Sad truth behind Martin Donnelly's haunting real-life crash depicted in F1 Movie: ‘Is this what I'm known for?'

7NEWS

27-07-2025

Almost everything in the blockbuster F1 movie is fictional, but the protagonist's spine-chilling origin story really happened exactly as depicted on screen.
Brad Pitt's 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.
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 257km/h.
The aftermath is one of the most horrifying scenes ever witnessed in motorsport.
Donnelly says he has no memory of the crash, but he told CNN Sports that his car effectively became a bobsled without any steering or braking control prior to the moment of impact.
'The carbon fibre tub shattered like a car bomb, and I went with the energy,' he said.
'I got thrown out by about 60 metres and travelled through the air and along the ground like a rag doll.'
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.
When Watkins flipped open the visor of his helmet, Donnelly's face had turned blue. He was unconscious having swallowed his tongue, had broken many of his bones — including both of his legs — and his internal organs had been so traumatised 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.
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.
Over three decades later, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and the other producers of the movie perused F1 archives to find the crash upon which to base Hayes' narrative arc, a decision that was quickly made once they viewed Donnelly's dramatic incident in Jerez. Hamilton made the call to seek permission, blindsiding Donnelly one Saturday night at home.
'I thought it was going to be one of those cold calls for central heating or double-glazed windows,' he recalled.
'I was quite aggressive ... it's not every day you receive a call from a seven-time world champion!'
When asked what had made him so good as a young racing driver, Donnelly joked with CNN Sports: 'Well it wasn't my good looks, that's for sure.'
So, he could scarcely have imagined that one of Hollywood's biggest heartthrobs would end up playing a character based on his life experience in a movie.
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.
''Hey Brad, if I were you, just 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're going to be both quick and safe',' he recalled saying.
Donnelly said that he never dwelled upon the inherent dangers of high-speed racing.
'If you have something in the back of your mind about having an accident, you're not driving that car at 100 per cent, you're at 99 per cent,' he explained.
'In my mind, (accidents) happened to other drivers, not me.'
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.
'My daughter once did a feature on me at school and said, 'Dad, can you write down all the superstitions you have,' and there were two A4 pages of it. She says, 'Oh my god, dad, you need some help!''
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: 'Is this what I'm known for?'
'I 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,' Donnelly said.
'And then it would drop and be dragged along the ground. For me, that was a reality check because I've never seen it happen.'
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't know would be used until he saw the movie in the cinema.
While he said that he feels 'honoured and privileged that Brad Pitt chose my accident and my life to document', the 61-year-old admitted that the whole thing is bittersweet; his crash came at a cost.
'This is what I've been reenacted for,' he lamented.
'And my friends at the time — Damon Hill, Jonny Herbert, Eddie Irvine, David Coulthard have all gone on to be very successful and very rich. Why wasn't I given a chance to have that? Because when they were my teammates, I kicked their asses!'
But then he stops himself, recalling the fate of one of F1's greatest ever drivers Ayrton Senna.
The Brazilian famously walked to the site of Donnelly's 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.
'I do believe that I could easily have become a world champion but then I come back to reality. I'm still talking to you,' he said.
'My friend Senna is dead. He had all the millions in his back pocket, three-time world champion, but who's he going to share it with?
'His death on May 1st, 1994, was the final nail in the coffin for me to say, 'Hey Martin, look around you, you're in the paddock, you're still involved with the sport that you love. You've got no right to complain'.'