Talk:List of Formula One fatalities

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	List of Formula One fatalities is a featured list, which means it has been identified as one of the best lists produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured list on January 7, 2013.
Article milestones Date Process Result December 30, 2006 Peer review Reviewed January 2, 2007 Featured list candidate Promoted May 6, 2010 Featured list removal candidate Demoted September 4, 2012 Featured list candidate Promoted Current status: Featured list

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If you are here to suggest that some drivers shouldn't qualify or that others should qualify please review how Formula One fatalities is defined within the article. This is currently defined as drivers who have died during a FIA World Championship event (including practice, qualifying and the race), and those who have died while driving modern or vintage Formula One cars outside the World Championship. Track marshals and other race attendees who have died as a result of these accidents are not included in the list.. To argue that a driver should/shouldn't be included it may be necessary for you to propose a change to the article's definition of a Formula One fatality. Please review previous attempts at this (in both the archives and current page) before submitting such a request. Thank you.

Abandoned user draft

Please would an interested editor assess the rearranged and added material at User:Gohumanity/List of Formula One fatalities, incorporate what is useful, blank that page as WP:COPYARTICLE, and leave a note here when done? – Fayenatic London 08:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Non-race practice deaths

I personally think it would be good to list all F1 driver deaths that occurred in practice outside a race weekend (although the article lists many, e.g. Elio de Angelis, Peter Revson, etc, it is missing others). For some who is looking for an F1 driver who was killed in a racecar, there's currently no good way to find them. I was looking for Alberto Ascari, but he wasn't here (I found him another way) - I guess because he was killed testing a sports car. I admit the edges are tricky; Bruce McLaren was an F1 driver, but was killed testing a CanAm car. Noel (talk) 21:11, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I think about it, this doesn't have be done with a page - a category would do it. ('F1 drivers killed on track'.) I don't have the energy to set it up, though! :-) Noel (talk) 00:24, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Noel: I'd suggest getting support for the category from other editors before implementing it. You may like to start a conversation at the Formula One WikiProject. DH85868993 (talk) 06:45, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Clark

I do not understand why a two time F1 world champion killed in a motor race in 1968 does not appear on this page. 134.56.172.83 (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because Clark died driving a Formula Two car in a Formula Two race, which doesn't fit the criteria for the list: "This list includes drivers who have died during a FIA World Championship event (including practice, qualifying and the race), and those who have died while driving modern or vintage Formula One cars outside the World Championship." DH85868993 (talk) 14:46, 18 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Page title

'List of formula one fatalities' implies fatalities regarding Formula 1. Marshals are not included so surely the page title should reflect that fact it's just drivers. i.e 'List of Formula One Driver Fatalities' Tangost1 (talk) 23:48, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would review the archived discussions (here, here) before making a new proposal; what you are mentioning is an argument almost as old as the page itself, and most of the main points on either side have probably been ventilated already, so I'd just be careful to make sure I'm adding something genuinely new. Pinging @Bretonbanquet who, on a very cursory skim, has been involved in many of these discussions. Namelessposter (talk) 23:55, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I just didn't expect to have to trawl through stuff from 10+ years ago. I don't know who still edits wikipedia. They might all be dead. Tangost1 (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So, how am I supposed to reply to this discussion. [[1]] 'Non-driver deaths' Beautiful table about spectator deaths. Should be its own page. Tangost1 (talk) 00:03, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It says, 'This is an archive of past discussions about List of Formula One fatalities. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.' That's what I tried to do in the first place! Tangost1 (talk) 00:05, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You don't edit archived discussions, that's a hard no-no. You create a new discussion, link the old discussion you're referring to, ping (via template:ping) the people who previously participated in the discussion, and add a short message to the WikiProject Formula One talk page with a link to the new discussion, saying "here's a discussion that may be of interest to the members of this WikiProject."

But before you do that I would strongly advise you to take a closer look at the past discussions to find out why that table was removed or never implemented in the first place. If there was consensus to include it and then a drive-by editor just removed it without discussion, you can add it back in without discussion. But if there was consensus to remove it, the onus is on you to explain why the consensus was wrong and identify any new circumstances that warrant a change. Chesterton's Fence and all that. Namelessposter (talk) 00:08, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hence why they pinged someone who is still active. I recognise many of the users involved and have only been here a year. Trawling through discussions is an integral part of a discussion-based platform. A short point to add on notifying users is that you would have to ping people on both sides of the argument—only pinging people who agree with you is textbook canvassing. MB2437 01:09, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer painting to MDMA. Tangost1 (talk) 01:30, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why not both? MB2437 01:34, 8 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing concerns

While each entry onto the list contains a source, there is no sourcing for types of event, nationality, circuit, or decade— which is about half of the page. The sourcing at the third paragraph also seems a bit questionable. This is concerning given the fact that this page is a featured list, which is expected to be one of the best lists on Wikipedia.

I would rather not go through the process at WP:FLRC, but the issues need to be addressed in my opinion.

Pinging @NapHit as they were the user who nominated the list most recently (even though that was in 2012).

GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 20:38, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If the information for the lists can be found in the references I think it'd be alright, but we'd need to go hunting for archives of some of the newspaper sources. As for the third paragraph, it'll need a big overhaul. There's probably some articles that talk about fatalities and the numbers of them if anyone wanted to find them, I imagine half of the information is gathered from the sources of individuals. QWisps (talk) 04:46, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I looked briefly for a source that detailed every fatality and it was surprisingly hard. I haven't had a chance to look in depth yet, but I'm skeptical if there's a reliable source that details such as the nationality of every driver fatality has been published somewhere. GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 14:52, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it suitable to find sources that state the nationality of a driver when they passed without it being in a big list of driver fatalities? A practice like that might be considered WP:SYNTH but I have a hunch it might be the only way to source a big table like that. QWisps (talk) 22:27, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably, any source is better than none. Still concerning for a FL though.

I was able to find a source for the decades [2], but it only counts race weekends and not test sessions/historic races.

RacingNews365 has a list with driver names, dates, and locations [3]. It includes testing too. I guess could be used for the circuit count, but not sure if that would count under WP:CALC. It also has a list of fatalities per decade in writing, but just like the previous source, it does not line up with our own list. While I didn't review every entry, I find it interesting that it lists María de Villota; she died a year after a crash during an F1 test, so might qualify for the list. GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 22:52, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Had a quick read of the article and considering an autopsy determined that her cardiac arrest was caused by issues following her crash, she would definitely qualify. It might be better to go through the process of removing it from the featured lists. QWisps (talk) 22:58, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going to give it another day or two to see if anyone else from WPF1 has any ideas on how to save it, but sadly I don't think it's possible. GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 23:16, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the opinion that, so long as it is referenced for the individual drivers, the tables showing by event, decade, nationality and circuit are a simple case of WP:CALC (counting how many of the drivers are British is a simple calcultion. Nothing is simpler than counting. We just need to make sure that we cite that the individual drivers are British) and therefore do not require their own citations. SSSB (talk) 07:39, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does WP:CALC override WP:SYNTH though? We're adding numbers from 52 different sources, not just one (genuinely asking). GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 11:24, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In a word: yes. The first sentence of WP:CALC says "Routine calculations do not count as original research". WP:SYNTH is nothing more than a specific type of original research. SSSB (talk) 11:38, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah alright, that makes sense. I am now realizing how frustratingly vague WP:FLCR is and that there isn't anything comprehensive about sourcing.

My main concern with CALC is that if something is added/changed, the whole article needs to be updated accordingly. This isn't bad, but when people don't do this and it isn't noticed, then the subsequent tables are thrown off. See this diff [4] as an example.

I'm also curious how much of the third paragraph requires sourcing. It's simply restating facts from the tables as prose, so I guess that can be considered WP:CALC too? Once again though, there's a heavy reliance on counting, which isn't a bad thing per se—but still a bit concerning imo. I personally think it's a bit of a stretch but I guess it is in compliance with WP:OR. GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 13:28, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

edit: I'm now realizing that the prose is inaccurate as it also was never updated following that reclassification, which I think shows that point GalacticVelocity08 (talk) 13:48, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]