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  • I was only 20 days old on this day. Nothing to do with the crash of course.

  • there is something about the date 11th september....

  • Comment removed

  • James Hunt, the biggest HERO on that track.....for trying to save our national hero Ronnie Peterson!!

  • There is one thing that I don't understand. I watched this clip watch?v=wAo8eF6GeOM, that was recorded in Monza in 1978 and you can see there is chicane at the beginning of the lap. Now, this accident happened few days later at the same circuit and there is not chicane. Can anybody, please, explain me that?

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  • @3012989 Isn't that the chicane at 0:44 ?

  • @Camaroon13 It is, but that is Variante della Roggia, and I was asking about chicane on start-finish straight

  • Riccardo Patrese did NOT cause this accident - though James Hunt told everyone otherwise for the rest of his life. In fact, it has been proven that James was more culpable in the accident than Patrese was. James always poured venom on Riccardo from this moment on. I loved 99.9% of things about James Hunt, but to blame the cheery and talented Italian for all those years even after Patrese was proven innocent was frankly disgraceful - and maybe a sign of unwillingness to accept some of the blame.

  • @NOXXism ummmm everyone dies, so your comment is kind of irrelevant.

  • Omg I don't really like the camera angles from that time xD

  • say whattttttttttttttttttttttttttt­tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt­tttttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!

  • thank you james for trying to save our national hero.

  • The fire crew along with James Hunt and other drivers did a fantastic job getting Peterson out of the car,about 34 seconds after Peterson initially impacted the guardrail....and about 23 seconds after coming to a stop.

    Bill Simpson of Simpson Safety did a burn demonstration at Indy in 1970 being set on fire for 32 seconds ((both legs and 1 arm), in most cases gives an un-trapped driver time to bail out of a burning car. Pretty good considering that was a single layer suit and thermal underwear.

  • Heroic were the other drivers, Idiotic was how the green light showed before all the cars stopped. So glad F1 is safer today.

  • Jackie Stewart is the best commentator ever!

  • i remember so well that sunday afternoon i watched this live as a little kid. was so sad hearing on the news the next day , that Peterson had died :-(

  • the first time i have seen this ,,my god it may be a long time ago but it still brought a tear to my eye ,,,,i never knew peterson died thought he just retired ,,,,bloody hell so horrible only looking though as i remember the jps cars as a kid

  • I never get tired of seing drivers helping eachothers, and the irony is the ones that help usually die later on :(

  • james hunt died on the operating table

  • @juul384 who james hunt he the guy that attempted rescue

  • @juul384 Hunt died in his home in England in 1993, due to a heart attack, 14 years after his racing carrier !!

  • RIP James Hunt.

  • The "cause" of the wreck rest solely on the starter, he started the race while the back halfe of the grid was still moving. Pretty clear.

  • so really it was the guy who controlled the lights fault. **** you light controller **** you

  • What still makes me angry, moreover, are the accusations of Hunt Patrese, who was for years accused of responsibility for any accident, when, in the 90's, processing the images has been demonstrated that Richard had not done anything. There was however, the wrong operation of Hunt, as well as the hasty departure, date with the latest car is still not aligned at all!

  • I feel like an asshole for laughing at the commentator's pronunciation of Didier Pironi

  • This is footage from "Wide World Of Sports".

    Since Mario Andretti was in a position to clinch the 1978 Formula 1 title (which he subsequently did in this very race), ABC made a deal to get rights to the race a couple of weeks prior to it taking place.

    The original plan was to edit the race to about an hour for showing on the following Saturday. But after Peterson's death, ABC instead only showed the start, a few highlights, considerable time analyzing the crash, and a tribute to Peterson.

  • was this the dude whos car was made out of magnesium?

  • looks like an old action movie

  • this wasnt a fatal crash, his death was caused by the injuries sustained infact Ronnie was in a stable condition at hospital, it was after surgery while resting during the night, bone marrow went into Peterson's bloodstream through the fractures, forming fat globules on his major organs including lungs, liver and brain. By morning he was in full renal failure and was declared dead a few hours later. The cause of death was given as fat embolism.

  • @FFFSilencer

    Great info, have always wonderd how he died

  • i bieve this was the monza circuit. the reason this crash happened was the MORON!!!! in control of the lights set them off WAAAAY to early and is very apparent in the video. because of this everyone launched at once and the drivers at hte back were already rolling. once they got to the first turn there were too many cars at once

  • @ORE0789 Looks strange anyway , was that the regular start or a restart? If it's first start it was completely chaos. And Ronnie was the victim of that... R.I.P. 

  • @TheBigHase It was the start at the beginning of the race, they had just gone around for their warm up lap

  • All because of a flag-man mistake.....horrible.

  • I'm sorry but that isn't true. Ronnie Petersen was left at the track for 20mins before an ambulance turned up to take him to hospital.

    If this accident had happened now he would have survived. Admittedly his legs were completely shattered, but, he should never have died in this accident.

  • It's important to understand it was not the crash that killed him, the drivers and respective marshall's did superbly well to save him and WERE successful. His death was due to a complication in surgery.

    he was born just next to where i live. R.I.P Ronnie,

  • The drivers are pulling him out while the firemen watch? WTF?

  • @pigjubby The other drivers are the most familiar with the harness restraint system, they know it like the back of their hand. IMO it was probably just faster to let another driver do the extrication.

  • deeply missed , never forgotten , if the safety was'nt such a joke would still be with us!

  • That Lotus is beautiful though!

  • R.I.P. Ronnie

  • what? why have i seen 2 different crashes supposedly ronnie petersons death and there is a video link next to this saying ronnie peterson monza ital 1978?

  • The accident wasn't fatal. Peterson died because of some problems in the hospital the next day.

  • @Terrorista91 Yes, he died due to poor medical care

  • @Terrorista91 that makes no sense... if the injuries sustained caused him to die, then the crash was fatal...

  • @IMS181 If you need to get your appendix removed, and the surgeon does a crappy job by leaving dead tissue and bloodclots in your bloodstream causing your vital organs to fail, did you die from your appendix or was it a medical blunder? Hospitals and insurance companies would love such your of thinking :p

  • @SmeurkeDeKat hehe i do work for an insurance company.. nice eye.

  • If this is shown as it happened in real time, then they got him out of the car less than 33 seconds after impact. Not bad for 1978. Consider that 5 years earlier, David Purley was pretty much left alone to try to save Roger Williamson while everyone else puttered around incoherently.

  • The saddest thing about this, is that Ronnie could have survived if the assistants worked with him first, instead of Brambilla.

  • @MrTincho88 But Brambilla was hit by a flying tyre+Peterson was not in danger. No wonder that they helped Brambilla first.

  • @illpwnyou1 hang on, Peterson was trapped in a burning car, and mostly likely unconscious from the impact. With all the cars stopped, he is still the most in danger. What makes it worse is they had to let other drivers get him out, while they stood there and watched. Isn't their main role in motorsport to protect drivers and spectators from danger??

  • @F1guitarfanatic927 "Safety" didn't mean the same thing in the 1970s that it does today. Marshals weren't trained or equipped; the drivers weren't trained pros but they had better fireproof equipment than the marshals did. And there was nothing like the dedicated safety teams many series have today.

    And as for that start...I pray whoever was controlling it was never in charge of starting another race ever again, even kiddie go-karts. That was terrible.

  • @MrTincho88 yeah the marshals couldn't save anyone's life if the world depended on it, it took the drivers to get him out, which has happened in loads of other race disciplines as well. Also, the prick with the lights caused this crash

  • @MrTincho88 Yes who cares about Brambilla no ones heard of him.

  • why are all ITALIANS stupid motherfuckers?

  • @foilseal because they are italians!

  • I think Ronnie was a great driver! R.I.P. Ronnie!

  • @Gamereo And Mario Andretti said that he was his best teammate of his entire career.

  • @ Buggy1Boy se Peterson não morre, ele should be champion in 1978

  • this is really beatifful(NOT THE CRASH OR THE DEAD) the other drivers jump out of ther car to try to save someone

  • @guitarherof3fan I agree,people like to put down racing but there is more than winning a race and the men that participate in this sport understand that.

  • @stabbification i know but there are people who think the only in racing is winning, i more think that it is for fun(and winning is secondary in the race) and i should interact like they did to

  • James Hunt, what a legend! I really wish he was still comentating today.

    RIP Ronnie and James.

  • You could tell on the start that right as the front row stops and the green light goes on, that Mario Andretti hesitates like "Is the green light supposed to go on that quickly?"

  • I sat will Colin Chapman (Founder of Lotus) at the Farnborough Air Show a couple of days before the crash and he showed me a new aviation material. It was a sponge like product that was used in airplanes to stop the fuel slushing around. He thought it could be used in race car fuel tanks as it would stop the fuel from spilling out of a ruptured fuel tank and make it safer for the Drivers by reducing any fire injuries. Colin always had driver safety on his mind!

  • @MrPmbgb La storia dice il contrario, cosa ne pensi.

  • @MrFerraristadoc - Si riferisce alla possibilita' di utilizzare prodtti per l'aviazione schiuma in serbatoi di carburante o la cure di Colin per sicurezza del conducente?

  • They were sitting on a fucking molotov cocktail. They had big balls

  • When you get 4 open wheel cars going over 100 mph side by side and there is a wreck, it's no one drivers fault. To place blame on one driver with no in car footage and the craptastic TV footage they had, it's a joke. The person at fault is the starter: he let them go before all the cars had even stopped, so they bunched up.

  • Villa i frid Ronnie....

  • James hunt - a British gentleman and selfless hero......

    remembered too....

    1947 - 1993

  • @spottydog4477 james hunt blamed for years patrese for this accident altought was him to start it. bbc commentators blamed patrese for a decade till new footage demonstrated that him was unconnected to the accident. that's who was hunt.

  • @nickThedick82 why don't you just accept, that the one who caused this accident was Patrese instead of pointlessly accusing James Hunt (RIP), who was the first one who rushed to Peterson's vehicle and got him out? Where is the new footage? Where did you come up with this nonsense?

  • is it really live footage ? was it possible to switch to helicopter camera live in 1978 ? I think its commentary was not live, there just Flames and jackie can recognize Petersons Lotus ?

  • @HansMaulwurf1978 yes live - remember the commentators are not commentatin from the camera view - the are in the commentary box with all the camera monoters - not just what you see.....

  • @HansMaulwurf1978 I believe Italy's RAI (which provided "pool" coverage of the race) did indeed lease a chopper with a color minicam on board for aerial shots during the race that were shown live in Italy (and perhaps other parts of Europe).

  • RIP Ronnie 

  • Hes from sweden, very sad. The last F1 Who has been swedish, but we are back on track.. GP2 .

  • @Oskarplace He wasn't the last.

    What about Johansson?

  • He died from an embolism. It is true that at first, his injuries were severe but not life threatening. The massive injuries to his legs produced an air bubble that went through his bloodstream and eventually stopped his heart--something doctors routinely look for when dealing with injuries to the joints (particularly knees). Very sad as Ronnie was truly one of the greats--insane car control.

  • @tstahler all too true. they thought he'd be fine, everyone was told that he would, then, all of a sudden he died. the accident largely caused by the negligence of those in control of the start procedure, newly introduced to aid safety, as well as making the starts more fair, and his ultimate death basically due to negligence on the medical side. unfortunately that's what life was like in italy even by the late 70's.

  • @tstahler

    Not at all. An embolism is NOT an air-bubble. It's fat globules and other tissue which blocks the blood stream. In Peterson's case his BONE MARROW, from his fractured legs, went out into the blood stream and during the night the fat embolism blocked his lungs, liver and kidneys. He suffered renal failure (kidneys) and died.

    Air bubbles very rarely kill a person, you've seen too many Hollywood movies.

    You did get his insane car control right at least.

  • @McLarenMercedes Thanks for the correction. I am not a doctor, nor claim to be and perhaps thought I understood an embolism better than I did. Regardless, he was a brilliant driver, like so many before and after him who went to the great beyond before achieving a potential World Championship. Albeit the typical curtness of a European towards Yanks, I am appreciative of your feedback.

  • I remember my dad told me that Ronnie got killd on the hospital for theay couldent save him for the docotrs couldent do anything.

    If it's was in Swede he should survive.

    R.I.P to a great driver Ronnie.

  • is it true that his injuries were not considered at all life threatening, just severe leg injuries and that he died in hospital from bone marrow entering the bloodstream after an operation??? anyone know for sure?

  • @mike90yt That's exactly what happened

  • o.o Horrible sounds

  • so so sad

  • Do we know if it was the impact or the fire that took his life?

  • @snokprok

    indirectly it was the impact. He did not die immediately but later from aa embolysm caused by the multiple fractures in his legs and the long delay in treatment

  • @snokprok

    Mate It Was The Impact That Did Most Of The Damage And Killed Him The Day Later From Injuries Sustained During It :(

  • Hell, the Super Swede could have won had he lived. Andretti did badly in the last few races, and even though he died, he still finished second. RIP

  • God Bless Ronnie Peterson - one of the true great drivers ever to drive F1 and one of the fastest for sure.

  • @blackhatwizardcat

    It's shame that he had a broken leg after the accidents and the surgens did a poor job and took his life just like how Michael Jackson's doctor did a poor job in saving his life.

  • R.I.P. Ronnie..ses i valhall...

  • turbo lag could have been a problem those turbines were dangerous

  • @MrCo2manchris There was only one turbo in the field, which was Renault,

    The Ferrari and the Ford Cosworth were NA

  • Boy, September 11th isn't a very good date for world history.

  • @nascarfanatic2425 It's my birthday, but yeah, i know what you mean.

  • @Destroyed666Doom Well, minus THAT fact. lol But yeah, and 2001 wasn't a good year for America. In my view, 2001 was the year that started the downfall:

    February 18- Dale Earnhardt dies

    September 11- Terrorist attacks

    America just isn't recovering from that day.

  • @nascarfanatic2425 i was born -.-

  • @w00tmackan I see. Well then you just might be the blessing sent down from God. lol jk

  • I would have to agree with others. Fail on the italian starters part. Nice, you just caused a death.

  • R.I.P.

  • monza, what a beautiful circuit. Peterson, what a good driver

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  • wow, I didn't know ABC Wide World of Sports broadcasting this race before seen this video

    R.I.P Ronnie...(also commentator Jim MacKy)

  • what the hell has 9/11 got to do with it, jesus get a grip man its a motor racing accident in 1978

  • Sorry, my mistake.

  • He died from pulmonar embolism 2 days later in the hospital. Very sad indeed...

  • @albferraz Not 2 days later, the race was 10 september and he died 11 september 1978

  • @uniprint There's something with 9/11.. It's creepy

  • wasn't it acute renal failure from an embolism in his kidneys??

    those are sneaky and lethal

  • Yeah, this is a sureal crash to watch.. he was not seriously seriously injured. No organ damage, no massive head trauma or internal bleeding. It was in the hospital that he died. It wasnt as simple as bone marrow leaking into this blood either, that wouldnt have happened had they chosen not to try to reset his legs with surgery, they discussed the risks apprently, but it was the fastest recovery.. however in this instance the low chance risk proved to be exatly what happned, or so I read. RIP

  • there were so many things that went wrong, Gilles and Mario jumping the start causing that the idiot race control give the green light when most of the grid was still running, then the reckless racing style of guys like Hunt and Patrese under that condition and finally the awful medical care.. so sad that Ronnie paid the price for all those mistakes.

  • Amazing that they knew it was RP so quick, the swedish commentery didint knew until they saw the 6 of his car...

  • The ABC commentary in those days was done as if live, but was actually done to a tape delay; a bit of theater that allowed them a certain "prescience" in their information (and prevented any "Fuck! Shit! NO!" moments from going out on live air).

    And at the time they recorded the commentary one of the things they already "knew" was that, although injured, Ronnie was going to be OK; hence the rather low key concern they show.

  • Peccato! avrei voluto vedere sosa avrebbe fatto in McLaren

  • no, that made it so ironic.

    He was fully conscious but he's condition was not good, but stable. He got out of the car before he got burned thanks to fellow drivers. Both of his legs were the real problem...

    He died that evening after surgery...

    Sometimes we forget how talented he was... Only he could beat Andretti (though Mario also deserved to win) but team orders prevent him from doing it. A real gentleman

  • he got 10 of Swedens 12 f1 wins. Shame he wouldn't win the championship, he deserved it

  • September 11th...

    *Ronnie Peterson's death

    *WTC

    *Anna Lindh

  • stört

  • @zibbaen Dont forget Salvador Allende

  • @zibbaen Also Johnny Unitas died in 2002. [probably not related to anything youre talking about]

  • wtf was with the starting lights?? the grid wasnt even ready!

  • @MsFarQ2, Was to blame for his death basically, alot of the drivers wernt expecting it and wernt looking. Typical Italian behaviour there.

  • @R33Racer fuck you from an Italian!

  • @MsFarQ2

    What happened was the flag was dropped to early; not all of the cars had reached a complete stop on the starting grid. As such, a lot of the cars further back were still rolling when this happened, and the combination of the various drivers positions, fast cars at the back catching up with the slower cars in the front, as well as the truncation of the track where the accident occurred, the rest was inevitable after Riccardo Patrese had hit James Hunt, and the rest ensued.

    RIP Peterson

  • @MsFarQ2 that's what happens when power surges/outages hit the wrong places -like in this case- and at the vrey WRONG time

  • @MsFarQ2 unfortunately they'd only just brought in the lights system, and unfortunately, back then things were a bit... well quite frankly a bit of a shambles still, as regards organisation of everything. the guy in charge either simply stuffed it up, or got a bit excited, and gave the signal. unfortunately, over the years motor sport has seen far too many deaths through negligence and shear stupidity. thankfully, and in no small part due to jackie stewart, things are a lot better nowadays.

  • @MsFarQ2 The race starter was overenthusiastic, turning on the red lights before all the cars had lined up, and several cars in the middle of the field got a jump on those at the front. The result was a funneling effect of the cars approaching the chicane, and the cars were tightly bunched together with little room for maneuver.

  • @MsFarQ2 That was a mistake which led to that the last cars hit Peterson much harder as they drove faster. Maybe Peterson's death could have been avoided by waiting until the grid was ready.

  • what a teammate :') (what year was it ??)

  • The 10th of September 1978, I saw it live when I was 6 years old and will newer forget it as a Swede. Later Ronnie Peterson died of his injuries on September 11!!!!!!!!!

  • it wasn't the crash that killed him.

  • Poor Ricardo Patrese got blamed for this and the 'stain' of blame never went away.

    Starter, Gianni Restelli was to blame but this was never followed up. James Hunt pulled Peterson out of his car.

  • Look at the other driver try to get him out of the burning car !

  • It was James Hunt coming from his McLaren car that managed to get him out.

  • god bless drivers back in the days. you don't see that stuff very often these days (much 'cause no need for it, but still)

  • F1 2 safe...so all the driving field become less cooperative...hahaha

  • ''Therse and accident :O!!''

  • this is one of the most irresponsible starts i've ever seen in any race. there is no excuse for idiots who can't manage a big race like this. like jackie stewart said, they should have waited until everyone came to a complete stop. in fact, villeneuve and andretti jumped the start and they even started the race there. this is the result of the idiocy/impatience of the race marshals. if that ridiculous start had not happened, there might have been no huge accident and peterson might not have died

  • Unfortuantly this was a regular occurance in those days.

  • starts like this never happened, although racing deaths weren't uncommon back then.

  • Yep they did, in fact another one happened in an Italian grand prix, where a Ferrari driver catapulted himself up into the lead from a few rows back, it was more common in the middle and back of the grid though.

  • sadly,that was Wolfgang Von Trips' last race @ Monza

  • btw from this angle that andretti's lotus 79 is a good looking car

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  • You should seek professional help.

  • you really are a prick

  • Some people say Hunt caused the crash & some say Patrese did. So who is correct? I'm not sure that any blame can be given to drivers in a race travelling at over 100 mph so close together. If there is to be blame, it is to the Italian police & officials at the track who blocked paramedics coming to the scene for 20 minutes. What were they thinking??!!

  • Hunt caused the crash but Patrese was blamed. I remember that italian police blocked just journalists. The evidence is that the first ambulance was close to Brambilla's car. There's no apparent reason why the second one was so far away and peterson was trasported till there.

  • Initially, it was Brambilla what has appeared in more serious conditions (fracture of the skull upon impact with a tire). Most of the accident were serious errors of doctors during surgery on fractures to the legs of Petereson cause death.

  • @FAZIOLI955 I disagree. you can't blame malpractice for Ronnie's death. Bone marrow going into the bloodstream is a consequence of the trauma and always a risk in fractures of the femur and the tibia. For that reason (his right leg had 7(!) fractures, his left leg 3) the surgeons recommended immediate amputation of Ronnie's right leg, but Ronnie didn't assent - this was his self-chosen death sentence. And that is why Barbro Peterson never brought his death to action in court.

  • @TheColinChapman I reported what was written in sporting magazines of the time. But I would remind you that the year before, David Purley suffered an even worse accident, resulting from a deceleration trauma fractures that caused him far more serious than those suffered by Peterson. In that case they managed to save the limbs ... That of Peterson remains one of the most absurd death of F1

  • @FAZIOLI955 there's no contradiction in it. Regarding multiple leg fractures, bone marrow CAN go into the bloodstream, it does not neccessarily HAVE to. Of course it is possible to survive more complicated leg injuries without an emboly (like Purley did). But the odds are different. David was lucky, Ronnie wasn't.

  • @TheColinChapman I agree with you ... is certainly one of the most absurd deaths occurred in a formula. Apart from the grounds of a technical nature, on which everyone can express his thoughts, there was also an element of fate, this is undeniable!

  • @TheColinChapman As you rightly pointed out, Barbro Peterson not to take legal action against doctors, which still ended up under investigation in Italy for the haste with which it wanted to intervene, without having successfully stabilized the fracture. Then, however, the complications of fatty embolism were almost fatal, as there is today's intervention techniques ...

  • @FAZIOLI955 I agree, this I can sign up to.

  • @FAZIOLI955 barbo peterson never got over ronnie's death and joined him in dec of 87 by her own means. quite sad that this tragedy lead to more.

  • @CamaroAmx If I remember correctly, Barbro Peterson later had a relationship with the Irish driver John Watson. It 'nice to remember how this man, after the death of the woman, took care of Peterson's daughter, Nina, as if she were his daughter. A second father, in practice!

  • The crucial mistake was made by the guy who threw the switch for the green light way too early. You can see that the front row stopped only for five six seconds before the race was released. The camara does not show that the second half of the grid never stopped and could simply keep on driving. This led to the traffic jam before the first chicane. Plus, the approach to the first chicane was hopper-shaped. Hunt ran out of space and bumped into Patrese who hit Peterson.

  • it was the late james hunt who pulled peterson out of the wreck, he and the other drivers held riccardo patrese responsible for this crash.

  • You guys are idiots, he died from bone marrow leaking into the blood stream the day after this. He talked to surgeons and was fine, the next morning he had complete renal failure.