Roland Ratzenberger

Austrian racing driver (1960–1994)

  • Fame60.6
  • Momentum25.0
  • Austria rank#127
Source-basedStable
  • Fame60.6
  • Momentum25.0
  • Austria rank#127
  • Wikipedia39.7K
Lived 1960–1994, aged 34Austria
  • Wikipedia
    42 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Rank in Austria
    #127
    Athletes
  • Era
    1960–1994
    Aged 34
Summary
Updated 2026-06-21

He raced one Grand Prix, finished 11th, and died the next weekend at Imola—hours before Senna's crash made the same circuit a name everyone knows. The first Formula One fatality in twelve years, remembered now mostly as the tragedy that came first.

Biography

About

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 qua…

Deep cuts

Teams

Low confidence
  • Simtek
    1994–1994
  • Brun Motorsport
  • Sigma Advanced Racing Development
19941998
Where to find them

Platforms

No platforms connected yet.

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
60.6
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum25.0
Historical23.7
Now attention23.9
Source confidence60.0
Completeness70.0
Global rank
Country rank
#127
Category rank
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence