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| Professor Sid Watkins - 6 September 1928 - 12 September 2012 |
Wednesday
night brought some sad news to the world of motorsport and especially Formula
One.
The great
medic, Professor Sid Watkins died in a London hospital aged 84 after a short
illness.
The first
indication of his passing came on Twitter at around 9pm, although it took some
90 minutes for official confirmation from a viable source.
Sid was
trending on Twitter throughout the evening and the tributes came flowing in for
him from motorsport illumines like Rubens Barrichello, Ron Dennis and Sir Frank
Williams.
The head of safety
All the
tributes spoke of his greatness as a doctor, his fondness as a man and the way
that he revolutionised safety in Formula One.
Watkins
started out as a medic in the sport in 1978 and stayed on as the prime doctor
for all Grand Prix events until 2004.
Until last
year, he was the Head of Safety at the FIA and was still an honorary member on
the board this year.
He was at the
British Grand Prix back in July, perhaps not looking as perky as he used to be
but still fighting fit and showing his real passion for motorsport.
His death
therefore came as a real shock to me.
The Professor
built up great relationships with many of the drivers. He was the first on the scene on that
horrific weekend at Imola in 1994 to attend and save Barrichello’s life.
Sadly, both
Roland Ratzenberger and the great Ayrton Senna perished later that
weekend.
After
Ratzenberger’s fatal crash, Watkins revealed in his book Life on the Limit, published in the 1990s what he said to the
distressed Senna at the crash site.
He said: “Ayrton,
you’ve won three world championships, you’re the quickest driver and what else
do you need to prove. Why don’t you quit
and I’ll quit and we’ll go fishing together.
Senna’s
response was: “Sid, I can’t quit.”
His campaign was fruitful
24 hours
later, the three-time world champion crashed fatally at the Tamburello corner.
In the phenomenal
Senna movie, Watkins said: “We got
him out of the car and got an airway into him and it became clear to me that
this was going to be a fatal head injury.
“Then, he
sighed and his body relaxed. And I’m not
religious but it felt to me as if his soul had departed.”
Watkins
campaign for safety has seen not a single fatality in Formula One since 1 May
1994.
He attended
to Martin Donnelly when he was lying in the middle of the Jerez circuit in
Spain like a mangled puppet after the Irishman was thrown from his Lotus in
1990.
He also saved
the lives of Erik Comas and Karl Wendlinger, who both suffered head trauma
accidents and his quick-thinking saved Mika Hakkinen’s life after his crash at
Adelaide in 1995.
Hakkinen went
onto win two world championships and had much to be thankful for. Sid Watkins had many friends and no-one could
say a bad word about him.
Formula One
will miss him and he will be profoundly missed by his family. He was a charming, kind and honest man who
was great at his job.
Without Sid
Watkins desire to keep Grand Prix racing safe, motorsport would be in a far
poorer place than it is today.
RIP Sid
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