A year after almost losing her life behind the wheel of a race car, former Formula One test driver Maria de Villota was found dead in a hotel room in Seville on Friday.
Spanish police told The Associated Press she died apparently of natural causes. She was 33. De Villota’s manager alerted staff at the Hotel Sevilla Congresos. An autopsy will be carried out. De Villota was seriously injured last year in a crash during testing for the Marussia F1 team in England, losing her right eye and sustaining other serious head injuries that kept her hospitalized for a month.
De Villota, a Madrid native, was the daughter of Emilio de Villota, who competed in F1 from 1976-82. Her family used De Villota’s Facebook page to say “Dear friends: Maria has left us. She had to go to heaven like all angels. I give thanks to God for the year and a half that he left her with us.”
F1 officials and drivers at the Japanese Grand Prix were stunned by her death. “My deepest condolences go to the De Villota family,” said FIA president Jean Todt. “Maria was a fantastic driver, a leading light for women in motorsport and a tireless campaigner for road safety. Above all she was a friend I deeply admired.”
Vettel fastest Sebastian Vettel was fastest in the second practice at the Japanese Grand Prix on Friday. Vettel was 0.168 seconds faster than Red Bull teammate Mark Webber around the Suzuka circuit. Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg was two tenths of a second off Vettel.
