By HENRY FREDERICKDAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Alex Caffi's 1991 season in Formula 1 driving was dreadful, punctuated by a bad wreck in a practice run for the Monaco Grand Prix that saw his Footwork Porsche shattered in a collision, though somehow he escaped serious injury.
Caffi was asked by RichardsF1.com if he remembered the horrific wreck: You failed to make the grid in the opening rounds and suffered a massive accident during practice at the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. "Do you remember much of the crash?
"No, I don’t remember anything of it," Caffi responded. "Sometimes I watch it on YouTube."
Formula One driver Alex Caffi Caffi was asked by RichardsF1.com if he remembered the horrific wreck in a practice run for the 1991 Monaco Grand Prix: "You failed to make the grid in the opening rounds and suffered a massive accident during practice at the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. "Do you remember much of the crash?"
"No, I don’t remember anything of it," Caffi responded. "Sometimes I watch it on YouTube."
The 1991 season saw the return of Porsche to Formula 1, with Caffi's car outfitted with a v-12 engine in the back. But the car was described as "overweight, underdeveloped and horribly unreliable.Caffi failed to qualify for the first four races of the 1991 F1 season. He then broke his jaw in a road car accident following the Monaco Grand Prix, ironically after he had escaped injury in a serious crash during the race weekend. And so went a bad year for Alessandro "Alex" Giuseppe Caffi, the Formula One driver from Italy, who participated in 75 Grands Prix races overall, debuting on Sept. 7, 1986.
With Caffi out with non-life threatening injuries in the Monaco crash, Footwork turned to Stefan Johansson. When Caffi was ready to get back in the car, he found the team wanting to keep the Swedish replacement instead. Caffi had to seek legal action to get his ride back. But then he failed to qualify for six consecutive races races, before qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, in which he finished 10th. By then, however, Footwork had announced Aguri Suzuki would replace Caffi for the 1992 season.
So Caffi signed on with the new Andrea Moda team. But with registration issues, Caffi was eventually replaced by Roberto Moreno, and Caffi's Formula One career had come to an end. Caffi turned to sports car racing in GTs, FIA Sportscar, and American Le Mans Series.
Motorsports fans are drawn to racing for different reasons: The excitement of speed, skill of drafting & passing; strategies on when to pit for fuel, tires or repairs; the will to win and so forth. Ultimately, though, it's the big crashes like the one here at left from Daytona that fans seem to like more than anything. And though nobody wishes serious injury or death to drivers, crew members, emergency personnel & especially spectators, the sad reality is carnage is always lurking. Despite the latest technology & improvements in aerodynamics of vehicles, driver equipment and enhanced track safety features, the fine line between life & death is always at play in any given sanctioned motorsport. Given that Headline Surfer® puts such an emphasis on racing with Daytona Beach International Speedway, the 24/7 internet news outlet is counting down its listing of the top 1,000 Worst of the Worst motorsports crashes. While on the surface it may come across as gratuitous gore to critics, there can never be enough discussion about the need for constant vigilance in looking at safety improvements.
Henry Frederick is publisher of Headline Surfer, the award-winning 24/7 internet news outlet launched 12 years ago that serves greater Daytona Beach, Sanford & Orlando, Florida via HeadlineSurfer.com. Frederick has amassed more than a hundred journalism industry awards in print & online -- more than all other members of the working press combined in Central Florida since the mid-1990s. He earned his Master of Arts in New Media Journalism with academic honors from Full Sail University in 2019. Having witnessed the execution of serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Florida's death chamber and other high profile cases, Frederick has appeared on national crime documentary programs on Discovery ID and Reelz for his investigative reporting and cops & courts breaking news stories.