Ayrton Senna was killed in a crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola

The crash seen around the world

1994 San Marino Grand Prix flashback: Sunday

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The Santerno river rises in the hills south-west of Imola. It winds its way down for 50 kilometres until it reaches the town, which is home to over 68,000 people and to a racing circuit: the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

In April 1994 two men who had raced at the circuit many times before looked down at the river from the first of the track’s 15 corners: Tamburello. They had been testing their cars at the circuit, rounding the corner at over 300kph (186mph), and had become concerned about the concrete wall which separated the bend from the river.

One of the men had crashed at the corner five years earlier. Flames engulfed his car, but men with fire extinguishers quickly arrived at the scene and saved his life.

His companion pointed towards the Santerno. “Look,” he said, “we can’t move the wall, there’s a river behind it”.

The two men agreed there was nothing that could be done about the wall. And with that Gerhard Berger and Ayrton Senna walked away.

Tamburello

Tamburello is an innocuous enough word in Italian: it means ‘tambourine’, and is also the name of a court game similar to squash.

But to the Formula 1 world Tamburello is like Terlamenbocht at Zolder where Gilles Villeneuve died, or the nameless stretch of the Hockenheimring which claimed Jim Clark. It is the place where one of the greatest of them all met an untimely, unthinkable end.

The Imola circuit had been in use for four decades, and by the time it held its first world championship race in 1980 a chicane had been inserted before the start/finish line to reduce the speed of the cars as they approached Tamburello.

But the constant improvements in car design had their inevitable effect and by 1994 drivers were tackling the corner at close to maximum speed without a hint of a lift on the throttle as their cars screamed towards the Tosa hairpin.

It was uncommon to see anyone struggle in the corner unless they were unlucky enough to suffer a technical failure there. When that happened, the consequences were often fearful.

In 1987 a suspected tyre failure sent Nelson Piquet’s Williams into the Tamburello wall, leaving him with concussion and forcing him to miss the race. Then came Berger’s crash in 1989, caused by front wing failure.

Two years later the same happened to Michele Alboreto, who was hospitalised with broken ribs and a deep gash. In 1992 a second Williams driver, Riccardo Patrese, was taken to hospital after crashing at the corner during testing – again a tyre failure was to blame.

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Senna

The subject of safety had been a growing concern of Senna’s for several years. He had befriended Professor Sid Watkins, taken an interest in his work and had a heart-to-heart talk with him following Roland Ratzenberger’s fatal crash in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix on Saturday.

At the drivers’ meeting, held at 11 o’clock on the morning of the race, Berger led the drivers in raising a complaint about the use of a course car to lead the field on the formation lap at the previous race.

He did so at Senna’s urging, as both believed the car was too slow and prevented drivers from being able to get their tyres up to temperature. The decision was taken not to use the course car for the formation lap.

Before leaving the drivers observed a minute’s silence in memory of Ratzenberger. Some of the more experienced drivers had witnessed fatalities before – including Martin Brundle, Michele Alboreto and Andrea de Cesaris. Senna himself had competed in a support race at Zolder in 1982 on the same weekend Gilles Villeneuve was killed. For many others the shock hit them all the harder for being unfamiliar.

While increasingly concerned with safety matters, Senna’s impulse to compete spurred him on, and that side of his life presented him with further challenges. He had agonised over his switch from McLaren to Williams at the beginning of the year, and was still acclimatising to his new environment.

Against expectations Williams had begun the season on the back foot. The FW16 handled nervously, and while Senna had tamed its knife-edge handling to claim three pole positions in a row, he went into the third race of the season point-less. He’d spun out in Brazil and been eliminated at the first corner in Japan – and on both occasions he’d been running second to Michael Schumacher.

Designer Adrian Newey produced a heavily revised FW16 for Imola. The front wing was raised, its wheelbase shortened and the cockpit reshaped to reduce buffeting.

Out on the track, Senna had another spin in the car. He returned to the garage and debriefed race engineer David Brown with the words no one in the team wanted to hear: “It’s worse…”

In contrast Schumacher arrived in Italy with 20 points on the board. Benetton had ironed out many of their problems with their B194 which they had started testing a month earlier than Williams, and seemed to have sussed the new variable of refuelling far better than their rivals.

Still, Senna suspected there was more to it than that. Watching Schumacher’s Benetton in action in Japan he had become convinced the car was using an illegal traction control system. Ahead of the race, Williams stationed commercial manager Richard West on the roof of their garage to film Schumacher’s start in a bid to gather evidence.

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1994 San Marino Grand Prix grid

Almost unnoticed amid the dire events of the previous day, JJ Lehto had made an encouraging return to racing in his first event of the year after being injured in testing. He qualified his Benetton on the third row of the grid, within a second of team mate Schumacher.

The crowd was pleased to find both of their beloved Ferraris within the first three rows. The V12-engined cars were quickest of all through the Tosa speed trap, hitting 334kph (208mph), and had achieved their best combined qualifying performance of the year so far.

The carnage of the preceding days left a single car each from Jordan, Simtek and Pacific on the grid, belonging to De Cesaris, David Brabham and Bertrand Gachot respectively.

1. Ayrton Senna 1’21.548
Williams-Renault
2. Michael Schumacher 1’21.885
Benetton-Ford
3. Gerhard Berger 1’22.113
Ferrari
4. Damon Hill 1’22.168
Williams-Renault
5. JJ Lehto 1’22.717
Benetton-Ford
6. Nicola Larini 1’22.841
Ferrari
7. Heinz-Harald Frentzen 1’23.119
Sauber-Mercedes
8. Mika Hakkinen 1’23.140
McLaren-Peugeot
9. Ukyo Katayama 1’23.322
Tyrrell-Yamaha
10. Karl Wendlinger 1’23.347
Sauber-Mercedes
11. Gianni Morbidelli 1’23.663
Footwork-Ford
12. Mark Blundell 1’23.703
Tyrrell-Yamaha
13. Martin Brundle 1’23.858
McLaren-Peugeot
14. Pierluigi Martini 1’24.078
Minardi-Ford
15. Michele Alboreto 1’24.276
Minardi-Ford
16. Christian Fittipaldi 1’24.472
Footwork-Ford
17. Eric Bernard 1’24.678
Ligier-Renault
18. Erik Comas 1’24.852
Larrousse-Ford
19. Olivier Panis 1’24.996
Ligier-Renault
20. Johnny Herbert 1’25.114
Lotus-Mugen-Honda
21. Andrea de Cesaris 1’25.234
Jordan-Hart
22. Pedro Lamy 1’25.295
Lotus-Mugen-Honda
23. Olivier Beretta 1’25.991
Larrousse-Ford
24. David Brabham 1’26.817
Simtek-Ford
25. Bertrand Gachot 1’27.143
Pacific-Ilmor

Did not qualify:

Paul Belmondo, Pacific-Ilmor – 1’27.881
Rubens Barrichello, Jordan-Hart – 14’57.323

Did not start:

Roland Ratzenberger, Simtek-Ford – 1’27.584

1994 San Marino Grand Prix

While Williams’ covert cameraman was focused on the back of one Benetton as the race started, the other failed to move at all. Car after car missed JJ Lehto but Pedro Lamy was not so fortunate.

Start, Imola, 1994
Chaos broke out soon after the start
The Lotus driver had started 17 places further back and didn’t see the Benetton until he pulled out to pass De Cesaris. His car slammed into the Benetton and an explosion of shrapnel burst into the air. Some of it cleared the debris barrier and nine spectators were injured, one seriously.

While wrecked cars were cleared away the Safety Car was summoned. This came as a surprise to most onlookers – the Safety Car was still novel in F1 20 years ago, the idea having been borrowed from IndyCar racing not long previously. And start-line accidents such as this one had normally prompted a stoppage of the race so the track could be cleared of debris.

Max Angelelli was at the wheel of the Opel Vectra which now headed the field, and the Italian Formula Three champion was driving close to the limit of the car’s abilities. But he was doing one lap in the time it took F1 cars to do two, and Senna drew alongside in a vain attempt to urge the car to move faster.

Angelelli headed for the pits at the end of the fifth lap. Senna’s race engineer David Brown told him the Safety Car was coming in and he radioed back an acknowledgement. It was the last the team heard from him.

The crash

Senna had said in a pre-race interview he didn’t enjoy how the reintroduction of refuelling that year had turned races into a series of sprints. Previously drivers had to manage heavy fuel loads in the early stages of the race, preserving their cars while their handling gradually improved.

Senna led at the restart and Schumacher gave chase. The Benetton driver was scheduled to pit three times and so his car would have been lighter than Senna’s, which was due to make two stops.

Rounding Tamburello once more at full speed Senna hugged the inside of the corner, a stream of sparks flying from the rear of his car, the largest plume appearing as he left the third dark patch of resurfaced tarmac in the middle of the corner.

It was on that same patch of tarmac where, one lap later, Senna’s Williams inexplicably snapped out of control. Theories of varying credibility for what happened in this moment abound, but what is known was that Senna was trying to regain control of the car until the moment of impact.

While millions of people around the world witnessed what happened next, Schumacher had the clearest view of what unfolded at Tamburello on lap seven.

“I saw that Senna’s car was already touching [the ground] quite a lot at the back on the lap before,” he said after the race. “The car was very nervous in this corner, and he nearly lost it.”

“On the next lap he did lose it. The car touched with the skids, went a bit sideways, and he just lost it.”

Senna had enough time to get onto the brakes and reduce his speed to 217kph (135mph). Drivers had survived accidents at higher speeds – it was Senna’s misfortune to be struck by a flying piece of suspension which inflicted a fatal head injury.

That much was clear to Professor Sid Watkins when he arrived at the scene. Just hours earlier he had suggested his friend walk away from the sport, telling him “I don’t think the risk is worth continuing”. The race was stopped and the medical helicopter landed next to the crash scene, waiting to carry Senna away as it had done for Ratzenberger 24 hours earlier.

Amid the chaos and confusion Erik Comas, who had pitted on the first lap, was accidentally released from the pits and came around Tamburello at speed, braking to a stop as he reached the crash scene. He parked his Larrousse facing the helicopter, and could see the medical team working on Sennas’s grievously wounded body.

Two years earlier Senna had come to his aid when Comas had crashed at Spa-Francorchamps. Now he felt powerless to help the man he felt had helped save his life. Comas eventually returned to the pits and took no further part in the race.

As was the case following Ratzenberger’s crash, those watching on television were spared none of the horror. The intrusive and upsetting coverage of the dying minutes of the sport’s most famous driver, appalled and transfixed 200 million viewers worldwide.

Those in the UK watching the race on the BBC were spared the graphic coverage of the accident aftermath. By sheer chance the British broadcaster had chosen the race to bring their own camera to film material in the pit lane for the first time, and so were able to supply alternative footage.

Eventually Senna was put in the helicopter and flown to Maggiore hospital in Bologna. And now, to the surprise of some, the race would continue.

Before the deaths of 1994 Bernie Ecclestone had said a race would be resumed in the event of another fatal accident. Now the contingency plan was being enacted, just as it had after Ricardo Paletti’s death 12 years earlier.

Ecclestone had arrived in race control to impose some order on a chaotic scene. He was given an update on Senna’s conditions from Watkins via the FIA’s press delegate Martin Whitaker, which Ecclestone passed on to Senna’s brother Leonardo. But somewhere along the line Watkins’ report that Senna’s injuries were to his ‘head’ was confused with the word ‘dead’.

Understandably distraught, Leonardo’s grief multiplied as Ecclestone’s original report was corrected, and he was further upset when he learned the race would resume.

The race restarts

In the Benetton hospitality suite, a weeping Schumacher initially told his manager Willi Weber he did not want to race any more. But when the call to resume the race was given, all the drivers bar Comas returned to the grid.

The cars headed around the track on another formation lap. Twice they passed the places where their comrades had fallen – the scarred wall where Ratzenberger had crashed, the bloodstained ground where Senna’s car came to a stop.

If anyone at Williams was still paying attention to how good Schumacher’s starts were, they would have seen him get beaten off the line by Berger, whose V12 out-gunned the Benetton’s Ford V8 on the long drag to Tosa.

While waiting for the restart, Berger noticed he had incurred heavy damage to his front suspension after striking a piece of debris from the Senna crash. It was repaired in time for the restart and he led the first 11 laps.

Of all the drivers on the grid, Berger had the closest connections to Senna, his friend and former McLaren team mate, and to Ratzenberger, his fellow Austrian. This understandably weighed heavily on his mind, and when his car’s handling began to deteriorate due to a broken rear shock absorber he pitted from the lead and retired.

Like Brabham, Hill bravely chose to continue despite his team mate’s serious and unexplained accident. Williams had seen Senna’s broken steering column lying next to the car and took the precaution of disabling the power steering system on Hill’s car.

He also made a good start and lunged down the inside of Schumacher at Tosa on the first lap. The pair made contact and Hill slipped back with a broken front wing which was remedied in the pits soon afterwards.

As the cars could not be topped up with fuel on the grid, Schumacher arrived in the pits for his first of three scheduled refuelling stops just a few laps later. Berger retired soon after and that handed the lead of the race to Mika Hakkinen, for the first time in his career.

It was only ever going to be a temporary situation before Schumacher strode past on his way to a third consecutive victory. But it was joyless triumph, and on this dark day for the sport Nicola Larini also had no cause for cheer despite taking second place, achieving his first podium finish – and the last to date for an Italian in a Ferrari.

In a weekend which had delivered one nasty shock after another, the final trauma occurred on the 44th lap of the combined two-part race. Michele Alboreto, who had not been on the grid for the original start, was accelerating from his pit box when the right-rear wheel separated from his Minardi.

As there was no pit lane speed limit at the time the wheel hurtled from the car, striking three Ferrari mechanics and one from Lotus, before bouncing across the track where it was fortunately not collected by another driver.

Shortly afterwards the sole Jordan of de Cesaris became the last retirement of the race when he crashed at the exit of Tosa. Brabham had already parked his Simtek after feeling a problem develop in his steering.

Christian Fittipaldi lost a likely points finish after a brake failure on his Arrows four laps from home. That allowed Hill to claim the final point after recovering from his troubled restart.

The result was decided on an aggregate of the first five laps prior to Senna’s crash and the subsequent 53-lap race, which further added to the confusion. Schumacher, Larini and Hakkinen attended a sombre podium ceremony.

1994 San Marino Grand Prix result

Pos.No.DriverTeamLapsTime/gap/reason
15Michael SchumacherBenetton-Ford581:28’28.642
227Nicola LariniFerrari5854.942
37Mika HakkinenMcLaren-Peugeot581’10.679
429Karl WendlingerSauber-Mercedes581’13.658
53Ukyo KatayamaTyrrell-Yamaha571 lap
60Damon HillWilliams-Renault571 lap
730Heinz-Harald FrentzenSauber-Mercedes571 lap
88Martin BrundleMcLaren-Peugeot571 lap
94Mark BlundellTyrrell-Yamaha562 laps
1012Johnny HerbertLotus-Mugen-Honda562 laps
1126Olivier PanisLigier-Renault562 laps
1225Eric BernardLigier-Renault553 laps
139Christian FittipaldiFootwork-FordBrakes
15Andrea de CesarisJordan-HartAccident
24Michele AlboretoMinardi-FordWheel
10Gianni MorbidelliFootwork-FordEngine
23Pierluigi MartiniMinardi-FordAccident
31David BrabhamSimtek-FordAccident
34Bertrand GachotPacific-IlmorEngine
19Olivier BerettaLarrousse-FordEngine
28Gerhard BergerFerrariSuspension
2Ayrton SennaWilliams-RenaultAccident
20Erik ComasLarrousse-FordVibration
6JJ LehtoBenetton-FordAccident
11Pedro LamyLotus-Mugen-HondaAccident
32Roland RatzenbergerSimtek-FordDid not start

An Austrian flag

During the race news filtered through about the seriousness of Senna’s condition. But it wasn’t until 6:40pm that the organisers confirmed the staggering news that he had succumbed to his injuries.

An earthquake had struck the motorsport world, and the tremors were soon felt far beyond the perimeter of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari.

Jackie Stewart and son Paul gathered around a television monitor at Silverstone where their F3 team was competing. Not far away at the Rye House kart circuit at Hoddesdon, nine-year-old Lewis Hamilton cried when his father told him his hero was dead. Across the Atlantic in Michigan Emerson Fittipaldi, Brazil’s first world champion, was called in from a test to be given the dreadful news about his countryman.

The shattered remains of Senna’s FW16 was sealed in the garage. Marshals had recovered a small Austrian flag from the cockpit, which Senna had hoped to wave in memory of Ratzenberger after the race.

Fatalities in motor racing did not end with the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola 20 years ago. But this was the moment which prompted the sport to proactively seek new areas for safety improvement, instead of waiting for the next tragedy to point out where improvements needed to be made.

Seventeen years later Berger reflected on his fateful conversation with Senna in an interview with Maurice Hamilton. “Instead of looking at the bigger picture and thinking about adding a chicane, we were just thinking how we could move the wall,” he said.

“I remember we talked about this at the exact place where Ayrton died. I think about this a lot.”

In the days that followed Imola Formula One came under unparalleled media scrutiny. The deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger headed news bulletins and filled front pages worldwide.

The inevitable questions of why the crashes happened and how the fatalities could have been prevented eventually forced the sport to take drastic measures. But as the teams departed Imola there was only deep, numbing shock as they left behind two of the drivers who had gone there with them.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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109 comments on “The crash seen around the world”

  1. What I will never understand though is why the race went on after Roland his accident. I often wonder whether it would be even thought about had Senna been the first casualty instead of Ratzenberger.

    Nice article.

    1. One thing ALL F1 deaths serve as a reminder of is…. The show must go on.

      It’s a sad, sad thing, but that’s unfortunately how it is. I still thing Roger Williamson’s death was a much more glaring example of this syndrome, but Senna’s was also pretty sad, even though they didn’t know he died right away.

      1. It’s a myth that ‘the show must go on’. Actors say that when one of the other actors is ill, not when one of the other actors has just died on stage during the play.

        It was a callous decision to resume the race. It tells you everything you really need to know about Bernie Ecclestone.

    2. Money. The race carried on even when it was obvious that Senna would not survive. A quote from Prof. Watkins claimed there was just too much blood from Senna’s head injury when they removed the helmet.

      1. @shrieker One can see the seriousness of the injury with the blood loss in this video.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMNnDiVohn0

    3. maarten.f1 (@)
      1st May 2014, 15:40

      @ardenflo What I wonder is what would happen today. Back then things were different; news didn’t travel as fast as it does now, and people couldn’t voice their opinions as much (or as easy) as they can do now (using Twitter, FB, etc.). If something like that were to happen today, and they restarted the race, I’m sure the outrage would be huge and immediate through the Internet.

      Money might’ve been the primary force to go on with this, but the drivers chose to go out as well. Perhaps they were pressured by their teams (we’ll probably never know), or perhaps they’re just fearless creatures who will go out regardless of what happens.

      1. One would like ti think that nowadays its inconceivable that a race would just go on like that. But then again, think about Wheldon dying on track only a couple of years back and how long a discussion it was before the Indycar series decided that indeed they would call of the race.

        1. But they did call it off, and more importantly they informed the drivers before the press and asked them whether they wanted to carry on or not. That is something Bernie would never do.

          1. American F1
            1st May 2014, 19:48

            What about le Mans last year? The race went on even after Allan Simonsen crashed and later died, though that was after he had been taken to the hospital.

          2. I suppose it’s different when a race is that long and almost a stand-alone event (I know it’s part of the WEC now, but it’s one of the few races that’s ‘bigger’ than the championship it is a part of).

        2. I think the real change between then and now is that fatalities are much more rare, and so drivers don’t feel they are accepting as much risk as drivers used to (and they aren’t). So in the past when someone died, the drivers were a little more used to it, and could be a little more cowboy about continuing on. They would be shocked and upset to lose a friend and colleague, but may not think so much about their own mortality. If someone died at a race this year, I think the shock would be great to the drivers on a personal level, and they would not want to continue and put ‘racing’ above their lives or the ‘memory’ of the departed. Increased safety means the sport can be about more than just driving despite the costs.

  2. soundscape (@)
    1st May 2014, 13:24

    I’m not sure if it was your intention @keithcollantine, but under “The Crash”, the video you’ve linked is not of the crash at all.

    1. The text around it is talking about the restart. That’s what the video shows.

  3. Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey)
    1st May 2014, 13:31

    To illustrate the impact of the Senna’s death on the world of motorsport, here’s a video of the NASCAR Winston 500 that took place later that day in which commentators and race winner Dale Earnhardt Snr (who himself would later be killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500) pay tribute to Senna.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq6mVAXegyw

    1. I remember watching this. I gained a lot of respect for Dale Earnhardt that day. He paid his respects without any prompting as he held his young daughter in his arms. He had just won his race but took time to pay his respects to Ayrton.

    2. That was the main reason why he was my favorite NASCAR driver. That fact that he was brilliant was completely beside the point. ;)

    3. I had barely even heard of the guy before seeing that video but I have to praise his actions that day. You just have to see the amount of corners around the world named after Senna to see his impact worldwide on motorsports.

    4. Thanks for sharing that, Geoffrey. I had seen that same clip and it is a chilling reminder of how many similarities there are between the careers of Senna and Earnhardt. Two of the giants of motorsport, taken far too soon.

    5. Watching that video of Earnhardt, I was really glad he didn’t say “I hope I never have an accident like that”, or something like that. That would have made that video absolutely horrible.

      RIP Senna. RIP Earnhardt.

  4. * But he was doing two laps in the time it took F1 cars to do two

    I dont call that slow for a Vectra, thats F1 speed :)

    1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
      1st May 2014, 13:41

      I think you’ll find they were using the 1994 Vauxhall Vectra F1 edition, had a twin turbo V16 engine and ground effect ;-)

    2. Another correction @keithcollantine:

      Senna had enough time to get onto the brakes and reduce his speed from to 217kph (135mph).

      It doesn’t state what speed he had reduced the car from.

      1. I think maybe that should say ‘down’ instead of ‘from’.

      2. He was going at more than 300 kmh before hitting the brakes

        1. About 313 kmh on the previous lap.

  5. I think today is a good day to watch Senna the documentary, haven’t seen it before.
    R.I.P. Roland, Ayrton and all the others who have lost their lives in motorsports.

    1. You might feel close to tears if you are a super fan . I didn’t even know of him when I watched it , but felt very sad .

      1. I know exactly what you mean, that’s when I became a fan, even though I was only 2 years old when he past..

    2. If you have Netflix, it’s here
      http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70170051
      Phenomenal movie. What a legend

      1. @chaddy Thank you, I actually watched it on Netflix. It wasn’t available on my country’s Netflix, but luckily there are ways to avoid those IP-based restrictions.

        What a fantastic movie it turned out to be. I’m not a movie guy at all and prefer reading a book or listening a concept album rather than watching a movie, but this one was really well made. I nearly bursted into tears while watching it. Really well done.

  6. Excellent article @keithcollantine

    Over the last few days, I’ve been reading a lot of the press about Imola 1994 and I believe your series covered it the best.

  7. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
    1st May 2014, 13:49

    Today marks twenty years since what was very possibly the worst day of my life. And yet, I have not felt sad this week, and instead I have enjoyed the chance to reminisce about the great man in reading and watching the many tributes. That said, I can only think that it has simply become “trendy” among journalists to try and find a new answer to the question: who is the greatest F1 driver ever? In Sky Sport’s journalist Senna “tribute”, which essentially consisted of saying they “didn’t like” Senna and Lazenby looking utterly confused through the numerous and excruciating anecdotes of Senna’s death (no, not life), Murray Walker, David Tremayne and Maurice Hamilton answered “no” to the question of whether Ayrton was the greatest. In spite of that, all three failed to justify their choice beyond the irrelevant and unsatisfactory remark that he ran Prost off the road in 1990. Schumacher, Prost, Fangio, Lauda and particularly Clark all pose excellent alternatives to Senna, but for me all of them fall short…

    As someone who has had the true privilege of standing beside the racetrack as Ayrton danced past, I can say with all confidence that Senna’s is the talent that would translate best into every era in F1 history. Whether it is 1990, 1970, 2010 or even 1950, Senna in a competitive car would translate into championship success: of that I’m certain. And we must not only admire him for his unrivalled on-track prowess, and remember that gave over $400 million of his own wealth to good causes, and that he is the one that took F1’s appeal global with his huge Brazilian and Japanese fan bases. Through Ayrton, both in his global appeal and in the safety gains triggered by his death, F1 moved into the modern era, and went from the European, even elitist sport that it was in the early 1980s, to the highly accessible and above all safe sport that it is now.

    A rose tinted life? Quite possibly. Ayrton was unquestionably over-simplistic in his politics of fairness, believing that something that something he deemed to be unfair gave him the justification to neutralize the balance à la Suzuka ’90. But does that infringe upon a) his peerless driving ability or b) the rich legacy he left for the motorsport community? Not even slightly…

    1. Lucas Wilson (@full-throttle-f1)
      1st May 2014, 13:51

      COTD my friend :-)

    2. Fantastic comment indeed.
      As you mentioned Sky’s coverage, am I wrong or did they cut out the line about dying a thousand times out of their intro song for this week?

      1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        1st May 2014, 15:09

        @unitedkingdomracing – They did. I noticed it at the time and I couldn’t help but think what a trivial thing to do. If Sky are so concerned by at maximum a smattering of complaints that would have potentially, if inprobably, come about had they not altered the title sequence, they should probably do something about the extortionate price of their services, their terrible customer service, etc.

        1. I though that, but actually, in the normal title sequence the bit they have cut out is “lived a thousand lives”. I really don’t understand why they’ve taken that out. I would regard that as a quote perfectly fitting for Senna.

          1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            1st May 2014, 15:25

            @jleigh – Sky – Your Home of Consistently Terrible Decisions

          2. You are actually right. Because Alistair Griffin changed the lyrics when Sky started using the song in 2012. The thing is I know the original version of the song the BBC used in 2010 much better therefore I thought this line might be the reason but as you pointed out there is no reason to cut out such a line.

          3. @jleigh I hated it. It was so blatant and actually drew attention to the lyrics, which is otherwise slightly innocuous.

            In fact, the change from “died” to “lived” in itself was one I was not particularly fond of, as it was simple political paranoia. I also frowned upon it simply because I like the song in it’s original iteration.

    3. Although this is a great comment, I don’t think you can blame people who hold Suzuka against him. I don’t see why it’s irrelevant.

      1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        1st May 2014, 15:03

        @matt90 – You misunderstand me, I think running Prost off the road in 1990 was an irresponsible and frankly stupid thing to do on the behalf of Ayrton, I simply don’t think it even approaches outweighing what he gave the sport: a global audience, safety, an icon. He all gave F1 the fuel of the modern era: controversy. What has strangely never been addressed by the many books that fruitlessly try to capture Senna’s hugely complex personality in a sharp sentence is how he viewed “fairness”. In 1990 he felt the situation was unfair, and his personal politics, you could argue wrongly told him that he had the justification to redress the balance. With Senna it is all about balance, whether it be on-track or off track, as seen with his huge charity donations, Senna appears to be trying to restore some form of neutral balance. Ultimately he was a flawed genius; compromised both by an all too idealistic view of balance and by the irrationality that ambition breeds. The latter is also true, arguably, of Schumacher (Europe ’94, Jerez ’97, Monaco ’06), of Alonso (Hungary ’07) and of Vettel (Malaysia ’13): are they not still great champions because of that?

        1. Certainly. But it seems like a fair enough reason for a journalist to pick somebody like Clark or Fangio over Senna as the greatest. That is a personal choice, the criteria for which are entirely subjective.

          1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            1st May 2014, 15:19

            @matt90 – Me saying “I think Senna is the best driver because…” is not me saying “Everyone that doesn’t think Senna is the best is wrong…”, my only qualm is that neither Walker, Tremayne or Hamilton properly justified why they ruled Senna out.

          2. is not me saying “Everyone that doesn’t think Senna is the best is wrong…”

            I’m not saying it is.

            neither Walker, Tremayne or Hamilton properly justified why they ruled Senna out.

            But you said they did justify it- by using Suzuka as an example for why. But you make it seem like you don’t think that’s a valid reason.

          3. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            1st May 2014, 16:13

            @matt90 – No, I don’t think that’s a valid argument versus other things he achieved. It’s the University essay test, the lecturer may not agree with your argument, but you get marks, hopefully, for a valid argument, and I don’t think that argument is remotely convincing. OK, they did justify their argument, but not adequately.

          4. That makes no sense to me. If they chose their greatest driver as being somebody with an equally sketchy record, fair enough- that would indeed be flawed. But you said yourself, it was an irresponsible and frankly stupid thing to do. So fair enough if that detracts from the man enough for some people to place him below other great drivers who didn’t have that streak in them when considering their greatest driver- to them the ‘greatest’ driver might be above those things, and Senna was not. Finding it irrelevant when forming your opinion of him is perfectly fine. But it seems odd and unfair to fail to see how that could be important for others when forming

            their

            opinions, which are perfectly entitled to place a higher value on criteria such as the driver’s behaviour to others on track .

          5. Oops, should have been italics rather than blockquote.

          6. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            1st May 2014, 19:32

            @matt90 – I simply feel it is not correct or valid to ignore Senna purely on the basis of Suzuka 1990 – does that sufficiently detract from a) his skill as a driver and b) his contributions to F1 more broadly? For me it simply can’t, and would be like denouncing Alonso’s skill on the basis of his poor and fractious 2007 season, or claiming that Vettel is the world’s best because he managed a podium from the Abu Dhabi pitlane in 2012. Whilst I accept that the criteria by which anyone decides who they think is the best is deeply personal, hinging an argument on a single incident is plain erroneous: that doesn’t mean that their opinion is wrong, simply poorly justified. Had David Tremayne said that Clark was a more organic talent than Senna in that he didn’t have a wealthy Brazilian family supporting his talent, and had Murray Walker (who tends to choose Fangio as his best driver) said that Fangio had shown greater commitment to motor-racing in driving in such a dangerous era, both would have made perfectly valid arguments. So whilst Suzuka 1990 was one of the most significant incidents in F1 history, I can’t help but envisage the red flag of invalidity when someone tries to suggest that outweighs Senna’s contributions to F1 over the course of his ten year career.

          7. does that sufficiently detract from a) his skill as a driver and b) his contributions to F1 more broadly?

            No, but other people rate a driver on more than those 2 factors. I’m sorry but you’re wrong. It is perfectly valid to have one incident colour your impression of somebody.

            hinging an argument on a single incident is plain erroneous

            So how many reasons should they have for saying they don’t rate him as the best? Would Suzuka and one other similar incident be enough? Suzuka and one completely different incident or general quality? More than two reasons? If their choice is close between 2 drivers, it’s almost inevitable that a single incident could make the difference.

            Senna was known to be an unforgiving racer anyway, some might even say too aggressive- that’s a pretty major quality which can define a persons impression of a driver, and Suzuka provides the ultimate example of that.

          8. I can’t help but envisage the red flag of invalidity when someone tries to suggest that outweighs Senna’s contributions to F1 over the course of his ten year career

            Not many people do suggest that though. Something detracting from a driver doesn’t mean it outweighs everything else they did.

          9. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            2nd May 2014, 8:21

            @matt90 – I’m sorry Matt, but that’s ridiculous. If I am to believe you that makes it impossible for me to disagree with the composition and justification of people’s opinions simply because of the personal criteria that people use in forming them. I am providing but one interpretation/response to Tremayne, Walker and Hamilton, and I feel that hinging an argument upon Suzuka 1990 is flawed. Criticizing me for holding such an opinion is every bit as erroneous as calling Tremayne, Walker and Hamilton “wrong” for their opinions.

          10. It isn’t. You’re the one selecting which or how many criteria others can use to form an opinion. It makes an awful lot of sense to find that a ridiculous stance. Your logic has a flaw which I haven’t seen you justify with anything- the journalists did.

          11. And I’m not saying that you can’t disagree with the composition and justification of an opinion. But you could justify why you do- and I really haven’t seen you give a reason that makes any kind of sense to me. Like I said, you seem to think that one incident, whatever it is, shouldn’t be enough to even influence your opinion of someone. That appears to be crux of why you called it irrelevant originally. So how many incidents or character traits would be enough for you to accept the journalists’ thoughts?

            I’m somebody who doesn’t have a ‘greatest driver’. I wasn’t around to see many of the greats in their time, so I don’t have as strong an emotional connection as others might have. I also find it very difficult to form an opinion when F1 itself has changed so much- comparing different eras is a difficult thing. If push came to shove, I might say Senna. Or Clark. Possibly Fangio, but then I feel I have to consider the brief but brilliant Ascari. But if I ever ere away from Senna, I know that an important part of why is that when I look at the drivers’ most controversial moments, when they were most ‘callous’ (not quite the word I’m looking for), Senna has one which the others don’t. If you’re already struggling between 2 ideas, one big thing like that is enough to rank somebody below another. In the same vein, I found it very difficult to pick a best driver from 2010, as all had a similar amount of great drives and mistakes. All it might have taken was a single incident (either better or worse) and my ranking would likely have changed completely- because choosing between different drivers can be difficult and you can find them surprisingly close when they’re in different cars. At least they didn’t operate in different eras so you could see how they raced around one another on the track.

            I’m not saying that Suzuka outweighs everything else he did. I’ve seen comments from people who didn’t appreciate his entire approach to racing, that they saw him as the bad guy and this was the ultimate example. That isn’t what I’m saying, nor what the journalists said. I’m saying it’s a factor, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be.

          12. ‘ere’ should be ‘err’.

          13. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            3rd May 2014, 11:45

            @matt90 – I’m terribly sorry I’ve taken so long to reply. Regarding our debate, I am not setting the amount of factors conducive to a convincing argument, it is simply a debating prerequisite to have more than one example to support your case. I’m sure that three highly experienced journalists like Tremayne, Hamilton and Walker all have excellently justified opinions, but on the show none of them explained their position more than elude to the fact that Suzuka 1990 weakened Senna’s case – something I feel was unproportionately dominant in their cases.

            But, as you say, I have yet to explain why I feel it was used umproportionately, and will do thus. Since the retirement of Stewart, F1 found itself for a number of seasons without an icon, a role that Prost, Lauda and Piquet failed to fill. Senna became that icon, and through driving feats that were, even to the most dispassionate eye, quite simply spectacular, F1’s central figure stepped up and the sport’s brand cemented. And yet, this time audience grew not only in Europe, but in South America and Japan: F1 had, for perhaps the first time, become a truly global sport and not the European, even elitist passtime it was formerly. Senna gave F1 an icon, new markets, media controversy and debate (through incidents like Suzuka 1990) and, following his death, a new safety formula. For me it is unfair to profoundly ignore those contributions in favour of a single incident; an incident that was irrational and ill-advised but anchored the Senna-Prost rivalry as one of the greatest sporting rivalries of all time.

            What do want from a “great” F1 driver? An inconic personality? Check. Incredible behind the wheel? Double check. Devotion? Triple check. To contribute to F1? Well, through the factors I’ve mentioned, that is undeniable. And yet, the opinions of the journalists on the show are certainly more justly supported than the show let on, so what we actually have is a case Sky’s trademark awful editing.

          14. The British Motorsports Press hated Senna even when he was alive. For the audacity he showed “our Nige”.

            It’s petty to hear Murray Walker and the other 2 journalists say they didn’t like a man who they then go on to say was probably the most humane GP driver they had ever seen.

    4. For me Jim Clarke is better than Senna due to the fact that he raced Touring cars and various other sports cars at the same time as F1. He also won the Indianapolis 500.

      1. It’s a shame that virtually all drivers of the last 30-40 years have little opportunity to race multiple categories at once.

      2. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
        1st May 2014, 19:36

        @sonia54 – Jim is a very close second for me: his raw, organic speed is about as close as anyone gets to Ayrton behind the wheel of a racing car.

        1. @william-brierty and @matt90 I have had to read both of your comments back and forth a few times to try to figure out who I agree with and I think you both make valid points. Absolutely there is so much more to Senna than one incident in one race, and while the blokes in question ‘dismiss’ Senna as their all-time greatest that doesn’t mean they have no place in their hearts for Senna for his work both on and off the track. I would say too that if they have an issue with Senna for one incident then they must have no use for MS whatsoever. But I think in reality they probably have a soft spot for him too, so I think this must be about more than just Suzuka 1990.

          1. WilliamB (@william-brierty)
            3rd May 2014, 11:59

            @robbie – Some truly splendid points there, Robbie: a more marvelous third party I could not have asked for! You are of course absolutely right when you way all three show a respect for Ayrton, if not a liking, and question his “greatness” whilst not denying his importance. That said, the fact that all three claim to have never particularly liked Senna and then claim that he is not the greatest, having just spent the entire show proclaiming his importance, shows how important personal encounters are when trying to make even the most objective and dispassionate judgement.

          2. Murray Walker is a hypocrite though. He says he didn’t like Ayrton personally and points to 1990 as a reason why he wasn’t the greatest. And yet in the same breath, Schumacher is his greatest because he likes him, despite the fact Schumacher was guilty of more glaringly dangerous incidents of sabotage than Senna. He just didn’t like Senna – not all journalists did as he didn’t ingratiate himself to them. I prefer listening to people like Niki Lauda, Fernando Alonso who say he’s the greatest. Additionally Mansell always said Senna was tough and ruthless but always felt he was just a hard fair racer.

  8. Ayrton Senna was one of those few drivers who possessed the influential power to be able to inspire change. His personality was often controversial – his antics morally questionable. But one simply cannot deny his importance to the sport, captivating an interest which to this day has never died. And, to me, that is his most important legacy – he was a prominent figure which drew the sport to the attention of new markets.

    And not to mention his sheer brilliance behind the wheel.

  9. “Oh… and Senna, my goodness.” I’ll never forget those words Murray Walker uttered.

    RIP Ayrton.

  10. But he was doing two laps in the time it took F1 cars to do two, and Senna drew alongside in a vain attempt to urge the car to move faster.

    @ Keith Collantine, I think you intended to say “in the time it took F1 cars to do one”. I’m not a grammar Nazi, just a friendly notice.

    Wonderful article. All those that covered the 94 Imola weekend in these few days were great reads.

    1. That would make a Vectra twice as fast as an F1 car :p

    2. Sorry, didn’t notice the comment above.

      Requiescat in pace Ayrton!

  11. I never saw Ayrton race, as I only started following F1 in 1998. When a Dutch F1 magazine ran an article on this weekend, combined with all the great stuff written about him, Senna became a monolithic figure to me, always standing above F1. The drivers I have held in highest regard, Schumacher, Hakkinen, Villeneuve, they all turned out to be very human. But to someone like me, who never witnessed Senna as a person, Senna is a near deity.

    I don’t think I would have been a fan of the driver. But the more I read about the person, the more I feel Brazil and the Senna family were robbed of a great man, rather than F1 of a driving hero. I have not cried many times in my life over someone I’ve never known, but when it comes to Ayrton Senna, sometimes it just gets too much for me.

    Ayrton paid the ultimate price, of which Verstappen (Spa 1996), Schumacher (Silverstone 1999), Firman (Hungary 2003), Kubica (Canada 2007) and many other drivers have benefited massively. I hope that, a generation from now, people won’t debate whether Senna was a fair driver, but remember his legacy in Brazil, and the legacy of the safety measures taken because of his crash.

    I’d also like to spare a thought for Erik Comas. The guy who reasonably thought Senna had saved his life, in a bizarre turn of incidents being sent out to nearly collect the people working on Ayrton. I have a lot of respect for his ability to return to F1 after that, as I can’t even fathom what that must have felt like..

  12. Very good article, although a truly sad week in many respects it’s amazing how much positive energy shines through two decades after losing Roland and Ayrton. Gone but definitely not forgotten. RIP

  13. You hear the term ‘true racer’ and you have to think of Ayrton Senna.

    I don’t feel that he is or was the greatest racing driver of all time. Some of his actions on the circuit certainly does not do any good. Personally I feel that any racing driver that uses his vehicle as a weapon cannot be regarded as the greatest. However, he was probably the fastest driver who has ever lived. Not to mention the excellent work he (and subsequently his sister and now many others) has done in Brazil to help children who have not had the opportunities that other children have had. Many countries could do with their own character with that much charisma and to raise awareness of how things can be sometimes.

    I never got to watch Ayrton race, I was too young to do so. But what Formula One was back in 1997 and in 1998, where names like Damon Hill and David Coulthard were both big names back in that day, and with how the cars and the circuits looked back then, was shaped by the tragic events of that weekend. I never understood why the commentators kept talking about Senna so much until a certain video sharing website came about. I watched a pole position lap of his and I was intrigued buy his ability to drive the car to the very limits of what the car was capable of doing.

    He had and still has a lot of fans around the world. We all enjoy seeing some of his finest drives, like we do with today’s stars, and the stars of before (with what limited footage there is) and the stars of the future too.

    As Alain Prost said, I think the best way to describe Senna is that he was “different”.

  14. Weekend, full of accidents, as if devil himself was there.

  15. Great stuff. I really liked the introduction. Damn that river! A safety inspection consisting of two drivers saying “nope, can’t move the wall” brings home what a different world it was.

    It’s the details I’ve appreciated most about this series: Berger’s suspension damage; Hill’s power steering; the irony of Comas’ situation, and the different fuel loads at the start. Watching video of his last complete lap yesterday (in much clearer pictures than 20 years ago) and knowing what would happen next, it was chilling to see Senna’s car striking so many sparks, but not Schumacher’s.

  16. OmarR-Pepper (@)
    1st May 2014, 15:59

    20 years. But I still remember, as an 8-year-old kid, I had never gotten really shocking news until then. Realizing your favorite driver had died was hard to get, was horribly unreal. It was as if I was expecting somebody to tell me it was just a big confussion.
    Respect to Ayrton, to Roland too.

  17. Great piece once again, Keith.

    Two things:
    *Will you continue doing write-ups for the 1994 season? There were still a few more unfortunate incidents to come which were all part of the growing pains for safety improvements in F1 (Wendliger, Montermini). Also the harsh changes made to Montreal, Spa, and Barcelona.

    *Was there any consideration of using the chicane at Villenueve after Roland’s accident?
    http://tinypic.com/r/2loq54/8

  18. RIP AYRTON SENNA

  19. How exactly did Barrichello register a time of nearly 15 minutes in Q1? The lap on which he had his crash shouldn’t count at all (due to the red flag) even if his wrecked car was carried across the start/finish line after the crash.

    The Wikipedia article for this race mentions that Berger never officially led the race until after Schumacher’s stop due to the aggregate rule.

  20. And now after the 20th anniversary of Roland and Ayrton’s death and reading all about it all week, I can only say that I don’t want to hear about it anymore.

    Now more than ever I want to come back to the present, boring races or not I can’t wait to watch today’s top racing drivers battle it out on track and with the piece of mind that serious injuries, let alone deaths are a thing of the past, all thanks to Senna of course.

    1. Not a thing of the past. In 2012, Maria de Villota had a serious crash while testing for Marussia, and passed away in 2013 at a very young age. We’ve been having several serious crashes (Webber, Kubica, Grosjean), just less injuries, but I do believe the danger is still very present. I think it is because of the slower tracks, slower cars, big run off areas we havent witnessed more of those.

  21. We all miss you but we know you wouldn’t have changed your fate even if you could have. You would see it as gods will.

    R.I.P Ayrton.

  22. SennaNmbr1 (@)
    1st May 2014, 18:36

    Such a sad day. I was 14 and after years of being a Mansell fan all my life, 1993 and his departure to Indycar forced me to refocus. And Senna’s amazing displays in 1993 stunned me and I was a proper fan. So 1994 and Senna in a Williams was going to be THE year. And due to his points deficit to Schumacher the Imola race was pivotal.

    So pivotal that I was lying on my front a couple of feet from the TV for the start of the race. Senna crashed an dI was gutted because my new hero was out of the race – but not out of the car. I turned to my dad, an ex kart racer, who had seen fatal crashes over the years. I asked him why he hadn’t got out of the car. “Just unconscious?” The reply came “This is serious. He might be dead.”

    Yes, despite hearing about Roland Ratzenberger the previous day the thought simply did not enter my head that Senna would be seriously hurt or even dead. He was just knocked out and would be OK. But as the race unfolded and Steve Rider said he had grave head injures the unthinkable was actually true.

    After the race finished I tried to occupy myself, so I played swingball in the garden for the rest of the afternoon. Occasionally I would come in to look at the TV for news updates (no internet in 1994 remember,) until the worst news was confirmed.

    I recorded all the GPs on tape in those days, but I quickly taped over that one with something else because I couldn’t bear to watch it again or even have it as a record.

    An unforgettable day and weekend.

  23. Excellent piece of writing, Keith.

    I remember being numbed the whole afternoon after seeing the crash live on TV. Senna was the greatest, IMO. He was one of those gods you think of as immortal. It shakes you when they die.

  24. I re-watched the videos I recorded back in 1994. The emotions were real and raw again, as was the disbelief that the premier F1 pilot, possibly ever, had met his end.

    In retrospect and in the context of the modern era, the thing that really irritates me about F1 in 2014, and has for some time, is that now it’s all about “the show” and entertainment. I cannot for the life of me understand how Bernie Ecclestone could hope to reasonably tell Senna, or one of Senna’s surviving family members or entourage, how he could be sacrificed on the alter of a “show”. Modern F1 is safer perhaps because of what happened to Senna and Ratzenberger (and Rubens) on that fateful weekend, but there is no doubt that it is a weaker product that will likely never see men of the stature of Senna again. Why would anyone push themselves to the ultimate limit of their ability, risking death, for a show?

  25. Words can’t describe the pain and emotions.

    I think everyone have summed up the emotions and thoughts tremendously well so I need not touch up on that. There is only one thing that I’d add.

    Instead of Senna departing, it could easily had been Prost at Imola. I remember when Prost said that he had a 2 years contract with Williams (’93 and ’94) and since Prost didn’t wanted to share the team with Senna again, he retired for good. Just never thought that way!

  26. This is an excellent sequence of articles, Keith. The research, story-telling and analysis are very good indeed. But I wish you had not included the amateur footage under the heading ‘The Crash’, I assume that is footage of the actual crash. I for one will not watch it, and have never watched the death of Senna. I think we owe him (and every other person who dies in an accident) a measure of respect and not to replay the horror of their last moments; we owe them that dignity.

    1. @timothykatz

      I assume that is footage of the actual crash

      It isn’t!

  27. Alex McFarlane
    1st May 2014, 21:39

    What saddens me most about Senna’s passing is the thought of what he might have achieved as a humanitarian. I have no doubt that, despite being highly successful as a businessman, he would have dedicated a lot of his time to humanitarian work. Of course, the Senna Foundation has done great things since Ayrton’s passing but one wonders what he might have achieved and how many (more?) people he might have helped if he had had time to focus on these things after his racing career was done. That’s what the world lost that day, more than a racing driver.

    Additionally, I would like to add that I also feel somewhat sorry for Alain Prost. Usually made out to be the villain of the rivalry, I think it’s a terrible shame that we never got to see he and Senna fully reconciled away from the competitive pressures of racing. I keep thinking they’d have made a great commentary pairing and it would’ve been great to see them goofing around together as in the early days of the McLaren partnership before things got serious.

    1. More championships , safety campaigns, maybe a good commentator and ofcourse the humanitarain work . Its almost everything that was lost but at least the safety improved .

  28. Wonderful piece Keith, a lot of little details there that i didn’t know about before

  29. I can’t really add anything about Senna or his death that hasn’t been said eloquently by Keith or any other contributor or member here on this site, or indeed many others on this anniversary.

    And without intending any disrespect to Senna at all, I would just like to say that my fondest memory of this dark chapter of F1 history is the fact that despite the worldwide coverage of Senna’s funeral in São Paulo, Max Mosley took an incredibly selfless act by foregoing it for Roland Ratzenberger’s funeral.

    As he later explained, “‘Roland had been forgotten. So I went to his funeral because everyone went to Senna’s. I thought it was important that somebody went to his.”

    I don’t care what anybody’s opinion of Mosley is, but I always consider that to be a really thoughtful gesture coming from someone in his position at the time.

  30. Didn’t know until know anything about the Austrian flag! Cried know like i did 20 years ago!!! You shouldn’t had gone…
    It’s one of the most horrifics weekends ever in sport, ending with the death of a STAR.
    I miss you Senna, miss seeing that Yellow Helmet just eager to pass the other guys, miss seeing Candy Logo in that Toleman-Hart car you drove. Miss that wonderfull driving in the rain at Estoril (my first GP yoiu’r first win), i miss those Japan GP back at 89 and 90, and miss seeing you at Monaco.
    You had that look that few has…Thanks for giving me this F1 love, but it would be, so great if this day 20 years ago dind’t existed…
    Thank YOU

  31. Excellent article Keith, it’s always sad to remember that Ayrton the driver who brought F1 into an all new level and was the reference for all the other drivers died in a such tragic way. Despite the fact that he was a wealthy man that had everything available for him he dedicated all his entire life to this sport which was sometimes cruel and pushed the boundaries to its absolute limit, he also cared about people suffering from poverty especially in Brazil, he cared about racing drivers despite being ruthless on the track. Alex Zanardi remember Ayrton saying that in his first ever GP he was very nervous i think in the debriefing and all the other drivers ignored him Ayrton knew that Zanardi was a rookie, he went to him and said in Italian “Ciao sono Ayrton” and he made him comfortable straight away. For me Senna is one of few athletes in the history that their heritage will last forever, he ranks after Muhammad Ali for me, he had something more than his racing abilities, maybe the combination of determination,will to win and values,principles that he would never back off whatever it may cost him.
    RIP Ayrton and Roland ,their death helped to establish new standards of safety and saved many lives in racing

  32. The most touching part was the Austrian flag . That …… that is just too touching and ironic to ingest . Even today , I watched an old Schumacher video where he says he did not think that Senna was dead and that he just thought Senna was in a deep coma initially before they broke the news . Schumacher says ” I thought it was a coma , I mean if it is a coma it is possible that he is going to be okay as coma is not too dangerous ” . This was also ironic in too many levels.

    1. There was irony on so many levels that its hard to believe that everything that happened was entirely random. Senna was emotionally invested in other drivers’ safety (as evidenced in previous incidents over the past several years before 94) to a point that it affected his psyche at a very deep and religious level. You can see it in his eyes in the Senna movie as he sits on the grid that day. And now to think 20 years later that what transpired served to save so many lives….. its beyond irony. Its completely surreal.

  33. It amazes me that with each anniversary, more and more information/knowledge trickles out to the public. People who were closely involved in the race, the paddock, the media or whoever: more have felt comfortable speaking about the incidents as time has marched on.

    But with all that information comes the folklore. Even in the documentary they included the ESPN commentator talking about how “he didn’t have a broken bone in his body” and that it was just bad luck that a suspension piece made contact with the visor. But that hasn’t been confirmed by those involved medically. There were fractures to the skull caused by the right-front tyre striking the helmet. In fact, there were 3 injuries that on their own would have been fatal and they were caused by the angle the car hit the wall, which funneled the tyre and suspension pieces back over the cockpit. You can see black tyre marks on the edge of the cockpit opening.

    I guess it all adds to the legend and the thousands of “what if” scenarios.

    1. there are images of his helmet which show the hole in the visor where the suspension arm went through.

      http://www.ayrton-senna.com/s-files/picsf03.html

    1. Sorry for the messed up link.

    2. I found that article a couple of years ago. It is good to re-read it every year at this time to remind yourself of what was going on in the background.

  34. Great article.

    But I wish to add one thing, when you say:
    “Fatalities in motor racing did not end with the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at Imola 20 years ago. But this was the moment which prompted the sport to proactively seek new areas for safety improvement, instead of waiting for the next tragedy to point out where improvements needed to be made.”

    Yes and no: after Imola, FIA took very small mesures to improve safety (I don’t remember exactly wich ones). We had to wait for Wendlinger’s crash in Monaco (wich almost took his life): it is only then that FIA (under pressure by newly reborn GPDA) decided to take drastic mesures.

    1. Yes and no: after Imola, FIA took very small mesures to improve safety (I don’t remember exactly wich ones). We had to wait for Wendlinger’s crash in Monaco (wich almost took his life)

      @bebilou That isn’t exactly true, the FIA had quite the opposite problem, they were flooded with ideas post Imola. One of the first things was Airbags, as they had be experimenting with them in the pre-season already, although the idea was never bourne because the airbag had to deploy so quickly to protect a driver travelling at 300+km’s that the rate of inflation of the airbag would actually cause brain damage upon contact with the driver.
      Another measure that was being discussed early on was the raising of the side of the cockpits, but they couldn’t do this too quickly, but did manage to get it in for the Canadian GP I believe. They also were talking about all kinds of tricky things they could do with Active Suspension if it was reintroduced.
      Most of this was discussed prior to the Monaco GP, what you refer to is what actually made it to the cars beyond the discussions. Back in those days they couldn’t build the parts as quick as what they could do now.

      1. Raised cockpit sides only came in to the regulations at the start of the 1996 season, almost 2 years later. However, Sauber, in spite of the extra drag produced, chose to raise the cockpit sides in the Spanish race immediately following their disastrous Monaco race weekend with Wendlinger’s accident.

  35. @keithcollantine Thank you for putting this together. It was very well written and very proper. Today I remember the man and the brilliant drives I witnessed. The outstanding sheer determination in the 93 season when Williams was blowing everyone away will always linger on in my mind. I also remember seeing him in Adelaide in 88 and 89 at the circuit and that is when I became a Senna fan.
    I also believe that his view on politics as stated by @william-brierty in the comments was simplistic. But I also believe Senna was right to treat politics the way he did, he put it all on the line on the track, that is where he did his deals, not with people in the background behind the pit garages like other drivers do, but in front of everyone, where only the other drivers on the track could challenge his statements. As a fan of Senna back in the day, I am sadened by today, but more so, I am happy to remember the great memories I have of him.
    1994 will forever remain burnt into my memories, I am a Schumacher fan, first and foremost, but I remain a Senna fan as well. 1994 saw some crazy highs for me when Schumi won his first WDC, and at the same time I witnessed some tragic losses and this leaves me with some truly tragic and sad memories as well.

  36. Great article; compelling reading.

    I was 7 years old when this happened. I must have watched the race, because I watched every race back then. And I vaguely remember being told afterwards that Senna had died, and seeing it on the news. But I have no memory of the race itself. And I would be lying if I said I mourned, or cried, or anything like that. I just took it on board that sometimes, in F1, the drivers get killed, and that’s the way it is.

    Now, I look back and wish I had reacted more appropriately — more like an adult. I should have felt something, at least. But 7-year olds have disturbingly supple, impressionable, un-adult-like minds. Or at least I did. It did not seem intuitively wrong to me that adults would sometimes be killed in the course of producing entertainment for TV audiences. I had no innate knowledge of how the world works and was learning from experience.

    At that time, I remember I even thought that death scenes in films were sometimes real. After all, they looked so convincing. I thought they wouldn’t be able to fake a death scene that convincingly, so it was just easier for them to kill the actor on camera.

    I don’t know how I arrived at that view, and it seems funny to me now. But it I expect it made sense to me because, at that time, my favourite TV show – F1 – really did work on that basis. Drivers did die, periodically, in the course of producing TV entertainment. So why not actors in other shows too? That’s how the world looked to me as a 7-year old.

    Sometimes I wonder, even today, if F1 is really suitable viewing for a 7-year old.

  37. Just on the various theories, I used to believe that the steering column breaking was to blame, But over time as I’ve read everything thats available & seen the crash again I’ve moved towards believing the official explanation.

    It was clear watching the footage from the previous lap that Senna’s car was hitting the floor more than others, Be it because of a slow puncture or low tyre temps/pressures.
    During the trial the Italian prosecutors said it was clear from the OnBoard shot that the steering column was broken since the start because of the amount of movement in the steering wheel. However when you actually think about it, If that really had been the case then surely a driver of Senna’s experience & any driver with a decent technical feel for the car would have immediately realized something was wrong & stopped the car or at least radioed the team that something felt wrong.

    Something else I remember been talked about was that some repaving work had been done through Tamburello & it was incredibly bumpy on the normal racing line.
    Because of that most of the drivers were going through slightly wider off the normal line to avoid the worst of the bumps. Senna however in the race was running on the normal line & right through the worst of the bumps.

    You can see the difference in line between Senna & Schumacher here from the lap before the crash, Senna right by the kurb with Schumacher about half a car width off it:
    http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/7025/4dln.jpg
    http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/7695/v73c.jpg

    Its noticeable watching that shot just how much Sennas car is bottoming/sparking & bouncing around on the bumps compared to Schumacher.

    Also as this article points out, Schumacher who was in a better position than anybody else said when he got back to the pits & has said repeatedly over the years that Senna’s car was very nervous through Tamburello because of how much it was hitting the floor. He said Senna nearly lost it there the lap before.

    1. Bear in mind that Keith mentioned that Schumacher was running lighter than Senna, as he was planning to do one fewer fuel stops, so this would have reduced the tendency for his car to bottom out and spark.
      My personal belief was that it was the steering column, and I always wondered whether the Italian court proceedings deliberately didn’t outwardly determine this because they thought that to then have to incriminate the Williams team would simply not be a just decision, and not what Senna would have wanted, due to the inherently dangerous act of choosing to go motor racing.
      But I don’t mean to open this debate again – instead, let’s celebrate his brilliance.

  38. Senna meet his end while doing something he trully love , it is surely much better than most people had nowadays , died because sickness caused by eating too much junk fod

  39. Senna was robbed of and in Championships; he was voted by the F1 drivers and heirachy as the greatest (best) driver of all time; he changed the path of F1 during his driving career and after it; who are we to pass judgement on the greatest driver of all time and especially when the man is DEAD. Have respect or hold your opionions to yourself. No one wants to hear your blah blah blah that only a Dung Beetle would appreciate and digest.

    Some reading material for the non believers –
    Article # 1:
    Senna was, as James Hunt once put it, “a truly staggering talent”.
    Number 2 – Juan Manuel Fangio.
    Number 3 – Jim Clark.
    Number 4 – Michael Schumacher.
    Number 5 – Alain Prost.
    Number 6 – Sir Stirling Moss.
    Number 7 – Sir Jackie Stewart.
    Number 8 – Sebastian Vettel.
    Number 9 – Niki Lauda.
    More items…
    Formula 1’s greatest drivers. Number 1: Ayrton Senna – BBC Sport
    http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/20324109

    Article # 2:
    Formula 1’s Greatest Drivers – AUTOSPORT.com – Jacky Ickx
    f1greatestdrivers.autosport.com/
    AUTOSPORT presents the top 40 greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time as voted by over 200 drivers who have raced in the Formula 1 world championship.
    ‎01 · ‎Riccardo Patrese · ‎Gilles Villeneuve · ‎Michael Schumacher

    Article # 3:
    Formula 1’s greatest drivers. Number 1: Ayrton Senna – BBC Sport
    http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/20324109
    Nov 20, 2012 – Senna was, as James Hunt once put it, “a truly staggering talent”. Number 2 – Juan Manuel Fangio. Number 3 – Jim Clark. Number 4 – Michael Schumacher. Number 5 – Alain Prost. Number 6 – Sir Stirling Moss. Number 7 – Sir Jackie Stewart. Number 8 – Sebastian Vettel. Number 9 – Niki Lauda.

    QED

  40. All due respect to F1 Fanatic – you’re a great site.

  41. Very well written.
    Thanks Keith.

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