Benoit on fatal accidents: “To this day I have not forgotten what I saw there”

But it wasn’t his smoking that was Rindt’s downfall, but rather his dilapidated Lotus.
Their team boss Colin Chapman always said: “My car has to be such that it wins and falls apart straight after the finish. Then we got the most out of it.” That’s why Emerson Fittipaldi said, “When you get into a Lotus, you never know if you can get out on your own.” And Mario Andretti even called the Lotus a ‘black coffin’. Besides, Rindt foresaw his death.

You have to explain that to me now.
There is a tunnel at the Red Bull Ring. It contains gigantic photos of nine world champions, and next to it is a button that you can press. Then you hear the original voices of the drivers. I did that once. While the others say blah, Rindt says: “I know I’m a good driver. But I don’t know what will happen when I get into this car.”

What is no longer conceivable today: Although a superstar, Rindt, died, the race took place the next day.
When Clay Regazzoni, who celebrated his 31st birthday on the day Rindt died, won his first GP in a Ferrari on Sunday, the 200,000 spectators panicked. Rindt’s death interested almost no one anymore. Then I realized how cruel this sport is.

Death was just part of it then. Rindt’s friend Nina was apparently also aware of this.
That’s right, she once said in a women’s magazine: “Every time I see a black dress in a shop window, I buy it. I knew I would definitely need it.” She was certainly not the only driver’s wife who felt this way at the time.

Just a year later, your good friend Jo “Seppi” Siffert died.
Actually there should have been a Mexican GP then. But it was canceled because it was too dangerous. Therefore, a race took place at Brands Hatch, but it was not an official race. I was the last person to speak to Seppi and take a photo of him on the starting grid. Eighteen minutes later he was dead, which affected me enormously. Because I was the only Swiss journalist on site, I had to answer a number of questions for Radio Beromünster. My fee for this: 80 francs.

How ruthless Formula 1 was at the time was also evident from the death of Roger Williamson.
Zandvoort 1973. The Brit had an accident due to a blown tire and his March caught fire. As David Purley stopped and tried in vain to pull him out of the vehicle, others simply drove past him. Niki Lauda did the same, who said afterwards: “We don’t get paid for parking.” A sentence he later regretted, because if no one had stopped during his accident at the Nürburgring in 1976, he would have died then.

Helmut Koinigg’s accident at Watkins Glen in 1974 is said to have been particularly brutal.
I was standing in the pits when it was suddenly announced that an “Austrian” had had a serious accident. So I ran there, and to this day I haven’t forgotten what I saw there. His helmet lay on his hind wing, with his torn head inward. And from his helmet came a fountain of blood. Terrible images that you can’t get out of your head.

Was it similar to Tom Pryce’s fatal accident in 1977?
In Kyalami I always sat on the outside of the first corner. From there I saw the hilltop towards Boxen. Suddenly a car drove up on the right side of the hard shoulder, it was Tom Pryce’s. I still thought: doesn’t he have all his cups in the cupboard? Then came Jacques Laffite. The two collided and Pryce hit the wall right where I was standing. He was no longer wearing a helmet and blood was spurting from his neck. Only later did I find out what had happened.

What?
Because Renzo Zorzi’s car was burning behind the top, a marshal ran across the track. Then Pryce came charging at about 200 mph and caught him. He was killed by the fire extinguisher and his head was actually cut off. The fire extinguisher then flew over the main stand and destroyed a car in the parking lot behind it. And Pryce drove on, hanging lifelessly from the accelerator.

Mark Donohue’s death in Spielberg in 1975 even caused legal repercussions.
He died from a blowout. His wife then demanded $9 million from Goodyear. Mario Andretti said at the time: “If I ever die in a race car and my wife demands damages, I will turn in my grave and come out again.”

How close did you feel when Gilles Villeneuve died in Zolder in 1982?
No, because I got along really well with him. Let’s put it this way: he died as he lived: crazy. The cause was a stupid misunderstanding between him and Jochen Mass. By the way, I had to join the police with him in Japan in 1978.

Why?
At that moment Villeneuve collided with Ronnie Peterson. Two people were killed. Because Gilles did not speak English, he took me to the police as an interpreter.

Speaking of Peterson. Was his death in Monza in 1978 one of the most unnecessary?
That may be true. After his accident, it was initially said that everything was not too bad. He died hours later due to an embolism discovered too late. He probably wouldn’t have died in nine out of ten hospitals, but at the time it was not without reason that people said: stay away from Italian hospitals.

We have to also talks about the black weekend at Imola in 1994.
After Rubens Barrichello’s serious accident on Friday, I wrote “Black start in Imola” without having any idea what was coming. When Roland Ratzenberger died on Saturday, Ayrton Senna actually wanted to retire. Because the Williams driver did not score any points in the first two races, he started on Sunday. The rest is known. When Senna died, an unwritten rule was once again applied: never die on the track. Apparently this had insurance reasons. That is why Senna was only pronounced dead in hospital. There were later four trials of those responsible for the team, all of which ended in an acquittal.

After that, there were no more dead Formula 1 drivers for twenty years. Until Jules Bianchi in Suzuka in 2014.
This accident still upsets me to this day.

Why?
Because the death of Jules Bianchi is the most senseless in the entire history of Formula 1. At that moment, Adrian Sutil came off the track in the pouring rain and got stuck in the gravel. An excavator came to collect it and the yellow flags were displayed. And what were Jules Bianchi doing in the Marussia and Marcus Ericsson in the Caterham? They fought like two idiots for places 16 and 17. In addition, Bianchi was pushed by the team via the radio. Then the two collided and Bianchi crashed into the nine-ton excavator, which had moved two meters. The morning before the race, Bianchi had signed a contract with Sauber for the new season.

In Formula 1, not only drivers were killed, but also marshals and spectators.
That’s right, Hausi Leutenegger had to find out too. In 1975 I took him to the Spanish GP and told him to watch the race during a dip. And what happened? Rolf Stommelen lost his rear wing and flew away at exactly that point. Five people lost their lives and Hausi then insulted me because the horror of his life had happened to him.

When you look back, you wonder: were the dead just part of it in the past?
Jackie Stewart once said, “Every year I lose three colleagues. That’s too much for me.” He wasn’t wrong, but back then they always said: “The show must go on.” Things only changed with the death of Ayrton Senna. FIA President Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone then took up the issue safety seriously.

In the past, you often went to the Indy 500. Fatal accidents also occurred there.
I attended what was then the world’s most dangerous race year after year, from 1977, when Clay Regazzoni started in Indianapolis, until 1994. The people there apparently had a different relationship with death.

What do you mean?
There were always fatal accidents, but the spectators seemed to calmly accept them.

When people talk to you about all the horrible accidents, you sound incredibly hardened.
I’m always cold when it comes to death. This is probably a protection, an armor that I have acquired.

Have you ever been really lucky in Formula 1?
Once in Monaco. I was standing there with Dieter Stappert in the Massenet corner, right against the crash barriers. Suddenly Andrea de Cesaris lost his Ligier and crashed into the guardrails right next to us.

How did you react?
Dieter ran away and the cigar didn’t even fall out of my mouth. But honestly: if the guardrail hadn’t done its job, I probably would have flown into the sea.

Didn’t Stefan Bellof almost kill you once?
(Laughs.) This idiot. He was someone like Villeneuve, incredibly sympathetic. After the Zandvoort GP in 1985, he took me back to the hotel on the luggage rack of his rickety bicycle. He pedaled like crazy down a side street and then turned onto the main street without looking. It was only thanks to the driver who stepped on the brakes that an accident did not occur. When I insulted Stefan like a sheep, he just laughed and said, “It went well.” You know what’s sad about the story?

I suspect so.
A week later he was dead and during the 1000 kilometer race in Spa he wanted to overtake Jacky Ickx in Eau Rouge. A crazy act for which he paid with his life.

How safe is Formula 1 today?
It is one of the most harmless sports in the world. Nowadays the drivers all walk around with their cell phones and press officers so that they don’t get into an accident by saying the wrong thing. In other words, the biggest accidents in Formula 1 today are when a driver says the wrong thing.

Final question: Will you experience the next fatal Formula 1 accident?
That’s a good but difficult question. I know the fans don’t want to see dead people because it stresses them out too much. But at the same time they want to see action. Therefore, in this very monotonous, boring phase, every crash is a gift of fate, no matter how harsh it may sound.