The last driver who got a fatal accident in a race before May 1967 was Baron Wolfgang von Trips in the 1961 Italian GP. There were almost no talks about the security for drivers in those days until Jackie Stewart started some actions in 1965. It all changed in May 1967 when the whole world witnessed the image of a pilot burning and dying in his car. The race went on while a few marshals were not capable of helping the driver. The next morning, all newspapers would emphasise the need for more safety.
The driver who lost his life that day in Monaco was Lorenzo Bandini. He was the favourite for the win, the press was all around him the whole weekend up to the start.
Bandini was born in Libya in 1935 and moved to Firenze at the age of three. Both his parents died in the war and so he had to look for a job at a very early age. At the age of 15, he became an apprentice mechanic in Milan at the garage of Signor Freddi. This man would be an enormous support for his later racing career and on top of that he had a pretty daughter. Margheritta, who would later become his wife.
When he was 20 years old, he made his race debut in a 1957 hill climb race, Castelli Arquato-Verneasca, in a Fiat 1100 and ended 15th in his class. With the help of Freddi, who bought other cars for him, he entered the Mille Miglia in 1958 and won the race in his class.
But in that year, Italy had lost his number 1 pilot, Luigi Musso in a race at Reims. Looking for new Italian talent, Count Johnny Lurani came up with the idea of constructing a Formula Junior, a solid base for drivers to enter the F3 later in their career. Lorenzo Bandini saw opportunities and bought a Volpini. First race : P03.
In 1959 and 1960, he kept on racing in this series. But he wanted more. The F1 racing rules changed in 1961 and only 1500cc engines were allowed. Ferrari and his V6 were aware that they might have the best car because all English teams had to rely on their 4 cylinders Coventry Climax engine. Scuderia Ferrari entered three cars for Phil Hill, Taffy von Trips and Richie Ginther. But the FISA insisted they entered a fourth car under the banner of the Sant- Ambroeus Team for an upcoming Italian talented driver. Giancarlo Baghetti was the chosen one. In came Mimmo Dei, the boss of Scuderia Centro Sud. He got Bandini driving a Cooper T51-Maserati. First race at Pau in april: P03 behind the Lotus of Jim Clack and the Porsche of Jo Bonnier. But no further results that year (P12 England, P8 Monza).
However, Bandini’s efforts of 1961 were noted at Maranello. Enzo Ferrari put him as co-driver for Giorgi Scarlatti in the 250 Testa Rossa for the 4hour race at Pescara. And there, he made no mistakes, took advantage of the problems of other cars and won the race! That opened the Ferrari door to the F1 team as team mate of P.Hill, Willy Mairesse, Pedro Rodriguez and G.Baghetti. In the 1962 championship, things were not that easy anymore for Ferrari. The English teams had done their homework constructing a V8 and the Scuderia had three cars for five drivers. Hill, Baghetti and Rodriguez did the GP at Zandvoort, while Hill, Bandini, Rodriguez and Mairesse did the Monaco GP. Here Bruce McLaren and his Cooper won, but Bandini had a strong race, finishing third. In Enna, Bandini was better than Baghetti and won the race. The Ferrari’s did enter only a few races after the Belgium GP ; the British supremacy was too obvious.
After the bad 1962 season, Scuderia Ferrari exploded. Engineer Carlo Chitti left Modena to construct ATS for Phill Hill and Baghetti to drive in 1963. Only Mairesse could stay. Bandini got help again from Mimo Dei. He had done a deal with BRM for the world champion car of Graham Hill. The car got painted in red. It was a good car for Bandini, despite the tight budget for Centro Sud. At the GP Solitude he was P18 after the change of the spark plugs, but finished P04. In Reims, he finished some 8 laps behind winner Jim Clarck and on the Silverstone track he finished P5. At the Nürburgring, he qualified on the front row next to Clark, Surtees and Hill. But the race was short; accident in lap 1.
Bandini had kept his Ferrari engagement in the Sportscar racing. Together with Ludovico Scarfiotti, he won the 24 hours of Le Mans race (#21) and later the 3h of the Auvergne (for the Serenissima team). But when Mairesse had an accident at the Ring, he was asked again by Ferrari to do F1 next to Surtees. This resulted in a P5 at Monza and at East London.
The year 1964 was very successful. Lorenzo Bandini married his Margheritta. In the F1 he won the Austrian GP and became third in Germany, Italie and Mexico driving the Ferrari 156 &158. For the history books: With just one race in the Championship, there were three pilots on course to become world champion: Clarck, Hill and Surtees. In the race, Bandini was faster than Surtees and was on the tail of Hill for P03 with Clark and Gurney in front of him. At the hairpin, there was a ongoing struggle between the BRM of Hill and the Ferrari and at one point, they hit each other. Hill lost here his chance for the championship win. But Jim Clark, in the lead, had to stop his car. In the Ferrari pits, they realized that P02 was good enough for Surtees to steal the crown. The tactics: Bandini was forced to stop at the pits letting Surtees go by. You can imagine what the press had to say about that!
There were no Ferrari wins in the 1965-dominated-by-Jim Clark-year. Surtees and Bandini (#8 photo below) ended fifth and sixth in the championship. The battle between five drivers at the Monaco GP is one for the history books. Bandini was second there behind G.Hill but in front of Stewart and Surtees. The greatest win for Lorenzo was the 1965 Targa Florio next to local hero Nino Vacarella in the Ferrari 275P (photo below)
The following year marked the beginning of the 3L F1. In the first race at Monaco, Bandini and the little 2.4 V6 finished second behind Stewart. The F1 race at Spa in the rain was a disaster for most of the racers. Surtees won here his last race for the Scuderia Ferrari in front of the Cooper Maserati from Jochen Rindt and Bandini, still with the 2.4l engine. Surtees had his big argument with Eugenio Dragoni for the 24 hours of Le Mans. He shared the car with Scarfiotti ( the nephew of Mr.Agnelli). Dragoni made the decision that Scarfiotti should start the race and that was against the viewpoint of Surtees. And in Monaco he already was denied the fastest 2.4L and now this. He quitted the team and Bandini became Ferrari driver number one. However, the rest of the season did not lead to any good results. He knew that he had to perform on the last GP of the year at Watkins Glen if he wanted to keep his seat. In the race, he probably did one of his best races of his career against a Jack Brabham in one of his glory moments on the way to become World Champion. Again the Italian was stopped by his engine failing.
But Enzo Ferrari gave him his full thrust and he stayed “numero uno” for 1967 with Mike Parkes and Chris Amon ( one of his best friends) as team mates. The season got off well with a victory of the new P4 (#23) in the 24 hours of Daytona. In the non-championship-race at Brands Hatch he just missed the win by one second; Dan Gurney and his Eagle crossed the line first. In the testing days for Le Mans, the P4 with Bandini at the wheel did the fastest lap and with Amon, he won the 1000 km Monza. Life was good. He could even go to the Indianapolis 500 and he was expected his first child.
The next race was the Monaco GP. He finished here second in 1965 and 1966, so a win with a Ferrari would be nice. He even brought a new suit for the celebrations after the race. In qualifying, he was second behind Brabham.
Raceday. It is all sunny when the cars get away at the start for a 100 lap GP. Bandini is the fastest of the line followed by Stewart and Hulme. In the first lap, the engine of Brabham exploded with oil spilling all over the track. Bandini lost the car and Stewart and Hulme could get in front. New task for Bandini: chasing. When Stewart hit troubles, Hulme got into the lead with a 7 seconds advantage. Bandini got into the attack mode. But the Ferrari is a heavy car on this track and probably Bandini got a bit tired. He did not give up, but there were a few mistakes here and there. Unfortunally, there was nothing to do against a big mistake in lap 82.
When Bandini ran wide in the chicane near the harbour, he hit the straw bales with his front tyre. “Nothing,” Bandini’s team-mate Chris Amon said, “got a car upside down quicker than straw bales.”
After skimming the top of them, Bandini’s Ferrari struck one of the marine bollards on the harbour front, and somersaulted back onto the middle of the track. In the impact a fuel pipe had been severed, and at once the Ferrari was engulfed in fire. It was a terrifying spectacle. The marshals had however no equipment to stop the flames.
They didn’t stop races in those days for any reason, and the six surviving cars continued to circulate. “At first I thought two cars were involved,” Amon said, “because some straw bales were also burning. I realised it was Lorenzo, because I could see a gold wheel. I knew he and Denny Hulme had been in front of me, and I wondered if they’d crashed. The pit signals disappeared for a few laps, and then I saw I was second, behind Denny. Then I got a puncture from the debris, and came in for a long stop — the mechanics were in a trance, of course.
“The thing was, I’d been past the fire several times, and it never occurred to me that Lorenzo could still be in it. There didn’t seem to be much activity around there, so I assumed he’d got out all right. It wasn’t until after the race I realised he hadn’t…”
Bandini stayed trapped for five minutes under his car. The fire was put out, the driver was rushed to the hospital by boat. Three days later, Lorenzo Bandini was dead.
A week later, in The Observer, Tony Brooks wrote a piece entitled, ‘The Cruel Death of Lorenzo Bandini.’ It had been that, and more. “Fire,” Brooks said, “is the consuming dread of the racing driver. To crash, to be killed outright, is one thing; to be burned to the point of death is the supreme horror.”
An extra horror was that his rescue had been so lamentably handled. The situation confronting the marshals, if they been properly equipped, there might have been some chance of saving Bandini’s life, at the very least of sparing him agony. The late Giancarlo Baghetti, spectating at the chicane, once told that he was haunted by memories of that day. “Unless there was a car coming by,” he said, “all you could hear was Lorenzo screaming.” A Monaco tragedy it was that day.
Lorenzo Bandini died a day later in the hospital. The impact did not take his life, but the burns and smoke he inhaled ended his life. Lorenzo's death is one of the most memorable in Formula 1 for its cruelty.
