Formula 1.
Dear Roland,
The Sarno, wise and wise river, in the night rests, in the night dreams, in the night thinks. On that night between Friday and Saturday, the silence was broken only by the sound of the water of that river that bathes Imola, skirts the Autodromo, blows and whispers to the drivers, the reckless ones, the dreamers, the romantics and the nostalgic. To those drivers the Autodromo Enzo and Dino Ferrari gave so much, made everyone fall in love, left deep furrows and romantic victories. It also left room for life stories, like yours, like Ayrton’s, like the stories of so many.
Dear Roland it has been many years since your passing, and this article I was trying to write was born as a remembrance of you, of the man, the driver, the dreamer whose wings did not have time to open as they should have, as we would have liked, as we all would have liked not to open the chest of memory with the key of pain: such a black weekend, after all this time, still hurts.
And that is how we come to May 1, 2023 without a real explanation, without a proper answer, without a why, true, genuine. We are left with photos and a few memories, a portrait with a huge smile that accompanies us every year to remember you, and those terrible images of a torn-up car, slammed there like an old iron, as if nothing, a worthless old carcass.
Then there are the images of the champion, the absolute idol who can’t stand and snaps out of his chair to leave, to escape, an escape from reality. An escape to who knows where, in search of who knows what, perhaps a why.
Years pass, we always return to the Saturday, the one April 30, one year older.
©JEAN-LOUP GAUTREAU/AFP via Getty Images
Technology has advanced by now, incidents like yours? We’ve seen many, we’ve seen uglier ones, but riders always out, on their legs, thumbs up confirming. Pictures go around, memories go around, everyone has their own. One most of all, however, will always remain etched in my mind, like a scar, like a fire never extinguished: Ayrton and Watkins. Both of them there at the scene of the deed. Upset faces, distraught faces, faces of those who do not believe, do not accept, do not want to hear nor see but above all believe. Running away would have been right, maybe better, maybe not. It would have been necessary to stand there, to observe that dirty black wall, to let the thoughts run, to try to listen to the wind, to glimpse the words. Instead, no, everything went as we already know, as we remember every year, and for those who were not there or were not born, it becomes difficult to explain and to make people understand what you were for all of us.
Dear Roland, today I am no longer the age of that era when Formula 1 was vulnerable, fragile and at the same time beautiful, clean, without artifacts, without technology, today Formula 1 is made of escape routes, invincible cars, boring details and extreme research of everything. But even today your sacrifice is remembered, the chain of memories has never been broken and lives on.
Dear Roland, in another life, yours would not have been broken so quickly.
Motorsport is beautiful
