up soo much ground off the start. I reckon the two would have been fantastic to watch toe to toe
Kinda similar to Schumacher pushing Senna to race speeds on cold tires causing his Williams to bottom out.
There's also the whole thing that because of the unpredictable nature of Ferrari's turbos, plus the "deal" between the Ferrari drivers and Renault drivers according to Pironi. My own understanding was that Gilles was very naive to the political machinations and got caught out. This is what endears him to the likes of Roebuck and Windsor because they think of him as a pure racer. Plus because he always felt like he was "owed" for the way he helped Scheckter to the 79 championship - that led to his anger and violent death. Pironi was a crafty bugger who liked the political aspect of it - he was the head of GPDA at the time after all and along with Lauda orchestrated the strike in South Africa.
All in all, it was all about misunderstandings and someone who was politically naive in F1 - a recipe for disaster whatever way you look at it.
The story that ‘Gilles was naive and Pironi was a scheming politician’ denies the hard reality. No F1 driver worth his salt throws a race. If you think the guy behind you is going to be content to stay there, think again because you just became a bunny.
So modern day car, somehow the seat separates from the chassis with you in it at speed but you have your hans on still.
That’s a “survivable” crash today
He’d likely have been in a chair forever but “survivable”
I still don't understand the hate towards Pironi because it's simply not a betrayal. Both of them battle for the lead of the race for at least 2/3 of the race as Arnoux was leading in the beggining. So Villeneuve knew Pironi was fighting him, and Villeneuve did many mistakes, going of the track quite a few times. But the real problem is the "slow" because both vision of the drivers are right, both of them wanted to win for Ferrari in Imola. The overtake of Pironi is one of the best I ever seen and not a lot of driver could have done this on Villeneuve. At the end of 1982 season Enzo Ferrari went to the hospital and gave Pironi a trophy and he said "To the true 1982 world champion".
The hate was because Villeneuve was seen as the more daring driver, and Pironi was "boring". Unless there was literally an agreement in place before the race not to race each other, there was no betrayal.
I hate to say it, but Gilles basically was at fault for throwing a wobbly and not sorting things out like an adult.
@@MrSniperfox29 Nah Gilles was playing with Pironi! Yes, he may have been naive but Gilles was driving for the team and keeping to their instructions. Pironi was not. If the shackles were off Pironi wouldn't have seen him for dust!
@@jamesdyer7960 LOL "playing", well it seems like he played himself into losing.
@@MrSniperfox29 You can dress it up all you like! GV was never a loser. He was mugged that race. Naive, maybe, but always a better pedaller than Pironi.
@@MrSniperfox29 Pironi was clearly driving flat lout to beat Villeneuve who was coasting.
Great video. Gilles was definitely very angry and felt betrayed after Imola. From what I understand he had sacrificed his own chances of the world championship in 79, out of loyalty to Jody and the team. He believed his time would come and finished 4 points behind Jody that season. It seems reasonable to assume his anger was so strong that it affected his decision making two weeks later.
I made a little video about it after researching it a bit more th-cam.com/video/EQyhozjYGHw/w-d-xo.html
It was good to see Jacques back racing this weekend at 51. 😊
‘Angry’ and ‘betrayed’ are pretty loaded words and the idea that Villeneuve sacrificed a championship to a guy like Jody Scheckter is just unrealistic. I remember 1979. Anyone who thinks it would have been a simple matter for Villeneuve to just walk away from him at Monza 1) doesn’t know anything about Jody Scheckter or F1 drivers generally and 2) is making assumptions about Scheckter that are a bit naive.
If Villeneuve allowed those emotions into the cockpit at Zolder then he had no business driving an F1 car that day.
My favorite driver