The taste for risk…

French driver Patrick Depailler lost his life in a violent accident on August 1, 1980 on the Hockenheim circuit aboard an Alfa Romeo Formula 1 car.

Born in 1944 , Depailler had a taste for risk. He sought thrills and loved the thrill of risky activities. This way, he felt truly alive.

After making his debut on a motorcycle, he became French Formula 3 champion in 1971, then Formula 2 champion in 1974. His F1 debut with the Tyrrell team was remarkable despite a fractured ankle.

He won the 1978 Monaco F1 Grand Prix and then joined Jacques Laffite at Ligier. But two roosters in the same barnyard can cause sparks to fly. Depailler won in Spain, which created tension within the team. While enjoying a few days of rest, he suffered serious leg injuries when his hang glider crashed into a cliff in the Puy-de-Dôme region.

With his legs in poor condition (his doctors even spoke of amputation), Depailler had to undergo numerous surgeries and follow strict rehabilitation. He had only one goal: to race in F1 again.

Depailler accepted Alfa Romeo’s offer for the 1980 season. The Alfa 179 was a clumsy, heavy, and inflexible single-seater powered by a highly fragile V12. Despite all the exercises and physiotherapy he had been doing for months, Depailler appeared at the first Grand Prix of the season in Argentina terribly thin and weak. He was on crutches, and simply putting a foot on the ground made him scream in pain. However, he managed to drive.

With the help of engineer/aerodynamicist Robert Choulet, he improved the car. He qualified seventh in South Africa, then third at Long Beach and seventh again in Monaco. But the Alfa 179 was too fragile and Depailler did not finish a race.

Fateful tests: In July, he took a few days off and returned to test at the Hockenheimring in preparation for the German Grand Prix. The old track, almost seven kilometers long, consisted of very long straights interspersed with chicanes and a fast right-hander at the back of the circuit, the Östkurve.

On August 1st, it was 11:35 a.m. when the high-pitched sound of the V12 suddenly fell silent. The Alfa had gone off the track in the Östkurve. The car, traveling at 280 km/h at the time, inexplicably sped straight ahead without negotiating the bend. It smashed into the guardrails, flipped upside down, and slid for several meters. Patrick Depailler was fatally injured.

There were no witnesses at the bend, and no one knows exactly what happened. It’s possible that a suspension component broke just before impact. It’s also possible that one of the Alfa’s two sidepod sliding skirts came loose and jammed, suddenly eliminating ground effect and causing the car to go off the track. Unfortunately, the remains of the car are so badly damaged that it’s impossible to say for sure what caused the accident.

Like Jim Clark, Patrick Depailler lost his life on this ribbon of asphalt drawn in the forest.