Isnt it interesting that of all the people who have died in F1/Nascar etc a high percentage of them we greats?

Question

Just think there both Ayrton Senna and Jim Clark in F1 and Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR were the last to die in F1 and Nascar respectively and they are arguably the greatest of all time in their race series.

Considering not that many(a lot but still only 27 in F1 and 20 in the various series of NASCAR since 1971) have been killed overall in F1 its funny(not funny haha) that 3 of those killed were among the greatest.

Strange how so many have competed in both series yet it is the 3 of those alone that hold 12 championships between them. Most of those killed were notable drivers before they were killed. Do you think its because many of them just pushed it that bit further?

Answer 1

there was a f1 race in canada were there was 4 former world champions and all four of them hit the wall to retirement that race. even the best have their moments...

Answer 2

Well the safety issues have tighted up since then but whoever got killed they were heroes of sports

Answer 3

Here's a site with a list of all of the drivers that died in F1 from 1954 to 1994 (a 50 year span) starting with Senna's death and working backwards.  A majority of them happened during the qualifying round.  Senna's death, for example, could've been prevented if he retired from the race like he was thinking of doing after Roland Ratzenberger' death just the day before.  FACT: only two drivers listed at this site that have passed on were World Champions (Senna with 3 and Jochen Rindt with 1).  

MISSING FROM THE LIST: Elio de Angelis of Italy; Patrick Depallier of France;  Brian McGuire of Australia; Peter Revson of the USA; Jo Siffert of Switzerland;  Bob Anderson of Great Britain; Gary Hocking of Rhodesia; Ricardo Rodríguez of Mexico;  Giulio Cabianca of Italy; Harry Schell of the USA, Ivor Bueb of Great Britain; Bob Cortner, Jerry Unser (Al Sr.'s brother and Al Jr.'s uncle), Pat O'Connor, and Keith Andrews all from the USA; Eugenio Castellotti of Italy; Bill Vukovich and Manny Ayulo of the USA (yes again); Charles de Tornaco of Belgium; and we finish of with Carl Scarborough and Chet Miller of the USA.

Now, a lot of these unmentioned drivers were the test drivers, and obviously American that had died at Indy.

Answer 4

Roland Ratzenberger died two days before Ayrton Senna during practice for the Imola GP '94 that Senna died.

Senna's accident, afaik, is still unexplained, in any case it was a freak accident, not just his car leaving the track but the unfortunate way he died, is not really attributable to his driving talent but a chain of unlikely circumstances.

You may just not remember all the other driver's. Death was very frequent in the past of F1