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won the Fuji 1000km in 1990, the Suzuka 1000km in 1991 and came third in the Daytona 24 race in 1992.

In 1992 he returned to Formula 3000 racing but remained in Japan to do so. He finished seventh in the Japanese championship.

Roland hoped to join Eddie Jordan's newly formed F1 team in 1993 but he was unable to get the sponsorship required so remained in Japanese Formula 3000 for another year. He finished eleventh in the 1993 championship.

1994 saw him achieve his ambition and become a F1 driver when he joined the Simtek F1 team. He had been offered the drive for the first five meetings of the season. His continuation after that point depended on finding sponsorship.

Roland Ratzenberger's first F1 meeting was the Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit where he failed to qualify. His next run was at the Pacific Grand Prix held at the Aida track in Japan. He was one of the few F1 drivers to have had experience of this track and despite being a Rookie in F1 racing finished in eleventh place.

The third meeting of the 1994 F1 season was the San Marino Grand Prix at the Imola circuit. The meeting did not start well at the practice session on the Friday Rubens Barachello was injured in a crash and was unable to compete in the rest of the meeting. Determined to improve on his Japanese performance Roland went into the Qualifying session on the Saturday April 30 1994. On one lap he left the track and damaged the front wing of his car. Not realizing the extent of the damage he continued to drive and on the next lap at over 300 kph the front wing broke free to go under the car. With the wing preventing him from maintaining traction Roland Ratzenberger was unable to make a turn and crashed at 314.9 kph into the outside wall. Observers could see that from the movement of his head that the driver had broken his neck. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination showed he had died of a basal skull fracture.

The following morning at the drivers pre-race meeting the F1 drivers arranged to re-form the Grand Prix Drivers' Association with Ayrton Senna, Gerhard Berger and Michael Schumacher named as its directors. The purpose of this association was to campaign for safer tracks and cars particularly with changes to the cars that had been enforced at the start of the season. While they knew accidents were inevitable in their high speed sport the drivers wanted to make them survivable. Just how dangerous their sport had become was emphasized

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