Stakes he suffered a lot from the pressure exerted in the team by Jarier, an experienced driver, known as the “lead foot”, as fast as he was bulky for Riccardo. Jarier had been hired at the behest of our sponsor, forcing me to cancel the agreement I had reached with Keke Rosberg to bring him to Osella for eighty thousand dollars a season. After a long time, I still think that the pressure Jarier exerted on Paletti was the real cause of theaccident in which our pilot was the victim at the start of that Canadian Grand Prix. As we know, Pironi’s Ferrari failed to start that Sunday, remaining motionless on the grid. Everyone managed to avoid the Ferrari stopped on the track, except Paletti because – that’s what I think – intent on controlling Jarier, having managed to join him. A fatal inattention which did not show him Pironi’s car on its trajectory. The bang was violent. Not even a hint of braking. The rev counter of the Osella remained stationary at the maximum speed allowed by the Cosworth DVF in that phase of maximum acceleration in which third gear had just been engaged. The doctor who performed the autopsy confirmed to me, at the hospital where I had come, that death had come instantaneous following the burst of the aorta, due to the sudden deceleration.
Riccardo could afford to race thanks to the financial support of his father, while he lived with his mother in Milan who followed him in all the races and therefore also that Sunday he was present in the pits, while I was at the wall. Paletti’s car hit the gearbox of Pironi’s Ferrari and the Osella caught fire. The commissioners rushed to the track promptly together with the health service, while I was trying to restrain the mother who wanted to reach the place of the accident where the fire was immediately extinguished. They were terrible moments. How terrible was the moment to call his father in Italy to tell him what had just happened to his son. I could not get in touch directly, so I had to break the news to a person very close to the family, but no one had the courage to tell the extent of the misfortune to the father who had wanted to help his son in that ungrateful career. So much so that his father arrived in Montreal during the night on a private flight and when I went to the airport to welcome him I had to tell him the reality of the situation. The whole team immediately left Canada and I was alone in Montreal with my family until the time of returning to Milan for the funeral. At the end of that troubled season my relationship with Osella also ended. I have the memory of a Riccardo Golden Boy, loyal, a little closed, with a great sense of competitive sport. A memory, that of Riccardo, linked to the Canadian Grand Prix and to this circuit that today bears the name of Gilles Villeneuve.
Gianfranco Palazzoli
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