On April 29, 1994, Rubens Barrichello's Jordan was launched into the tyre wall at the Variante Bassa chicane in Imola at over 200 kilometres an hour. He survived. The paddock noted it, breathed out, and went back to qualifying. Two days later, Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna were both dead. 

In this episode of Chequered Past, we explore what April 29 means in Formula 1 history — a date that turns out to be less about triumph or tragedy than about the moments that precede both. From Patrick Depailler's final Grand Prix victory in 1979, five weeks before a hang-gliding accident ended his career, to Mika Häkkinen's last-lap heartbreak in Barcelona in 2001, to the Red Bull debris that shaped Lewis Hamilton's 2018 championship without anyone noticing — April 29 is a date that keeps issuing warnings. The question the sport has never fully answered is whether it was listening. 

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