Forty years. Who knows where the time goes? In the midst of one of grand prix racing’s most unpredictable seasons, a friendship pivoted in one controversial afternoon into a deadly rivalry between two of Formula 1’s fastest-ever drivers – and in a matter of weeks ended all too abruptly in a pall of tragedy for both.

Gilles Villeneuve and Didier Pironi couldn’t have been more different as men, yet as fire and ice team-mates at a turbulent Ferrari they still formed a firm bond based on mutual respect and trust, until one betrayed the other in an act of on-track treachery that triggered a devastating spiral. Alain Prost vs Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher vs Mika Häkkinen, Lewis Hamilton vs Max Verstappen… all keynote F1 rivalries. But none is more troubling than Villeneuve vs Pironi, the duel that descended so rapidly into a bitterly intense yet all too brief cold war.

Today, F1 people should know better than to add firewood when rivalries smoulder. They should remember Villeneuve vs Pironi, the high stakes in play and what can be lost when it all becomes too personal. The trouble is, with each passing year there are fewer people in the paddock who stretch back that far, who can remember, who truly understand that F1 now, as it most certainly was then, can still be a matter of life or death.