Racing marshals: real heroes who sometimes pay the ultimate price

I did not meet him – when he died I was just 14 – but those who knew him say that he was a truly lovely man, gentle and self-effacing, his North Wales accent soft and lilting. In the fall-out from the tragedy of Kyalami, a few grief-stricken British journalists could not resist scolding Jansen van Vuuren in print, and in a sense you could not blame them. A marshal’s rash error had killed an innocent, popular and gifted driver, after all. On the other hand the result of his mistake – his own death – was a terrible punishment. And, lest we forget, he was only 19, proud and delighted to be working at a grand prix for the very first time.

During the years in which I have been working in F1, three marshals have lost their lives while on grand prix duty. At Monza in September 2000, 33-year-old Paolo Gislimberti was killed by a wheel that flew off Heinz-Harald Frentzen’s Jordan, which had become entangled in a lap-one shunt at the second chicane. At the time of Gislimberti’s death his wife Elena had been expecting their child. Lisa was duly born in December 2000, three months after her father’s passing. Now 23, she follows Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and Alex Albon on Instagram, which I find poignant in the extreme; but it also shows us that, although all lives end, life itself always goes on.

Heartbreakingly soon after that calamity, at Albert Park in March 2001, 52-year-old marshal Graham Beveridge was also struck by a flying wheel, this time one that had detached itself from Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR, which had collided with Ralf Schumacher’s Williams on the approach to Turn 3. The race was won by the elder Schumacher, Michael, who confirmed that Beveridge had died during the post-race press conference. After the deaths of Beveridge and Gislimberti, the FIA decreed that F1 cars’ wheel tethers be strengthened, which regulatory modification was enacted for the following season.

Soon after the end of the 2013 Canadian Grand Prix, 38-year-old marshal Mark Robinson accidentally dropped his walkie-talkie radio, stumbled as he stooped to retrieve it, and fell under the wheels of a six-tonne mobile crane that was being used to recover Esteban Gutierrez’s Sauber, which he had spun off the track on lap 64. Robinson was taken to Montreal’s Sacre-Coeur Hospital, where he died later that evening. A little less than three weeks afterwards, on the Friday before the British Grand Prix, the Silverstone marshals organised a minute’s silence in Robinson’s honour, and many of that year’s F1 drivers attended it. When the minute was up, I remember that they all joined in a spontaneous round of applause.

All three tragedies were caused by freak accidents. But then accidents are by definition freaks. Thankfully, deaths of any kind have been very rare in F1 this century, but motor racing will always be dangerous. The drivers who strut their stuff inside the cockpits are daring, but the marshals who guard them are heroic. What is more, they are unpaid volunteers. So, today, yes, please raise a glass in memory of Tom Pryce, who lost his life at Kyalami on this day 47 years ago. But also toast the lad who died with him, Frederik Jansen van Vuuren, and three of his confederates who perished more recently, Paolo Gislimberti, Graham Beveridge and Mark Robinson. Please also remember their families and friends, who grieve for them still. And never forget that if it were not for men and women like them, there would be no motor racing at all.