Ratzenberger was born in Salzburg, Austria. As a teenager he discovered that racer and Formula Ford team owner Walter Lechner was based nearby, and on finishing his technical school education at eighteen, he joined Lechner's racing school at the Salzburgring.
Ratzenberger began racing in German Formula Ford in 1983. In 1985 he won both the Austrian and Central European Formula Ford championships. He entered the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch in 1985, finishing second, then returned in 1986 to win the event. He also gained brief fame in the UK for the similarity of his name to TV puppet Roland Rat, with whom he appeared on TV-am, with the TV-am branding appearing on his car.
Two years in British Formula 3 with West Surrey Racing and Madgwick Motorsport yielded two 12th-place championship finishes. In 1987 he finished second in a round of the World Touring Car Championship driving a Team Schnitzer BMW M3. In 1988 he entered the final rounds of the British Touring Car Championship in a class B BMW M3 for the Demon Tweeks team.
In 1989 Ratzenberger entered the British Formula 3000 series, finishing third overall, and made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in a Brun Motorsport Porsche 962 shared with Maurizio Sandro Sala and Walter Lechner, which retired in the third hour. He would take part in four further Le Mans races — with Brun in 1991 and with the SARD team in 1990, 1992, and 1993.
In the 1990s he raced primarily in Japan, winning one race each in 1990 and 1991 in the Japanese Sports Prototype Championship with SARD. He also raced in the Japanese Touring Car Championship, finishing seventh in 1990 and 1991 in a BMW M3. In 1991 he tested a CART Lola T91/00 for Dick Simon Racing at Willow Springs. He moved into Japanese Formula 3000 in 1992 with the Stellar team, winning once to finish seventh overall after the team upgraded to a new Lola chassis mid-season, then finished 11th in 1993. His best Le Mans result came in 1993 when he, Mauro Martini, and Naoki Nagasaka finished fifth in a Toyota 93C-V for SARD.
Ratzenberger greatly desired to race in Formula One. He came close to a Jordan seat for the team's inaugural 1991 season — negotiations were at an advanced stage when he lost the financial support of a major sponsor, with the seat going to Bertrand Gachot instead.
In 1994, backed by sponsor Barbara Behlau, a wealthy German who negotiated the deal over the 1993–94 winter, Ratzenberger signed a five-race contract with the new Simtek team, partnering David Brabham. With a very uncompetitive car, he failed to qualify for the season opener at Interlagos. At the TI Circuit in Aida for the Pacific Grand Prix he qualified and finished eleventh — a commendable result, as he was the only driver in the field who had raced at that venue before.
The San Marino Grand Prix at Imola would have been Ratzenberger's third Formula One race. During the first qualifying session on Friday 29 April, he asked Brabham to test his car because the brakes had been troubling him; Brabham's assessment confirmed the issue, which was subsequently resolved. The session was overshadowed when Jordan driver Rubens Barrichello hit a kerb at the Variante Bassa corner; his car, travelling at 225 km/h (140 mph), was sent airborne and hit the tyre barrier. Barrichello sustained injuries to his nose and arm and took no further part in the weekend.
During the second qualifying session on Saturday 30 April, Ratzenberger went off the track at the Acque Minerali chicane early in the session. With his sponsor present for the first time and at the halfway point of his contract, he decided to continue after checking the car. Unknown to him, the incident had damaged his front wing. On a later lap, as he turned into the high-downforce Villeneuve corner, the wing broke and became lodged under the car, which struck the outside wall at 314.9 km/h (195.7 mph).
He was transferred by ambulance to the circuit's medical centre, then by air ambulance to the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna, where he was pronounced dead. He had suffered three individually fatal injuries: a basilar skull fracture (the official cause of death), blunt trauma from the front-left tyre penetrating the survival cell, and a ruptured aorta.
Ratzenberger was the first driver to die at a Formula One Grand Prix weekend since Riccardo Paletti was killed at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix, and the first to die in a Formula One car since Elio de Angelis during testing for the 1986 season. He was also the first Austrian driver to die in a qualifying crash since Jochen Rindt in the 1970 season.
Bernie Ecclestone personally delivered confirmation of Ratzenberger's death to the Simtek team. Ayrton Senna commandeered an official car to reach the medical centre; he learned of Ratzenberger's death from neurosurgeon Sid Watkins. Watkins suggested Senna withdraw from the following day's race; Senna responded "I cannot quit, I have to go on." Ratzenberger's spot on the starting grid was left empty. Paul Belmondo was reported to have been offered the final grid position but declined out of respect and on the grounds that he had not earned the spot.
During the seventh lap of the San Marino Grand Prix, Senna's car ran wide at the Tamburello left-hander and struck an unprotected concrete barrier at 233 km/h (140 mph), sustaining fatal injuries. When track officials examined the wreckage, they found a furled Austrian flag — Senna had planned to raise it after the race in Ratzenberger's honour. The race was won by Michael Schumacher, with Nicola Larini and Mika Häkkinen completing the podium; no champagne was sprayed, out of respect for both Ratzenberger and Senna.
While all active Formula One drivers attended Senna's funeral, only five attended Ratzenberger's: Brabham, Johnny Herbert, Heinz-Harald Frentzen, and Ratzenberger's compatriots Karl Wendlinger and Gerhard Berger. FIA president Max Mosley also attended, noting later: "Roland had been forgotten. So, I went to his funeral because everyone went to Senna's. I thought it was important that somebody went to his." Ratzenberger was buried in Maxglan, Salzburg.
At the subsequent Monaco Grand Prix, the first two grid positions were left empty and painted with Austrian and Brazilian flags to honour Ratzenberger and Senna respectively. Toyota's Le Mans entry later that year, to which Ratzenberger had been contracted, left his name on the car as a tribute, with Eddie Irvine taking his place at the wheel.
During the pre-race drivers' briefing at the San Marino weekend, the remaining drivers agreed to reform the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA), with Senna, Berger, and Schumacher intended as its first directors. The reformed GPDA pressed for thorough safety improvements following the Imola crashes and others during 1994. For 2003, the FIA mandated use of the HANS device, designed to prevent the type of basilar skull fracture Ratzenberger suffered.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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