There are mistakes that leave a mark on a life. Moments when you wish the ground would swallow you up, a fate no one wants to star in. But few things in the world of motorsport compare to what happened to the Swede Björn Wirdheim in Monaco during a Formula 3000 race. An error so absurd that it probably cost him his career in Formula 1.
Wirdheim was poised to win the iconic Monaco race after starting from pole, but at that moment he hatched the worst idea of his life: stopping to greet his mechanics. Wirdheim had such a large lead that he wanted to revel in the celebration with his team, but his rival appeared from behind and took the victory.
Wirdheim stopped to celebrate the victory before crossing the finish line
That kind of celebration before the race is finished is more typical of motorcycles, but it has happened in car racing as well. And if you doubt it, ask Björn Wirdheim, who in 2003 during the Monaco F3000 race became the subject of one of the most grotesque memes in the history of motorsport.
The Swede had dominated the entire race from pole, and was ready to cross the finish line. But before doing so, he came up with a disastrous idea: to stop to greet his mechanics, who were celebrating in the stands. Wirdheim slowed down so much that when he tried to accelerate the car was already too low, he hesitated to react and disaster followed.
Danish driver Nicolas Kiesa, who was coming up fast in second place from behind, overtook him right at the finish line and won the race. The expressions on the wall were priceless. Wirdheim had not only gifted away a race, he had lost any shot at Formula 1 with an error that would haunt him for life.
In fact, despite the absurdity, Wirdheim won that edition of the F3000 by a comfortable margin, with three victories and six runner-ups in ten races. But Wirdheim never reached Formula 1. The furthest he got was to be Jaguar’s test driver in 2004, before moving to Champ Car, GTs and eventually LMP2, where he delivered a solid career. He was a good driver. A good driver marked by one mistake.
What’s most curious is that his rival, Nicolas Kiesa, who won that race by chance, eventually made it to Formula 1 in the same 2003 year. When Minardi ran out of Justin Wilson mid-season, they took a look at Kiesa, who had only won that one fortunate Monaco race. Kiesa’s Formula 1 career was brief—five races. But he made it to F1.
And there are times when it’s better to be born with a certain flair than merely being fortunate, and that’s precisely what Wirdheim and Kiesa proved in Monaco in 2003.
Images | YouTube, F3000
