The BBC recently screened a documentary on the 1955 Le Mans disaster. Pierre Bouillon’s car was launched into the air at high speed from the back of another competitor and caused carnage. The name may be unfamiliar to some because Bouillon raced under the name, Levegh, as did his uncle, Alfred Veighe, a pioneer racer who won the 1900 Paris-Toulouse-Paris race and who was killed in 1904.
Within weeks of viewing the documentary, I saw Mark Webber have a similar accident in Spain, at considerably higher speed, and nobody was hurt. Mark was so unaffected that two weeks later he won the British GP.
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