The accident was of aircraft proportions and, unlike when a car skids and then hits a solid object, there was no loss of speed, no deceleration before impact. The Ferrari just kept flying and was airborne for over 100 meters before it slammed down nose first into the earth, buckling the front of the car in on the driver. But the energy was scarcely dissipated and the accident went on and on.
The car catapulted high into the air again and began a series of horrific cartwheels, at one point touching down on an earth bank some distance behind the guard rails on the right side of the entry to Terlamenbocht. On its return to the circuit the uncontrolled red projectile very nearly landed on the following March. Mass was just able to swerve onto the grass to avoid being crushed.
The Ferrari chassis began to disintegrate with pieces flying in all directions. The driver, the seat, and the steering wheel became detached and were hurled nearly fifty meters through the air to the left side of Terlamenbocht and ploughed through two layers of catch fencing. Gilles's helmet flew off and rolled to rest some distance away from his body.
Jochen Mass stopped and rushed over to the gathering crowd. As the black flag was shown around the circuit Didier Pironi halted at the accident scene and ran toward Mass, who turned him around and led him away. Rene Arnoux and Derek Warwick joined them and the shaken drivers walked back toward the pits.
Among the medical personnel attending to Gilles was the President of the FISA Medical Commission, Professor E.S. Watkins, who is on hand for emergencies at each Grand Prix. Also head of Neurosurgery at the London Hospital, Sid Watkins "was very upset ... not because it was in any way avoidable once the circumstances which produced the accident had fallen into place but because I knew him very well. He was always rational and reasonable, a thoroughly nice person to deal with. When I first met Gilles he was extremely polite, a gentleman. I remember he said, 'I hope I never need you.' When I identified his car as we arrived on the scene of the accident ... well, I just thought of those words."
Gradually everyone filtered back into the pits and many drivers hid their feelings behind their helmets as they walked into the paddock behind pit lane. But some didn't and wept openly, among them Alain Prost, who said: "I've lost my motivation for the race. He was my friend."
The last portion of the accident was seen on television monitors and its enormity was immediately apparent. The disaster was shown in endless replays and many people burst into tears on viewing it. Gloom and grief spread along pit row and throughout the paddock. The deeply shocked Ferrari team packed away the equipment and left for Maranello. Marco Piccinini stayed on, saying "a miracle is still possible."
The crash occured at 1:52 p.m. and just eleven minutes later a helicopter took Gilles to the University of St. Raphael Hospital in nearby Louvain. At 5:40 p.m. the doctors at the hospital announced that he was unconscious and suffering from severe injuries to his neck and brainstem, officially a fracture of the cervical vertebrae and the severing of the spinal cord. His vital functions were being maintained by a life support system.
Then came a final official bulletin from the hospital: "Gilles Villeneuve died at 21:12 (9:12 p.m.)."
That day of May 8, 1982 is forever imprinted in the minds of millions of people the world over. And for the racing journalists, who are really fans who get to report on their favourite sport, the Zolder experience was a catastrophe. Many of them sent news of the accident out to the world through their tears. "I distinctly remember crying," says Nigel Roebuck, "and we're not supposed to cry when racing drivers get killed. But Gilles was very important to me as a friend and, quite seriously, I've never felt anything like the same about racing ever since. I very nearly packed it up.
"I was terribly upset to lose a friend, but at the same time I was also losing the one focal point in racing, the one bloke in racing who made it worthwhile. Because it was such an awful time in Formula One, with all the wrangling between FISA and FOCA, so many rows in the pits and the paddock, a lot of acrimony wherever you went. Gilles was the one reason for still going to Formula One races."
The Belgian Grand Prix went on as scheduled, the first race since 1976 that was run without a Ferrari. A proposal that there be a minute's silence for Gilles before the start was rejected on the grounds that it might affect the concentration of the drivers. Before the start Eddie Cheever spoke of the accident: "In a situation like that I know I would have been scared stiff. But I am sure that when Gilles felt his Ferrari take off, his last thought was anger, plain and simple, because he knew that he had spoiled that one quick lap."
"I think Gilles was the perfect racing driver," said Niki Lauda. "He had the best talent of all of us." But Lauda also thought Gilles's propensity for risk-taking was a contributing factor in his accident. “I must say that Villeneuve was perhaps the only driver around who would have chosen the risky option of overtaking a slower car going flat out off the ideal line. The chances of a misunderstanding were simply too great." (A FISA inquiry later attributed the cause of the accident to an error by Gilles and absolved Mass of any blame.)
John Watson won the Belgian race from Keke Rosberg and it was Rosberg who said "Metaphorically, we were all wearing black armbands at Zolder on Sunday."
The next day Rosberg was driving past the Zolder circuit alone. "It's the emptiest place in the world. After all that activity and intensity, there's not a soul about. It's dead. Nothing but litter. And parked out there was Gilles's helicopter. Then it hit me. Very hard.”
- excerpt from Gilles Villeneuve the life of the legendary racing driver
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