{"id":26588,"date":"2025-07-27T05:38:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T05:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26588\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T05:38:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T05:38:14","slug":"f1-the-movie-former-racing-driver-martin-donnelly-had-a-reality-check-seeing-his-near-fatal-crash-recreated-in-brad-pitt-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26588\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 the Movie: Former racing driver Martin Donnelly had a \u2018reality check\u2019 seeing his near-fatal crash recreated in Brad Pitt film"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Almost everything in the summer blockbuster \u201cF1<\/a> the Movie\u201d is fictional, but the protagonist\u2019s spine-chilling origin story really happened exactly as depicted on screen.\n <\/p>\n

\n Brad Pitt<\/a>\u2019s character Sonny Hayes is haunted by a high-speed crash which initially cost him his Formula One dream, but for the man who survived that crash in real life, there would be no Hollywood ending.\n <\/p>\n

\n In 1990, Martin Donnelly was a promising British racing driver with the Lotus Formula One team, but a suspension failure in a practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix sent him hurtling into the Armco barrier at around 160 miles per hour. The aftermath is one of the most horrifying scenes ever witnessed in motorsport.\n <\/p>\n

\"Donnelly's<\/p>\n

\n Donnelly says he has no memory of the crash, but he told CNN Sports<\/a> that his car effectively became a bobsled without any steering or braking control. On impact, \u201cthe carbon fiber tub shattered like a car bomb, and I went with the energy,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI got thrown out by about 60 meters (almost 200 feet) and traveled through the air and along the ground like a rag doll.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Donnelly remained strapped to his seat, coming to rest awkwardly in the middle of the track. As cars navigated their way past him and through the field of debris, the marshals in Jerez waited for the arrival of doctor Sid Watkins, but the assumption was that Donnelly was already dead.\n <\/p>\n

\n When Watkins flipped open the visor of his helmet, Donnelly\u2019s face had turned blue. He was unconscious having swallowed his tongue, had broken many of his bones \u2013 including both of his legs \u2013 and his internal organs had been so traumatized that he would be clinging to life on a respirator and kidney dialysis for weeks. After being helicoptered to hospital in Seville, a priest was summoned to read him his last rites.\n <\/p>\n

\"Donnelly's<\/p>\n

\n Donnelly was lucky to escape with his life and both of his legs, and although he was subsequently able to resume his motor racing career, he never returned to Formula One as a driver. At least, not in real life.\n <\/p>\n

\n Over three decades later, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton<\/a> and the other producers of the movie perused F1 archives to find the crash upon which to base Hayes\u2019 narrative arc, a decision that was quickly made once they viewed Donnelly\u2019s dramatic incident in Jerez. Hamilton made the call to seek permission, blindsiding Donnelly one Saturday night at home.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI thought it was going to be one of those cold calls for central heating or double-glazed windows,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was quite aggressive \u2026 It\u2019s not every day you receive a call from a seven-time world champion!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Donnelly<\/p>\n

\n When asked what had made him so good as a young racing driver, Donnelly joked with CNN Sports: \u201cWell it wasn\u2019t my good looks, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d So, he could scarcely have imagined that one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest heartthrobs would end up playing a character based on his life experience in a movie.\n <\/p>\n

\n Donnelly said it was surreal to find himself filming in a garage at Brands Hatch, with Pitt asking for advice on where to stand and how to enter the car.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201c\u2018Hey Brad, if I were you,\u2019\u201d he recalled saying, \u201c\u2018just stand at the back of the car, walk around it, touch it, just ask the car to be good to you today, pray that you\u2019re going to be both quick and safe.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Donnelly said that he never dwelled upon the inherent dangers of high-speed racing. \u201cIf you have something in the back of your mind about having an accident, you\u2019re not driving that car at 100%, you\u2019re at 99%,\u201d he explained. \u201cIn my mind, (accidents) happened to other drivers, not me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/p>\n

\n Nevertheless, as he described telling Pitt to climb from the left-hand side of the car, he accepted that he has always been a superstitious driver.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMy daughter once did a feature on me at school and said, \u2018Dad, can you write down all the superstitions you have,\u2019 and there were two A4 pages of it. She says, \u2018Oh my god, dad, you need some help!\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In assisting with the production of the movie, Donnelly was forced to relive the most traumatic experience of his life, experiencing it for the first time in the third person. The director recreated the crash and filmed it repeatedly, prompting him to wonder: \u201cIs this what I\u2019m known for?\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI watched them get a mannequin in yellow overalls and a helmet fly out of this car 15 times and all these cameras are taking pictures,\u201d Donnelly said. \u201cAnd then it would drop and be dragged along the ground. For me, that was a reality check because I\u2019ve never seen it happen.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Donnelly said that footage was never used in the final edit, perhaps because nothing could match the intensity of the original television recording, which he said he didn\u2019t know would be used until he saw the movie in the cinema.\n <\/p>\n

\"Damon<\/p>\n

\n While he said that he feels \u201chonored and privileged that Brad Pitt chose my accident and my life to document,\u201d the 61-year-old admitted that the whole thing is bittersweet; his crash came at a cost.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is what I\u2019ve been reenacted for,\u201d he lamented, \u201cand my friends at the time \u2013 Damon Hill, Jonny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, David Coulthard have all gone on to be very successful and very rich. Why wasn\u2019t I given a chance to have that? Because when they were my teammates, I kicked their asses!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But then he stops himself, recalling the fate of one of F1\u2019s greatest ever drivers, Ayrton Senna. The Brazilian famously walked to the site of Donnelly\u2019s accident at Jerez and watched as the rescue teams fought to revive him on the track. They were close, and Senna offered anything he could do to help with his recovery. Four years later, Senna himself was involved in a devastating crash at the San Marino Grand Prix, and he was not so lucky.\n <\/p>\n

\"F1<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI do believe that I could easily have become a world champion,\u201d he said, \u201cbut then I come back to reality. I\u2019m still talking to you. My friend Senna is dead. He had all the millions in his back pocket, three-time world champion, but who\u2019s he going to share it with?\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHis death on May 1st, 1994, was the final nail in the coffin for me to say, \u2018Hey Martin, look around you, you\u2019re in the paddock, you\u2019re still involved with the sport that you love. You\u2019ve got no right to complain.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Facebook Tweet Email Link Almost everything in the summer blockbuster \u201cF1 the Movie\u201d is fictional, but the protagonist\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-26588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}