“Fate was cruel this weekend,” said Gerhard Kuntschik, who has been following the PS circus as a journalist and author for almost 50 years. Less than an hour before his death on April 30, 1994, the reporter spoke to Roland Ratzenberger. “He was in a really good mood and optimistic,” reported Kuntschik. A day later, superstar Ayrton Senna was also killed in an accident.
- From the archive: The almost forgotten misfortune of “Roland Rat”
On the Thursday afternoon before the black weekend, Kuntschik, who has been reporting on motorsports for the Salzburger Nachrichten since the late 1970s, conducted his last long interview with Ratzenberger. The late starter from Salzburg competed in his first season in Formula 1 as a 33-year-old, driving for the underfunded Simtek-Ford racing team. “The debut in Brazil was a complete failure,” Kuntschik (69) recalled in an APA interview about Ratzenberger failing to qualify. But in the second race in Aida, Japan, the former Toyota works driver made it to eleventh place.
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Image: Franz Pammer
Source: Nachrichten
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