Roland Ratzenberger

Roland Ratzenberger came out of Salzburg through Walter Lechner's racing school at eighteen, won Formula Ford titles through the mid-eighties, and spent 1987 driving touring cars for Schnitzer - four podiums in ten races in the BMW M3. He cycled through British F3000, then moved to Japan with Toyota, racing sports prototypes and touring cars while entering Le Mans four times between 1990 and 1993, winning the C2 class in his final attempt. Simtek signed him for 1994; he failed to qualify in Brazil, started dead last at the Pacific Grand Prix and brought it home eleventh. A week later, during qualifying at Imola on 30 April, his front wing failed at the Villeneuve Curva and he hit the concrete barrier at 225 km/h. The basilar skull fracture killed him - the first driver to die at a Grand Prix weekend in over a decade, the day before Senna's death turned the same track into a watershed.