, (
February 14 ,
1944 ,
Örebro ,
Sweden -
September 11 ,
1978 ,
Monza ,
Italy ) was a Swedish
Racing Driver .
Ronnie Peterson was born in
Örebro , in the neighbourhood of Almby, Sweden. He developed his driving style at a young age, when he was competing in
Karting , and carried this style forward into
Formula 1 .
He made his
Grand Prix debut, driving for
March , at
Monaco in
1970 . Earlier, after his karting years, he had entered Formula 3 racing in the Svebe, a Brabham-derived Formula car he co-designed with his father Bengt. In
1971 he won the European
Formula Two Championship driving a March, and five Formula One Grand Prix second places earned him the position of runner-up to
Jackie Stewart in
That Year's World Championship . Peterson stayed at March until
1973 , when he signed for
John Player Team Lotus to partner
Emerson Fittipaldi .
His first Grand Prix win was at the
1973 French Grand Prix , held at
Paul Ricard , in a
Lotus 72 . There were three more wins that year, in
Austria ,
Italy and the
United States .
1974 yielded three more victories,
France and
Italy again, but also at
Monaco , the blue riband event of Formula One. After a bad year with Lotus in
1975 , in which the Lotus 76 proved a failure and he reverted to driving the 72F, Peterson drove the first two races of
1976 in the Lotus 77 before rejoining March Engineering, with whom he won yet again in
Italy , driving their 761.
Another poor year in
1977 with the six-wheel
Tyrrell P34B followed, a third place at the Belgian Grand Prix being his best result. Peterson surprised many by leaving
Tyrrell to return to his spiritual home at John Player Team Lotus for
1978 . Two wins followed, in
South Africa and
Austria , the latter won in the innovatory 'ground effects'
Lotus 79 .
The
1978 Italian Grand Prix at
Monza started badly for Ronnie, when in practice he damaged his Lotus 79 race car beyond immediate repair and bruising his legs in the process. Team Lotus possessed a spare 79, but it had been constructed for team-mate
Mario Andretti , and the taller Peterson was unable to fit comfortably inside. The team's only other car was a type 78, last years car, which had been dragged around the F1 circus that season with minimal maintenance.
Come racing time, the grid lined up as normal. The race starter, however, was overenthusiastic and several cars in the middle of the field got a jump on those at the front. The result was a massive crush of cars up to the 'curva grande' corner and all hell broke loose.
James Hunt collided with Peterson, with
Riccardo Patrese ,
Vittorio Brambilla ,
Hans-Joachim Stuck ,
Patrick Depailler ,
Didier Pironi ,
Derek Daly ,
Clay Regazzoni and
Brett Lunger involved in the ensuing melee. (Later on, Hunt, among other drivers, unjustly blamed Patrese for starting the accident, and viewers of Hunt's commentaries of Formula 1 races from 1980-1993 on
BBC Television were regularly treated to bitter diatribes of Patrese when the Italian appeared on screen).
Peterson's poorly maintained and flimsy Lotus went into the barriers hard and caught fire. Though trapped, Hunt, Regazzoni and Depailler managed to free him from the wreck before Peterson received more than minor burns. He was dragged free and laid in the middle of the track fully conscious, his severe leg injuries obvious to all (Hunt later said he stopped Peterson from looking at his legs to spare him further distress). Scandalously, it took 20 minutes before the Italian circuit dispatched medical help to the scene. At the time, there was more concern for the Italian Brambilla (who as a matter of fact was born in Monza), who had been hit on the head by a flying wheel and was slumped comatose in his car (he later recovered and drove on in F1 until 1980). Peterson's life was not, however, seen to be in any danger. The injured drivers were taken to hospital in
Milan and, after a major cleanup job, the race was restarted (for those with undamaged or spare cars at least).
At the hospital, Peterson's X-rays showed he had 17 fractures in one leg and 3 in the other. After discussion with Ronnie himself, the surgeons decided to operate to stabilise the bones.
Unfortunately, during the night, bone marrow from the fractures had got into Peterson's bloodstream forming fat globules on his major organs including lungs, liver, and brain. By daybreak he was in full renal failure and was declared dead a few hours later. The cause of death was given as fat
Embolism .
The tragedy was that Peterson's life would most likely have been saved had he received medical attention immediately after his accident.
Ronnie Peterson ran a total of 123 Grand Prix races during his career and was the winner in ten of them. He is arguably the greatest driver, along with
Stirling Moss and
Gilles Villeneuve , to have never won the
Formula One World Championship .
According to the shops selling flowers in Örebro, there has never been an Örebro funeral with more flowers that the one of Ronnie Peterson. Furthermore, there is a statue of Ronnie Peterson in Örebro, by Richard Brixel. The same artist was asked in 2005 to make a statue of racing driver
Ayrton Senna from
São Paulo , who had also died during a
Grand Prix .
Ronnie Peterson married former top model Barbro Edwardsson in April 1975 and they had one child, a daughter, Nina, born later that year. Barbro never got over his death and committed suicide on
December 19 ,
1987 . She was buried, alongside Ronnie, in the Peterson family grave in
Örebro .
