Alberto Ascari - Death

Death

His 1955 season started similarly, retiring twice more, the latter of which was an incident in Monaco where he crashed into the harbour after missing a chicane. Four days later, on 26 May, he went to Monza to watch his friend Eugenio Castellotti test a Ferrari 750 Monza sports car, which they were to co-race in the Supercortemaggiore 1000 km race (having been given special dispensation by Lancia). Just before going home to have lunch with his wife Mietta, he decided to try a few laps with the Ferrari. In shirt sleeves, ordinary trousers and Castellotti’s helmet he set off. As he emerged from a fast curve on the third lap the car unaccountably skidded, turned on its nose and somersaulted twice. Thrown out on the track, Ascari suffered multiple injuries and died a few minutes later.

The crash occurred on the Curva di Vialone, one of the track's challenging high-speed corners. The corner where the accident happened, renamed in his honour, no longer exists, having been replaced with a chicane, the Variante Ascari.

Legend has it that Ascari was a very superstitious man and would always insist on using his distinct pale blue crash helmet. On the day he died, his helmet wasn't available, so he borrowed Castellotti's white one. The helmet was at the repair shop, having a new chin strap fitted after the incident in Monte Carlo which saw Ascari's Lancia take a dip in the Monaco harbour.

The eerie similarities between the deaths of Alberto and his father still haunt his fans to this day. Alberto Ascari died on 26 May 1955, at the age of 36. Antonio Ascari was also 36 when he died, on 26 July 1925 (Alberto was only 4 days older). Both father and son had won 13 championship Grand Prix and drove car number 26. Both were killed four days after surviving serious accidents and on the 26th day of the month. Both had crashed fatally at the exit of fast left-hand corners and both left behind a wife and two children. Fans from all across the globe mourned as Alberto Ascari was laid to rest next to the grave of his father in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan, to be forever remembered as one of the greatest racers of all time.

A distraught Mietta Ascari told Enzo Ferrari that "were it not for their children she would gladly have joined her beloved Alberto in heaven".

Another curiosity is that the only other driver to crash into the harbour at Monaco in the circuit's history, Paul Hawkins, also died on 26 May. Hawkins crashed into the harbour 10 years after Ascari, before dying when his Lola crashed into a tree at a Tourist Trophy race at Oulton Park in 1969.