8 Heartbreaking Moments From The World Of Motorsport

Dale Earnhardt was looking set to claim a clear victory at the 1990 Nascar Daytona 500, but a tyre blowout on the final lap handed it to Derrike Cope instead.

The 2011 Indianapolis 500 ended pretty spectacularly, with rookie J. R. Hildebrand crashing out of potential victory at the final corner to give the late Dan Wheldon first place at the illustrious event. Hildebrand’s damaged car limped across the line in second.

Laguna Seca hosted the 2009 American Le Mans Series finale and saw huge drama in the GT2 class. The No.45 Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister was battling closely with the No.3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen for much of the final part of the race.

It was brilliant to see but it all ended in tears when the Corvette tried to pass the Porsche for the win on the run to the chequered flag, only for Magnussen to get tipped into the barrier just before the finish line. The Porsche won, the Corvette limped across the line second.

The 2016 Indy 500 was won by rookie Alexander Rossi after he conserved his fuel and just made it to the end. In 1999 Robby Gordon was hoping to manage something similar - he was leading with two laps to go, low on fuel and attempting to get to the end. Sadly, in this case he ran out just prior to the final lap and lost the win to Kenny Bräck.

Sebastien Loeb is used to success in the World Rally Championship but that doesn’t make missing out on the Rally New Zealand victory in 2007 by just 0.3 seconds any less painful. It was a brilliant battle for Loeb but while Marcus Gronholm enjoyed the success of victory, Loeb had to settle for second by the second smallest margin in WRC history.

(Skip to the 47-minute mark in the video to see the final part of the rally, or watch the whole thing and enjoy the action!)

The 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours produced a truly heartbreaking moment, when Satoshi Motoyama tried to fix his damaged DeltaWing car at the side of the track. He pulled off track with under 18 hours left to go, unbearably early to retire from the race.

With it being classified as a retirement if a track official touches the car or the driver walks more than a short distance away from it, he desperately tried to repair the DeltaWing himself, speaking to engineers through the fence. However, after two hours he had to give up.

7. Pitstop nightmare

Daniel Ricciardo’s reaction on the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix podium after losing out on victory to Lewis Hamilton summed the race up pretty well for him. He had looked set to take the win - which would have been his first at Monte Carlo, and his first victory since the 2014 season - but it wasn’t to be. At his pitstop, his tyres were not ready for him and he was sat waiting for quite some time, before emerging behind Hamilton and crossing the line in P2. It’s tough to look at that picture of Ricciardo not smiling without feeling upset.

The footage of Nigel Mansell pushing his Lotus F1 car across the line at the 1984 Dallas race, before fainting from exhaustion really is one of those incredible moments you watch in disbelief. It shows just how different racing was back then!

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