The Devastating Real-Life Crash That Inspired ‘F1’

In the adrenaline-fueled world of Formula 1 racing, where humans in precision-built machines hurtle across asphalt at up to 200 miles per hour, danger is a constant companion. But few events have captured attention like the 1990 crash that ended the promising racing career of driver Martin Donnelly. Thirty-five years later, the accident—considered one of the most horrific in motorsport history—has been immortalized in the 2025 movie F1, as the key traumatizing event in the main character’s back story. 

An Irish F1 racer on the rise in the late 1980s, Donnelly notched early career milestones with a Formula 3 win at the Macau Grand Prix in 1987 and an F1 debut at the 1989 Arrows Grand Prix, according to industry news site F1 Oversteer. By 1990, he had secured a full-time position driving for the premiere British Formula 1 racing team, Lotus.

On September 28, 1990, during a practice session for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, Spain, Donnelly, then 26, was driving 176 miles per hour when his Lotus 102 suffered a catastrophic suspension failure. 

Upon hitting the wall, the impact was so violent that he was thrown from the shattered chassis, landing on the track with such profound injuries that he was initially presumed dead. 

“The car was quick, the lap times were good, I was pushing hard,” Donnelly said in the F1TV documentary Martin Donnelly: Life on the Edge. “I had everything I had ever dreamed of. And then, through no fault of my own, everything just went dark. I hit the barrier at 176 miles per hour."

“The car exploded and broke in two. My internal organs were all damaged,” the former driver continued. “My femur came out of the side of my leg. And I was lying on the ground, not breathing, because I’d swallowed my tongue. I don’t think the marshals at the time knew how to react, they were trying to feel my wrist for a pulse. I honestly do think they believed I was dead.”

Donnelly credits Sid Watkins, the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) medical delegate and a neurosurgery professor, for saving his life by stabilizing him for hospital transport. In critical condition, Donnelly was read his last rites and spent seven weeks in a coma—but miraculously survived. His Formula 1 driving career, however, did not. 

The crash sent shockwaves through the racing community, and the image of Donnelly’s crumpled body on the tarmac, still strapped in his seat, became a grim symbol of the sport’s ever-present risks. Reflecting on photos of the accident, he revealed to Formula 1’s F1: Beyond the Grid podcast in 2022 that he still has no memory of the crash: “I believe it is me because of the orange helmet, they were my colors.”

After months of extensive physiotherapy, Donnelly was able to walk again, but his injuries were too severe for a return to F1 driving. Donnelly told Beyond the Grid that his left leg, which was shattered, is now an inch and a half shorter than his right, and he has no feeling in it from the knee down. He also said he still suffers from nerve damage in his left toes, a still-broken shoulder blade and a perforated eardrum, adding, “But a lot of it was internal organs—too many to remember.”

Donnelly told Motor Sport in 2010 that after his racing career was cut short, he needed to find a new way to earn a living. “I had no qualifications because I’d given up university to go racing,” he said. “But my racing life had been an education, so I decided to put all that to good use.” 

In 1992, he told the magazine, he set up Martin Donnelly Racing, founded the Donnelly Track Academy, served as a coach and occasionally participated in lower-tier series. The 1994 death of his friend and fellow racer Ayrton Senna during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix also influenced his decision to shift focus. Senna, who witnessed Donnelly’s crash, offered to help the family with “medical experts, money, a plane, anything,” according to the Belfast Telegraph. Donnelly’s crash plays a part in the 2011 movie Senna. 

“The accident, it took everything from me,” Donnelly said in the documentary. “It took my income, my mental health and well-being, my mobility to ever be able to walk right again. It took my dream of ever becoming an F1 world champion… Life can change unexpectedly in an instant. What the accident has taught me is to try to savor every moment as if it’s your last.”