Death
In 1986 it looked as if Pironi would make a comeback when he tested for the French AGS team at Circuit Paul Ricard and subsequently, the Ligier JS27 at Dijon-Prenois. He proved that he was still fast enough to be competitive, but coming back to F1 was not truly practical.
His insurance policy had paid out a lot of money based on the fact that that Pironi's legs were injured so badly that he could never return to F1. Had he returned, he would have been legally obliged to pay all the money back.
Pironi decided to turn to offshore powerboat racing instead. On 23 August 1987, Pironi was killed in an accident in the Needles Trophy Race near the Isle of Wight, that also took the life of his two crew members: journalist Bernard Giroux and his old friend Jean-Claude Guenard. Their boat, "Colibri 4," rode over a rough wave caused by an oil tanker, causing the boat to flip over.
A few weeks after Pironi's death, his girlfriend Catherine Goux gave birth to twins. She named them Didier and Gilles, in honour of Pironi and Gilles Villeneuve, who died at the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix five years earlier.
Read more about this topic: Didier Pironi
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The dignity to be sought in death is the appreciation by others of what one has been in life,... that proceeds from a life well lived and from the acceptance of one’s own death as a necessary process of nature.... It is also the recognition that the real event taking place at the end of our life is our death, not the attempts to prevent it.”
—Sherwin B. Nuland (b. 1930)
“Oh, you cold-blooded English. You’ll be the death of me.”
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“Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.
Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.
Happy in death are they only whose hearts have consigned
All Earth’s affections and longings and cares to the wind.”
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