Martin Donnelly described how the crash which almost killed him in 1990 led to a “very special” opportunity to introduce his family to Hollywood royalty.
The former Lotus driver was seriously injured when he crashed at high speed in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. He suffered organ failure, went into a coma and had to be repeatedly resuscitated, but survived.
His crash inspired the back story for the character Sonny Hayes in last year’s official F1 Movie. Real footage of Donnelly’s body lying on the track appears in the film.
In the film, the character of Hayes, played by Brad Pitt, returns to race in F1. However the crash ended Donnelly’s F1 career.
“That was a moment of time that took away everything,” he told The Business of Winning. “It’s like a light switch: you work, you sacrifice your education, you work your way to the top, you get into F1 – which in itself is achievement with so many drivers trying to vie for so few seats.
“For that to happen through no fault of my own – the suspension collapsed, the front-left damper, so it was like a bobsleigh with 7mm ride height. So once the top hit the Tarmac, because the suspension has broke you’ve got no steering control and you’re heading towards this barrier at 135mph [215kph] and all you can do is brace yourself for what’s going to be one hell of a ride.”
Donnelly left the track in a high-speed right-hander. Today the approach to the corner is slowed by a chicane, but in 1990 drivers tackled it at far higher speeds, and Donnelly had the misfortune to strike an unprotected Armco barrier.
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Many who witnessed his crash first-hand thought he could not have survived it, including fellow F1 racer Roberto Moreno who was watching at the track with Donnelly’s friends.
“The four of us [had gone] around on Vespa scooters: Ed and Jenny on one scooter, me and Diane on the other, and I was pointing out which corners were quick and where was the best place to watch. We were going through there at 170, 180 miles an hour.
“That’s where Ed and Jenny were when actually I went off in front of them into this barrier. Roberto Moreno was with them then because they used to feed and look after Roberto when he drove for Van Diemen at Snetterton. Ed was trying to get over this fence and Roberto was pulling him down and said, ‘no, no, no, leave him alone. He’s dead, he’s dead. He’s gone. Leave him alone.’”
Other drivers stopped at the scene of Donnelly’s crash, which tore his Lotus apart and threw him onto the track.
“He thought I was dead, then another guy pulled up to protect my body, a guy called Pierluigi Martini in the Minardi car. He stopped the car because I was lying bare in the circuit.
“The circuit was still semi-live for qualifying. That’s why there’s no TV coverage of my accident because Senna was on a [qualifying] lap and all the cameras were placed on him. So that’s when they cut to where the car had just hit the barrier and I was then down on the track.”
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Donnelly’s crash was especially shocking because of the extent of damage to his car. However he believes the fact the chassis broke apart absorbed some of the impact and saved his life.
“If the tub had held up, I would most certainly, 110%, definitely be dead because I would have broken my neck,” he said. “It’s ironic that the accident, the way it happened, actually did save my life, because I carried on [after the initial impact].”
Although he suffered multiple fractures, Formula 1’s medical delegate Professor Sid Watkins was more concerned about the internal damage Donnelly had suffered, and arranged for him to swiftly return to Britain.
“Little do people know that, I guess, I broke virtually every bone in the body,” he explained. “The left femur came out through the side of the leg, the left leg’s now an inch-and-a-half short.
“But Sid Watkins knew that bones will heal – I still have a broken collarbone here that they never repaired. The bigger picture at the time was my internal organs, with the shock, all kind of going forward.
“That’s the thing that frightened Sid. He knew that my internal organs were going into shock. So he knew that he only had ‘x’ number of hours to get me out of Seville, where the hospital was, and get me to his hospital in Whitechapel in London.
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“I flew in on the Tuesday, I flew into Gatwick by air ambulance. They transferred me in the helicopter straight onto the roof, down into the emergency rooms the very next day. As he said would happen, my body closed down.
“I wasn’t breathing, so I was put into a respirator for seven weeks. I had kidney dialysis every day for three hours by machine. My mother was there and Sid Watkins said to her ‘Margaret, if you believe in God, pray to your God, because we don’t expect Martin to survive’.
“She then got the chaplain, he came and gave me the last rites. And somehow, somewhere, I pulled through it. I had twice the jump leads on the operating table, my heart stopped twice. So technically I died three times.”
The official F1 Movie ends with the acknowledgement “thanks to Martin Donnelly”. He was invited to the premiere and spotted Tom Cruise and Ed Sheeran in the rows either side of him. But he did not expect to be joined by the star actor who played the character his crash inspired.
“There were two seats on the aisle that were left empty. And the film starts and I’m watching it, tuned into that. And then about a third of the way into the movie, these two people come up the side and sat beside me, and it was Brad and his girlfriend. And they shook our hands and he said I want to meet you guys at the after party.”
“We got to the after-party and we’re talking to Brad and chatting away to him as I am now,” Donnelly added. “He wasn’t in a rush off to go anywhere else.
“Those sort of experiences: to be able to have my kids experience talking to Brad Pitt, an A-list Hollywood star, those things don’t happen from a guy from West Belfast, you know? That was a very, very special moment for me and that happened because of my accident 35 years ago.”
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