Formula 1 in the 1980s was terrifyingly dangerous - but getting killed by an animal would have taken things to a whole new level.
Thankfully for McLaren’s Stefan Johansson, he avoided that fate, but only by a couple of feet.
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| Johansson was a huge character in F1, but almost met his maker in the form of a dee |
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| His car and the deer were destroyed in an Austrian cloisonCredit: Reddit |
The Swede was staging his best season in F1 in 1987 against some of the very best to ever do it - Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell to name just three.
Yet his biggest adversary turned out to be a deer in the Austrian hills.
With teammate and title leader Nelson Piquet coming off two straight wins, Johansson needed to get back in the groove at the Spielberg track, but faced an almighty early setback.
During Friday practice, a deer ran out on him and the amount of damage was staggering.
Johansson’s McLaren’s front end was ripped off, and he was lucky to come away with just a broken rib.
Speaking later with his car strewn to bits in the pitlane, he explained: “I came over the brow and didn’t even see it until it was like three metres away from me and I hit it head on.
“It wiped the whole front of the car off, and then I went on and off the road and destroyed the car completely.”
The commentator said he was happy to be alive - unlike the deer - and Johansson confirmed as much when he later reflected on the incident.
“It was very small, thank God,” he said. “Even so, another couple of feet to the left...
“I had no time to react. None. The signal from my brain to brake didn’t even reach my foot it happened that quickly. I was doing 170mph over a brow and the deer’s just sat in the middle of the road.
“It tore off the left-front suspension – there were four gaping holes where the pick-up points had been – and that corner carried back and sliced off the sidepod and rear suspension. The whole left side was pretty much gone.
“It was morning and the grass was moist. In those conditions you accelerate when you leave the track.
"But there was quite a long run-off and so I had plenty of time to think about it. I prefer accidents when you spin and – boof! – you’re in the wall.”
Giving a brief thought to the other party, he added: “Apparently it had been walking around for a while. So it was a mystery why the session hadn’t been stopped.”
Deer are nothing new at the now called Red Bull Ring, but what happened after certainly was.
Johansson got straight back out in McLaren’s third car explaining: “Being strapped in the car was almost like being in a cast and that helped a bit, too.”
However, two more crashes followed on Friday retiring ten more cars, and Johansson was one of them, much to the fury of team boss Ron Dennis.
Yet his team managed to source some spare parts and get him back out the next day where he was even fastest at one point in the wet during qualifying.
Sunday saw a botched start and then a mechanic fail to tighten up his wheel, sending Johansson to the back of the grid, and as he put it: “The whole weekend was a disaster.”
Yet he would go on to stage one of his best F1 drives, climbing up to seventh with the fastest lap despite having a broken rib and car.
Even with a very impressive 12 podiums and 88 career points to his name, his Austria heroics showed a driver who certainly wasn’t out of place on a grid full of Hall of Fame talents.
Yet in the ‘80s such a feat was nothing new, as the Swede finished: “That’s just what you do: get back in it and get back on it. If you start thinking about it, doubting, it’s probably time to stop.”
- Connor Andrews
