IT WAS ONE of the most horrific crashes in modern Formula 1 racing, and it ended the very promising career of Belfast man Martin Donnelly. Amazingly, though, it didn’t kill him. Looking at the disturbing footage from the Spanish Grand Prix qualifiers at Jerez in 1990, it’s still hard to believe that Donnelly survived.
The scene is currently being replayed at cinemas, in a scene from Senna, the compelling documentary about legendary racing driver Ayrton Senna, who died at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola in 1994. There is Donnelly, motionless in the middle of the track at Jerez, 50 metres away from where his Lotus 102 hit the barrier at 140mph and completely disintegrated. He is still strapped to his seat, which is still attached to part of the car’s bulkhead, and his leg is twisted at a terrible angle behind him.
Donnelly’s injuries were so severe that he was in a coma for seven weeks. “The massive trauma that my body had gone through made it just shut down,” he said in an interview with Autosport magazine last year. “I was given the last rites twice.”
Donnelly was born in Belfast in 1964. His father, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, had been a keen amateur race driver, and often took his son to see the races at Dundrod, Newtownards and Kirkistown. When Martin turned 17, his dad bought him a Crossley 32F Formula Ford, and his racing career was up and running. He won the Irish Formula Ford Festival in 1982, and was both the Formula Ford 2000 Irish champion and the BBC Grandstand winter champion in 1983. That same year, he was offered a place at Queen’s University to study mechanical engineering, and a place on the Van Diemen race team in Norfolk. He moved to Norfolk.
After winning the Grovewood Award in 1985, Donnelly moved up to Formula 3, winning the world championship in 1987. In 1988, he and teammate Jean Alesi joined Eddie Jordan’s team, and enthusiastic motoring journalists were soon dubbing Donnelly the new Nigel Mansell. He made his Formula 1 debut at the French Grand Prix in July 1989; little did he know that, just over a year later, he would be making his final F1 appearance.
While the accident ended Donnelly’s Formula One career, it didn’t keep him out of races. Two and a half years after Jerez, the world’s media watched as he got back into a Jordan racing car at Silverstone. He has continued to race in small club events, and has found other ways to stay in the business – preparing racing cars for the British and European championships, scouting for new talent, and securing sponsorship deals. He also set up his own track academy in Norfolk, training budding young drivers. Most recently, he has taken on management of hotshot Spanish rookie Ramon Pineiro. “He reminds me a lot of myself in my early years,” says Donnelly.
Last weekend, Donnelly was one of the star guests at the Lotus Festival at Snetterton. He still lives in Norfolk with his wife Julie and their three children, Stefan, Charlotte and Owen, and still has to undergo regular treatment for those long-ago injuries. When Donnelly watches Senna, he may feel a tinge of sadness at the memory of his old friend’s untimely death, but also a sense of gratitude at having survived it all
