30 replies to this topic

[William Hunt]

It's 35 years ago now when those tragic events unfolded during the start of the Canadian Grand Prix at Montréal.

The young lad was just 23 years old.

It was not until Senna in '94 that a driver died live on television during an F1 race.

 

I thought we should remember him for a moment.

 

I once read somewhere that Paletti's dad had planned to create a new F1 team for his son for 1983, don't remember any details.i

[E1pix]

Well done, William.

[LittleChris]

35 years !!   RIP Riccardo, not & won't be forgotten .

[JacnGille]

[cpbell]

R.I.P.  I always think that the image of a critically-injured driver motionless in a car which then bursts into flames is one of the most haunting I've ever seen in motorsport (not that I remember it at the time, but having seen it in later years).

[cheesy poofs]

I stopped and paused for a few moments at the scene of his accident yesterday as I was walking the track after the GP. I was there that day and remember it vividly.

[cheesy poofs]

I've hardly shown these pics i took back on that fateful day in 1982. But here is Paletti's car when it was brought back to the garages...

[E1pix]

Poor guy. What a cruel twist of fate.

[cpbell]

I've hardly shown these pics i took back on that fateful day in 1982. But here is Paletti's car when it was brought back to the garages...

 

What is so ironic and sad is that the tank area appears intact; supposedly the G-loading caused a fuel line to rupture (or am I remembering incorrectly?)

[Collombin]

Did the fire make much difference? It obviously delayed the rescue briefly, but he didn't suffer any burns as far as I know.

[hogstar]

'82 was my favourite year for F1, but it was very grim too with deaths and serious accidents. From memory, Paletti was killed by the steering wheel crushing into him upon impact. The fire was actually superfluous, though it certainly didn't seem like that at the time. It was his first start from the grid in F1. I thought there was talk about him going to March in '83 rather than creating a new team?

[D28]

Actually his debut was the San Marino GP where he completed 7 laps for Osella; Canada was to be his second start. One of the most horrifying accidents I witnessed (TV viewing), This and the sad events of May 8 put me off F1 for quite some time.

 

Sadly Riccardo Paletti does not appear in official F1 com driver data base, at least I could find no mention of him.  The historical record for 1982 lists only point scoring drivers; one way to approach it I guess but still seems a shame to ignore him.

Edited by D28, 13 June 2017 - 18:41.

[Tim Murray]

Paletti started half a lap behind the rest at Imola after his Osella refused to fire up for the parade lap. So, as Hogstar said, Montreal was his first F1 grid start.

[D28]

Thanks for that, I wasn't aware. ensign14 mentioned in another thread about Paletti not being officially credited with starting the Canadian Grand Prix, which got me looking through the F1 web site, unsuccessfully.

Edited by D28, 13 June 2017 - 19:24.

[cpbell]

Did the fire make much difference? It obviously delayed the rescue briefly, but he didn't suffer any burns as far as I know.

I seem to recall that Prof Sid wrote that he felt that Paletti may have been spared a degree of suffering had he (the Prof) been able to continue working on him rather than jumping out of the way of the flames and having to wait until the fire was extinguished before he could resume working on him.

[William Hunt]

Did the fire make much difference? It obviously delayed the rescue briefly, but he didn't suffer any burns as far as I know.

 

Yes it made a huge difference because Watkins couldn't stabilise him and put a tube in his throath for breething, Paletti had injuries to the chest and was stuck against his steering wheel. He suffucated because he coudn't breathe because of the smoke and because of the spray from the fire extinguishers. There's a good chance they might have been able to save him without the fire.

Edited by William Hunt, 13 June 2017 - 20:47.

[William Hunt]

Pironi's reaction during the accident was remarkable, he immediately came to help Paletti, then when the doctors arrived, Pironi walked back from the Osella with his hands to his helmet, I read from that they Didier realised it was very serious, he has seen Paletti unconscious in the car, then when the fire burst out Didier ran back to help with a fire extinguisher but the fire blaze was enormous, it took a long time stop the fire.

[cheesy poofs]

What is so ironic and sad is that the tank area appears intact; supposedly the G-loading caused a fuel line to rupture (or am I remembering incorrectly?)

From what i know, that's exactly what happened. The fuel line was in the right side of the car. You can see from the pics that the right hand side of the Osella is burned more

[William Hunt]

More new on Paletti, I read an article in a magazine about him today

 

Real sad is that his mother was present at the race in Montréal, she had traveled to Canada to watch the race because two days after the race (on Tuesday) it was Riccardo's birthday (would have been his 24th I believe), she wanted to celebrate his birthday with him, they had planned a trip to New York on Tuesday to celebrate it there

 

Anyway: I posted earlier that I thought that Paletti's father was setting up a new team for 1983

 

Well that was partly correct, the article said that Paletti's father was going to finance / bankrol the Onyx team from Mike Earle in to F1.

Paletti had driven for Onyx before he entered F1
The article also said that Earle already was preparing a private March for Emilio de Villota and that Paletti would switch from Osella to that March right after Canada already, he would then drive an Onyx F1 car in 1983 so there was a new F1 team planned that would be financed by his dad.

 

It would take until 1989 before Onyx was able to enter F1, Onyx had wanted to enter in '88 already but Marlboro didn't want to forward the money so the finally came in '89 with money from Moneytron (JP Van Rossem who would end up buying the team) and Marlboro but they could have been there already in '83 if Paletti had survived

 

The article also said that Mike Earle had strongly advised Paletti to do another year of F2 before entering F1 but his dad wouldn't listen and they signed with Osella. They did respect Earle a lot which is why they wanted to finance Onyx in F1.
 

Edited by William Hunt, 18 June 2017 - 14:25.

[E1pix]

Wow, how sad.

Thanks for helping us remember him.

[group7]

I was also at that race, the accident happened just to the left of us,, we were in the grandstands. A terrible year '82.

 

I have some half dozen photos I found on the 'net, one is of Paletti almost being struck in the head by his rear wheel at Detroit, another of he and Jarier in Brazil, can't post here, sorry !

 

here is Paletti's race record for F1 in 1982.

 

http://www.racingspo...-Paletti-I.html

 

 

Michael, in Canada

Edited by group7, 18 June 2017 - 03:52.

[William Hunt]

Yest 1982 was a dreadful year for autosport, not only did we lose Villeneuve & Paletti in F1 and Pironi got badly injured but Gordon Smiley also died at Indy that year

[E1pix]

That terrible pair of weekends in May almost had me leaving the love of my life (okay Dear, the second Love).

Gilles was my Hero, but Gordon was a mentor and friend.

Perhaps the worst of all these tragedies for Riccardo is the other two got to enjoy their dream, over many glorious days. Riccardo did not.

[William Hunt]

you knew Gordon Smiley personally E1pix?
Oooh such a tragedy, Gordon's accident has got to be on of the most gruesome ever, up there with the Swede Savage, François Cevert, Roger Williamsson and Tom Pryce accidents, it was pure horror.
The only thing that I'm a bit relieved about is that he at least was immediately dead (his helmet was even ripped off during the accident), unlike Swede Savage who was still suffering in hospital for a month and was even conscious when he was on fire exposed on the track.
 

To this day it still astonishes me that the Indy 500 of 1973 did not cause that race to be permanently forbidden.

I have a F1 Grand Prix guide book from 1974 that speaks of the scandal of Indianapolis and that the race should be banned forever, there must have been talk about it at the time. The '73 race was pure horror with 3 fatal casualties and 1 heavy wounded (Salt Walther).

 

In the '80s IndyCar had several other horrible accidents as well, notably Danny Ongais (an underrated driver) at Indy and Derek Daly at Michigan, those were 2 horror crashes as well, how they survived is a mistery.

Edited by William Hunt, 19 June 2017 - 06:11.

[E1pix]

I couldn't agree more about Danny Ongais, could have/wish he'd have won the 500. Tremendous in person, especially in F5000, as ballsy as anyone in the era. Nice guy, too.

Though 13 in '73, I had no idea there was ever talk about shutting the 500 down. Unimaginable here! And glad for it lacking, whew. :-)

Yes, I was a young writer in the '70s, as Gordon had been in the '60s -- both of us starting at 14 with our local SCCA Region magazines. If you get lucky on search terms, you can find his articles. Our styles were similar in both being excited kids who'd already been around racing over a decade at 14. His Dad raced, I think in a British Leyland car, or perhaps I'm confusing that as Gordon's early years included racing a G Production Spitfire.

I created a newsprint magazine about the SCCA Runoffs in early 1976. Gordon was a participant, in Formula Ford, so was on the mailing list. I'd sent them out asking for a dollar if liked so I could start karting. He sent a great letter, we spent hours on phone calls, then he was to cover the F-Atlantic pro series for me -- though I decided to look elsewhere for my future career line of work.

But we still chatted it up many times after, mostly him calling me. He offered surrogate business and racing guidance, we shared Christmas cards, etc. Mostly we shared our love of racing and finding words to make readers feel like they were there. He was very much still a kid at heart, I even knew then he was claiming to be born in 1949 when it was actually 1946. He caught himself and told me to never tell anyone, and this is the first time I have -- though it came out later. He knew his clock was ticking, though only for advancing age. If I'm not mistaken, he claimed an earlier birth year when starting out so SCCA would let him race the Spit.

One letter quote of his was "The day of the 20 year-old F1 driver is fast approaching..." In 1976, this was a bit of a revelation, hard to imagine then but certainly true now.

I'll never forget returning from a long and hot karting practice day, and telling the Missus, "Oh, Indy qualifying might still be on!!!" The tv picture came on just at the moment of a tremendous impact, and I heard "Gordon Smiley, dead at 33..." I broke down immediately, and for hours after. At some later point I had a laugh, saying to Gordon, "You bastard, you were 36!!!" I pictured him laughing, and that made me break down again.

He was a great guy and terribly courageous, in the Villeneuve sense -- alongside whom he spent lots of wheel time with in Atlantic. But for me, he was just a real, live racing enthusiast who went out of his way to make this kid smile, and dream big -- then cry for weeks, and even now, many years after.

Edit: And I can say, with complete clarity, that Gordon would be proud in knowing his death probably saved many others in safety advancements. Sebastien Bourdais springs to mind as one benefactor.

Edited by E1pix, 01 February 2018 - 15:16.

[William Hunt]

It annoys me that people sometimes say that Smiley was in over his head at Indy, taking too much risks to get to the 200mp/h mark and crashed because he did not have the right technique for ovals. It's true he was a road racer but come-one, it was qualifying off course every driver was taking a lot of risks then. Gordon was a fine driver, he even won an Aurora race.

The fact is if anything went wrong at those speeds in those cars, whether something technical or like in Smiley's case a small driver error, you were just a passenger, hardly any time to react. I think he made a mistake correcting when his car was loose but blaming it on the driver when it obviously was far too dangerous for everyone is ridiculous. Swede Savage also died because of a driving error (propably caused by oil on the track), these things happen in a fraction of a second in the blink of an eye, but unlike with Smiley people never blamed Savage for the accident. Probably because Savage could have won that '73 race, he was fighting for the win with Bobby Unser that year.

 

About shutting down the Indy 500 in '73: to be fair, it were journalists and people from Europe from the F1 Grand Prix world who wanted to shut it down, they said it looked bad on racing in general and that their sport was also in danger of bad public opinion because of Indy. The Grand Prix world feared that Indy brought the whole future of motor racing in general in danger if it continued. With the horrible deaths of Cevert and Williamsson that year (and Koinigg in '74) I think they should have looked a bit more to themselves.

 

Don't think the Americans ever considered shutting it down but F1 people and F1 fans were looking down on it and wanted it to stop. In that F1 book from '74 the Indy 500 was called 'organized killing', after the '73 race I can't really blame them for that knee jerk reaction, it was very understandable because it truly was a horror race never seen before in the history of the sport, certainly the worst since Le Mans '55 and the fact that the accidents in '73 were filmed so closely, well it was death live on tv, that made it even worse. In '73 Art Pollard died in qualy, then in the race there was the start crash of Salt Walther (he was really not a talented driver, rich kid who was actually in over his head) with fuel spraying over spectators, the catch fencing cleared and Walther very badly injured (including a lot of burns), then a mechanic was run over by a fire car and died and then later in the race Savage died. Yes Indy '73 was the worst race since Le Mans '55.

 

I wasn't even born yet in '73 (I'm born in '76) but off course the reputation of that race resonates to this day and it can be seen in full on youtube.

 

Danny Ongais was a guy with steel balls as big as pine-apples, he seemed to know no fear but his style was very spectacular, he often drove single seaters with a lot of oversteer, like rally cars. He should have won an IndyCar title, because that rewards regularity more he didn't but he should have. He was said to be a very introvert person.

 

Ongais was the only driver making it all the way up to Formula 1 (thanks to his loyal sponsor) from NHRA drag racing, he did Funny Cars and Top Fuel and was the best in them. Top Fuel racers are much better drivers as they get credit for, especially in reaction times: they have to make so many quick and small corrections to keep the car going straight. Would be interesting to see how someone like Alton Brown would do in road racing. I also can't remember another drag racer who made in all the way to IndyCar.

 

Edited by William Hunt, 19 June 2017 - 15:56.

[cheesy poofs]

This is from a UPI press release...


MONTREAL -- Italian race driver Riccardo Paletti died 'probably within minutes of the crash' at the Canadian Grand Prix and could not have been saved if he had been extracted from the car and taken to a hospital earlier, the track doctor at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit said Monday.

'The signs from medical examinations at the car and after reaching the hospital were that he died probably within minutes of the crash,' said Dr. Jacques Bouchard. 'His pupils were dilated, which was a sign that he was beyond help.'

Bouchard, who attended one of two investigations into the accident Monday, said surgeons at Royal Victoria Hospital found the driver's chest and stomach filled with blood from a torn aorta. Paletti also sustained fractures of both legs.

[William Hunt]

on the images you can see the massive damage to the front of the Osella and he really seems crushed and glued to the steering wheel, the impact must have been enormous

[E1pix]

Thanks for your reply #26, William.

I let it go there for not further derailing poor Riccardo. I might ask for your help someday as I've long wanted to do a thread on Gordon -- but that'd be painful...

[Victor]

One thing terribly sad is that Palleti's mother was at the pits and saw him dying in front of her one eyes.

1982 was a sad, sad year.

[GMiranda]

My article on Riccardo Paletti - http://www.motorraci...ck-day-in-1982/