00:02On March 5th, 1977, Tom Price, a 27-year-old Welsh Formula One driver, was racing in the South African
00:10Grand Prix at Kyalami.
00:12Tom was driving for the Shadow Team and had been climbing through the field after a poor start.
00:17By lap 18, he had moved from 22nd to 13th place.
00:22On lap 22, a car ahead of him caught fire on the pit straight.
00:26Two marshals ran across the track to extinguish the flames.
00:30One was a 25-year-old panel beater named Bill, and the other was 19-year-old Friedrich Janssen van
00:37Vieren, who was carrying a 40-pound fire extinguisher.
00:40The first marshal narrowly made it across the track. The second did not.
00:46Hans-Joachim Stuck, driving ahead of Tom, saw the marshals and swerved right, missing them by millimeters.
00:52Tom was directly behind Stuck's car.
00:55From his position, he could not see Janssen van Vieren and was unable to react.
01:00He struck the teenage marshal at roughly 170 miles per hour.
01:05Janssen van Vieren was thrown into the air and landed a few yards ahead.
01:09He was badly mutilated by Tom's car and died instantly.
01:13The fire extinguisher he had been carrying smashed into Tom's head before striking the car's roll hoop.
01:18The force of the impact was so great that the extinguisher was thrown up and over the adjacent grandstand, landing
01:25in the car park behind.
01:26The impact with the fire extinguisher wrenched Tom's helmet upward sharply, killing him instantly.
01:32His shadow DN8, now with its driver dead at the wheel, continued at speed down the main straight.
01:39The car left the track to the right, scraping the metal barriers, hitting an entrance for emergency vehicles and veering
01:46back onto the track.
01:47It then hit Jacques Lafitte's Ligier, sending both cars head-on into the barriers.
01:52Janssen van Vieren's injuries were so extensive that his body was initially identified only after the race director summoned all
02:00the marshals and he was not among them.
02:05On October 6, 1973, Francois Sever, a 29-year-old French Formula One driver, was competing in qualifying for the
02:15United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glynn.
02:18Francois was driving for the Terrell team alongside Jackie Stewart, who had already clinched his third world championship.
02:25Stewart was planning to retire after this race, and Francois was set to become Terrell's team leader for the 1974
02:32season.
02:33On this Saturday morning, Francois was battling Ronnie Peterson for pole position.
02:39In the fast right-left uphill combination called the S's, Francois was pushing hard.
02:45His car was a little too far over towards the left side of the track, getting a bump from the
02:51curbs.
02:52This made the car swerve towards the right-hand side of the track, where it touched the track's powder-blue
02:57safety barriers.
02:59The car began to spin and swerved back across the track at 150 miles per hour, hitting the outside guardrail
03:06almost head-on at a near 90-degree angle.
03:10The impact was so violent that the barrier was uprooted and lifted.
03:15Francois died instantly.
03:17The barrier cut his body in half between his neck and hip.
03:22Jackie Stewart was one of the last to arrive at the scene of the accident.
03:26The marshals had left Francois in the car, because he was so clearly dead.
03:31Peterson was still visibly shaken when talking about the accident years later.
03:35Because of Francois' death, Terrell withdrew its entry for the race,
03:39and Stewart did not run what had been planned to be his final and 100th race.
03:48On October 5, 2014, Jules Bianchi, a 25-year-old French Formula One driver, was racing in the Japanese Grand
03:56Prix at Suzuka Circuit.
03:58The race was being held under intermittent heavy rainfall caused by an approaching typhoon, and daylight was fading.
04:04Jules was driving for the Marussia team.
04:06On lap 42, Adrian Sutil's Sauber spun out of control and crashed in the runoff area on the outside of
04:13the Dunlop Curve.
04:14A wheel loader, a large recovery vehicle, was sent onto the track to remove Sutil's car.
04:20On lap 43, Jules approached the same corner under double-waved yellow flags.
04:25He did not slow down enough.
04:27He lost control of his car and veered right, directly towards the spot where the Sauber had stopped.
04:33Jules collided with the rear of the wheel loader at roughly 76 miles per hour.
04:38The left side of his Marussia was extensively damaged, and the roll bar was destroyed as the car slid under
04:45the wheel loader.
04:46The impact was so violent that the wheel loader was partially jolted off the ground.
04:51The impact generated a peak force of 254 Gs, the equivalent of dropping a car 157 feet to the ground,
05:02without a crumple zone.
05:04Jules was unconscious after the crash.
05:06He did not respond to team radio calls or marshals.
05:09He was treated at the crash site before being taken by ambulance to the circuit's medical center,
05:15then transported under police escort to a medical center.
05:18CT scans showed Jules had suffered a diffuse axonal injury, a severe head injury.
05:24He underwent emergency surgery and was placed into an induced coma.
05:28He remained comatose for nine months.
05:31On July 17, 2015, Jules died at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Nice in France,
05:39from the injuries sustained at Suzuka.
05:45On July 29, 1973, Roger Williamson, a 25-year-old British Formula 1 driver,
05:52was racing in the Dutch Grand Prix at Zonvoort Circuit in the Netherlands.
05:56Roger was a two-time British Formula 3 champion, making only his second Formula 1 appearance.
06:01On his eighth lap, a suspected tire failure occurred at the high-speed Esses near the Tunnel Oost.
06:08Roger's March 731 flipped upside down and caught fire.
06:12Roger had not been seriously injured by the impact, but he was trapped underneath the overturned car,
06:18which was swiftly engulfed in flames.
06:20The track marshals were poorly trained and badly equipped.
06:24They did not assist him.
06:25Another driver, David Purley, witnessed the crash of his friend.
06:28He abandoned his own race and pulled over.
06:32He ran across the still-active track to Roger's car and tried to turn it upright.
06:36He grabbed a fire extinguisher from a marshal and returned to the engulfed car.
06:40He emptied it on the flames and signaled for others to help.
06:44Purley's efforts to turn the car upright and extinguish the fire were in vain.
06:48The marshals were unable to handle the vehicle without flame-retardant overalls.
06:53Purley later stated he could hear Roger's screams from underneath the car.
06:57As most racers mistakenly identified Purley as the driver of the crashed car
07:02and therefore thought the burning car to be empty, none of them stopped to help.
07:06The race continued, even as Purley stood on the circuit and gestured with his hands for them to stop.
07:12By the time the first fire engine arrived and the fire was extinguished,
07:16Roger had died of asphyxiation.
07:21On May 1st, 1994, Ayrton Senna, a 34-year-old Brazilian Formula One driver,
07:28was racing in the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola Circuit in Italy.
07:33Ayrton was a three-time world champion driving for Williams.
07:37The race weekend had already been marred by tragedy.
07:40The previous day, Roland Ratzenberger had died in a qualifying crash.
07:45On race day, a first-lap collision sent debris into the grandstand, injuring spectators.
07:50A safety car was deployed for five laps.
07:54Ayrton pulled alongside the safety car to gesture for it to speed up
07:57because his tires were getting cold and losing grip.
08:00On lap 7, the second lap at racing speed,
08:04Ayrton approached the flat-out left-hander Tamburello corner.
08:08Telemetry data shows he entered the corner at 309 kilometers per hour,
08:13roughly 192 miles per hour.
08:16His car left the racing line and ran in a straight line off the track.
08:22He braked hard, downshifting twice to slow down.
08:25The car struck an unprotected concrete barrier at 211 kilometers per hour,
08:32roughly 131 miles per hour.
08:35The car hit the wall at a shallow angle,
08:37tearing off the right front wheel and nose cone before spinning to a halt.
08:42The right front wheel shot up upon impact and entered the cockpit,
08:46striking the right frontal area of Ayrton's helmet.
08:49The violence of the wheel's impact shoved his head back against the headrest,
08:55causing fatal skull fractures.
08:57A piece of suspension attached to the wheel
09:00partially penetrated his helmet and caused trauma to his head.
09:04A jagged piece of the upright assembly
09:07penetrated the helmet visor just above his right eye.
09:11Any one of the three injuries would probably have killed him.
09:15After the crash, Ayrton's helmet was motionless
09:18and leaning slightly to the right.
09:21After about 10 seconds, his head lifted to the left
09:24before returning to its original position.
09:27He did not move again.
09:30An emergency tracheotomy was performed trackside.
09:33Ayrton was airlifted to Maggiore Hospital.
09:36At 3.10 p.m., his heart stopped beating.
09:40Doctors restarted it and placed him on life support.
09:43His heart stopped again at 6.37 p.m.
09:47And it was decided not to restart it.
09:50He was pronounced dead at 6.40 p.m.
