Saturday august 7th 1982. High summer temperature were pushed away by a continuous rainfall. Dark clouds covered the track. The free practice session is already going on for 22 minutes. Didier Pironi in his Ferrari 162C goes full speed on a wet track the into the forest section. Yesterday under a full sunshine, he was almost a full second faster than any other car. With rain on the track, Goodyear wanted him to try out their newest rain tyre. After three laps, lap times showed that he was three seconds faster than the old ones. But Didier kept going as fast as he can. Maybe he wanted to prove that he is a good F1 pilot despite all the critics he had to put up with lately.
The first critics was the “betrayal of Imola”. Despite supposed team orders, he stayed in front of his teammate Villeneuve and won the race. After that, Gilles swore to take revenge. But two weeks later, he had a fatal crash in Zolder. Pironi got the press and all the tifosi against him. And also in his private life, he was under pressure. His marriage with Catharine had ended, because he found a new love, actrice Veronique Jannot and wanted a divorce. But…he was leading the F1 championship ! Didier had won the GP at Zandvoort, was second at Monaco and Brands Hatch and third in Detroit and in France.
Why did he went so fast ? After the third chicane making his way out of the forest, he catches the Williams of Derek Daly. When in the spray, he saw the red taillight of the Williams moving to the right, he thinks that the Irishman was making place for him to pass by. But no, Derek moves over to pass the Renault of Alain Prost, driving slowly back to the pits on the left side of the road.
The Ferrari crashed with 280 km/h into the back of the Renault. Pironi gets airborne, almost vertically and higher than the tree tops, passes in the air in front of the Renault, comes back down in somersault and explodes apart on the right side of the track. The nose section of the Ferrari is gone and the legs of Didier are helplessly protruding from it. They are a mess of broken bones and shattered blood vessels. Nelson Piquet has stopped. Didier screams to get him out of the wreckage, but Nelson could not do nothing, simply vomiting from what he sees.
Dokter Sid Watkins arrived at the scene. Didier said all he wanted was that his legs would be safed. Watkins said, he would do anything to prevent amputation. In the Heidelberg hospital, surgeons again wanted to amputate, but Watkins said no !
Saturday evening. Miss Jannot was removed under force from the hospital because Pironi’s wife had arrived; at Hockenheim Ferrari mechanics were already cleaning up the #28 pit box.
Sunday morning august 8th . Half of the Ferrari crew were already on the way to Maranello. Chief-mechanic Paolo Scaramelli admitted to the press later that this was the worst season he could remember. Race engineer Tommaso Carletti said: “we were trying to deal with the dead of Gilles Villeneuve and now this…. But we still have Patrick Tambay and it is our duty to help him.”
Tambay was the replacement for Gilles Villeneuve. His only mission was to help Pironi become the world champion. But in Hockenheim, as sole representative of Ferrari, he was ready. In the warming-up session he was the second fastest driver. Good sign for the race!
On the starting grid with the empty spot of Pironi, the Renaults of Prost and Arnoux took the lead followed by the Brabham-BMW of Nelson Piquet. The Brazilian wanted to get ahead as soon as possible with the soft tyres and a half full fuel tank in order to make his pitstop for fuel and tyres, which was a revolutionary tactics in 1982. Tambay took it easy, wanting to save tyres. He was a little faster than both Renault drivers; they had more powerful engines, but the Ferrari had stronger braking power. In lap 4 he passed Prost and six laps later, he out-breaked Arnoux. Piquet was untouchable, so he wanted to stick to the Goodyear tyre plan, be nice to his engine and safe fuel.
After 18 laps (of the 45), Piquet was 26 seconds in the lead, not enough yet for a pitstop. And so, without hesitation, he placed in the Ostcurve his Brabham next to the ATS of Elio Salazar. The driver from Chili made room, but had to break on the dirtiest part of the track and slided into the Brabham. Piquet flew across the chicane, hit the guard tyres and the kerbstones. He was furious, got out of the car, went to Salazar and started to hit and punch him.
But this meant that Tambay was now leading the race. The lieutenant of Pironi had never won a F1 race and now he was defending the Ferrari honours. His tyres were in good conditions and he got away from Arnoux. He even lapped Keke Rosberg, driving third. Seven laps later, he decided to slow his pace and not to overrev the engine. The mechanics on the pit wall showed him the sign “OK”. Nobody, even Tambay, knew what that meant.
Patrick Tambay won the race.
Below the podium and in the Ferrari pits emotions were running high. Even 800 kilometres further in Maranello there were tears. Posthlethwaite had watched the race together with Enzo Ferrari and witnessed the old man crying. An unforgettable day !
Result German GP 1982:
Bruno Giacomelli
Tommy Byrne
Marc Surer
Roberto Guerrero
Publication: 20/06/2024Back to overview
