Une magnifique histoire d’amitié, de haine et de drames.
He would argue with his throttle guy, shouting to him ‘don’t shut off’.”They didn’t shut off as they caught a big wave off the Isle of Wight in August ’87. Exhausted and dehydrated, at race end Pironi had to be lifted from the cockpit of the triumphant Renault Alpine by a couple of gendarmes. He would remember too how his legs started to “seriously” hurt once in the emergency helicopter en route to hospital in nearby Heidelberg.
RAF rescue teams were immediately despatched from the mainland, but in truth nobody held out much hope for the occupants of the boat such had been the violence of the crash.
Those few seconds would be etched deep into the pilot’s mind for the rest of his days. And over time he gradually came to accept that perhaps his Formula One career – at least as a frontrunner - was over.
He was the classic lad-about-town, in too much of a hurry and not really committed. He later said: “I started with a single objective to push myself to the limit of my abilities.
The offence? All evidence suggests that fate tempted Pironi that day with a short-cut to his goal, but with the price tag of his integrity. He came to believe that Joann had been right all along.
Le 23 août 1987 disparaissait, dans un accident de bateau de compétition, celui qui aurait pu devenir le premier Champion du monde de F1 français : Didier Pironi. Blamed for an act of treachery that eventually led Gilles Villeneuve to crash to his death, Didier Pironi's successful career is often forgotten. Pironi avait dû se contenter d'une lointaine 18Pironi et Villeneuve fondaient ainsi beaucoup d'espoirs pour le Grand Prix de Saint-Marin où, dans le contexte d'une crise politique arrivée à son paroxysme entre la FISA (l'instance sportive) et la FOCA (l'association des constructeurs), plusieurs écuries, britanniques pour la plupart, décidaient de boycotter l'épreuve.
Pironi avait dû se contenter d'une lointaine 18Pironi et Villeneuve fondaient ainsi beaucoup d'espoirs pour le Grand Prix de Saint-Marin où, dans le contexte d'une crise politique arrivée à son paroxysme entre la FISA (l'instance sportive) et la FOCA (l'association des constructeurs), plusieurs écuries, britanniques pour la plupart, décidaient de boycotter l'épreuve. As well as the Imola win, he dominated the Dutch Grand Prix, scored well everywhere and was handsomely leading the championship by the time of the German Grand Prix.The late Postlethwaite later said that a strange aura had enveloped Pironi by this time — sadness but an arrogance about his forthcoming success too. The shortfall made little difference to a man driven by such intense ambition, directed by that icy logic. Quant à Villeneuve, il ne décolérait pas après la manœuvre de son équipier…La guerre était ainsi déclarée entre les deux pilotes Ferrari, et anciens amis, qui se rendaient coup pour coup lors des essais qualificatifs du Grand Prix suivant, à Zolder (Belgique).
Then at Montreal, just three races after Zolder, Ricardo Paletti was killed after ploughing into the back of Pironi’s stationary car which had stalled at the lights.Yet, armed with Harvey Posdethwaite’s 126C2 chassis, and with the colossus of Villeneuve no longer around, his professional life was coming into full bloom. Two laps into the 178 mile race around the island, Colibri was challenging the Italian boat for the lead. “Part of Didier was very much influenced by Jose, who was a crazy guy.
During 1986 with the strength returning to his lower body, Didier had undertaken a serious of ‘secret’ tests for the AGS team and for his old friends at Ligier, where he had got close to Rene Arnoux’s benchmark times.
Mais, durant les essais disputés sous la pluie, le leader du championnat percutait à pleine vitesse l'arrière de la Renault de Prost dans l'une des longues rectilignes que comptait l'ancien circuit : la Ferrari décollait et retombait lourdement au sol. Away from prying eyes, behind the Ferrari garage doors, he lowered himself inside Arnoux’s Ferrari cockpit, pressed the pedals and dreamed of the day he would return.