Roger Williamson

Roger Williamson (born the February 2nd 1948 with Ashby-with-the-Zouch, England, deceased the July 29th 1973 with Zandvoort, Netherlands) was a British racing driver. He found death in an accident which has occurred at the time of GP of the Netherlands.

Biography

Revealed by its titles of champion of Great Britain de Formule 3 (in 1971 and 1972), Williamson reaches the Formule 1 the following year, at the time of the GP of Great Britain, on a March. Qualified in bottom of grid, it gives up as of the first turn, implied in the general pile-up caused by Jody Scheckter.

The bad luck continues it at the time of its second Grand Prix, in Zandvoort, where a puncture dispatches it in the rail at high-speed as of the eighth turn. But the consequences are this dramatic time since its car is turned over and blazes up. Although always conscious, he does not manage to leave his single-seater by his own means. David Purley, which followed Williamson at the time of the accident, stops immediately on the side opposite of the track to carry help to him but its desperate efforts (as well to help it to leave the car as to extinguish the fire) remain vain. When the police chiefs, until there very passive (Purley has even due to tear off an extinguisher of the hands of the one of them) finally manage to extinguish the fire and to turn over March, it is already too late, and Williamson, too a long time private of oxygen, died asphyxiated.

At one period when the accidents fatal in automobile sport regular and were accepted with a certain fatalism, that of Williamson had a particular impact, because retransmis on line on television, new actor of the world of the Grand Prix. The not easily bearable images of the vain heroism of Purley, of the indifference of the others pilot, as of the amateurism of the police chiefs while Williamson suffocated in his car, shocked the general public deeply and contributed to an improvement of safety on the circuits.

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