By Simon Wright – Follow
me on Twitter @Siwri88
There are
some moments where if you were old enough, you will remember where you were
when a historic moment occurred. Events such as the death of Diana, Princess of
Wales, 9/11, 7/7 and Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 probably spring to
immediate thoughts.
Those
connected with the world of sport will have the same when relieving the 2003
Rugby World Cup final, England’s 5-1 football win over Germany two years
earlier and Super Saturday at the Olympics in London. If you can remember, the
same sadly applies to the events of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Motorsport is
dangerous, it always has been and always will be but no-one could predict the
horrific chain reaction of accidents that marred the weekend at the Imola
circuit in April/May 1994. By the end of the weekend, mechanics and spectators
had been hurt, and two drivers had been killed on consecutive days – one of
them perhaps the greatest human being ever to have sat behind a steering wheel
– Ayrton Senna.
20 years on
and in a series of daily posts on Viewing Perspectives – I reflect on San
Marino 1994 as we approach this sad and painful anniversary. Whilst my Formula
One passion has dwindled in the last year, the past can’t be ignored. Coming up
this week, there will be pieces on the rule changes, the pain the Simtek team
had to deal with following Roland Ratzenberger’s death and pay tribute to
Ayrton Senna by choosing his top five races of his career.
However, it
is only appropriate to start this series, Imola at 20 with a lookback at just
what occurred on Friday 29 April, Saturday 30 April and Sunday 1 May 1994.
Early warnings
The paddock
arrived at the popular Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari for the third round of the
1994 championship. German wunderkind Michael Schumacher had comfortably won the
first two events in Brazil and at the TI Aida track under the Pacific Grand
Prix banner.
Championship favourite Ayrton Senna had scored absolutely nothing
in points and was under pressure to deliver. Autosport magazine ran on their
front cover SCHUMACHER 20, SENNA 0 in their preview to the weekend.
Senna was a
previous three-time winner at the track and was desperate to perform, despite
still big concerns about the handling of the evil Williams Renault FW16. He set
the pace in Friday qualifying by some distance but reported to his race
engineer David Brown that the balance was worse than it had been a fortnight
earlier at the tight and twisty Aida track.
Friday
brought a chilling omen though to the weekend’s forthcoming events. Early on in
Friday qualifying, Rubens Barrichello had a massive accident at the Variante
Bassa. The Jordan driver overshot the chicane and somersaulted into the
barriers, narrowly avoiding catch fencing that probably would have killed him.
Despite the ferocity of the accident, Barrichello suffered only minor cuts,
bruises and a broken nose but his weekend was over.
Everyone
hoped that would be the only lucky escape of the weekend but F1’s luck was
about to run out.
Luck runs out on the sport
Around 18
minutes into Saturday’s second qualifying session, 31-year-old Austrian rookie
Roland Ratzenberger left the circuit at the flat-out Villeneuve kink on the
approach to the Tosa hairpin. Ratzenberger was travelling at close to 200mph,
unaware that an excursion on a previous lap had damaged the front wing of his
Simtek Ford. As he went to start his next flying lap, the wing weakened and
fell off exiting Tamburello. With no control on his steering or braking, he
stood little chance.
The impact
was destructive as the wrecked chassis finally reached a stop point at Tosa,
with Ratzenberger slumped in the cockpit and clearly in big trouble. Marshals
quickly gathered around him to prevent any further distressing images to
television viewers around the globe. The fraternity was stunned – Senna close
to tears in the Williams garage when he realised how big the shunt had been. He
went down to the scene of the crash to see the damage for himself.
When he got back, he told Brown and teammate Damon Hill that he had no chance of surviving.
When he got back, he told Brown and teammate Damon Hill that he had no chance of surviving.
Sure enough,
FIA press officer Martin Whittaker had the tough task of confirming the death
of Roland Ratzenberger on arrival at the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna. His
fatality was the first in a Formula One racing car in eight years – the last
being Elio de Angelis perishing at the wheel of a Brabham during a test session
at Paul Ricard, France in 1986. The last driver to die on a racing weekend was
Riccardo Paletti at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix.
Qualifying
did resume but Benetton, Williams and Sauber immediately withdrew from carrying
on that day. Everyone looked lost and wondered what they were doing racing in
these circumstances. Senna claimed a joyless 65th pole position from
Schumacher, Ferrari favourite Gerhard Berger and Hill. If Saturday had been a
hellish day, Sunday would be even worse.
The king of racing is dead
Sunday
morning began with a minute’s silence and the confirmation of the reformation
of the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers’ Association). Three-time world champion Niki
Lauda would chair the new committee with a meeting scheduled to improve safety
from the next event in Monaco two weeks after Imola. Senna, Berger and
Schumacher were among the prime movers.
With Ratzenberger’s
fatal crash still on everyone’s mind, the show must go on and the 25 cars lined
up for the start of the race. Senna looked pensive and very thoughtful on the
starting grid as he sat in his FW16 chassis. This wasn’t a weekend for happy
faces.
At the green
light, there was more trouble. The unsighted Lotus of Pedro Lamy careered into
the stalled Benetton of JJ Lehto on the grid. Lamy’s car was shattered but the
Portuguese driver walked away without injury. Lehto likewise but an errant tyre
from the Lotus vaulted a fence and entered an area where spectators were
located. A policeman and seven fans were injured by the flying debris, although
lightly in comparison to the weekend’s earlier events.
Rather than
choose to halt proceedings, the safety car was deployed whilst marshals cleared
up the wrecked cars and the various pieces of carbon fibre. Senna still led
Schumacher, Berger, Hill and the fast-starting Sauber Mercedes of Heinz-Harald
Frentzen. After five laps at reduced speed, the race restarted again with the
top two breaking away considerably from the chasing pack.
 |
| The wrecked Williams of Ayrton Senna is returned to the pits |
Senna had
been faster than Schumacher all weekend but the Benetton’s aggressive
three-stop strategy plan meant he was keeping up with the Brazilian. Entering
Tamburello on lap seven, Senna’s car went straight on rather than turning to
the left kink of the bend. He was powerless to correct the car and headed
straight for the concrete wall. The Williams rebounded towards the racing
track, stopping just short of the tarmac in a crumpled wreck (pictured being taken back to the pits) with the Brazilian
motionless. The race was stopped.
From an early
stage, it became clear that Senna was at best gravely injured. The accident had
been heavy but he would have walked away unharmed had it not been for a piece
of suspension assembly from the car that broke away and pierced the great man’s
helmet. Professor Sid Watkins and the rest of the medical team got to work and
a helicopter quickly arrived on the circuit. Watkins later revealed that when
he got to the scene, he could see that from Senna’s neurological signs, it
would be a fatal accident.
After 45
minutes of work, Senna was airlifted to hospital in Bologna and the race was
unbelievably restarted. For the record, Schumacher was beaten off the line by
Berger but quickly passed the Ferrari and went on to win by over a minute from
the second Ferrari of Nicola Larini and Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren Peugeot. Berger
retired due to a handling imbalance with his car, whilst Hill finished a lapped
sixth after contact with Schumacher on the first lap of the restart. There was
also another accident in the pitlane that injured mechanics from Ferrari and
Lotus when an errant wheel came off Michele Alboreto’s Minardi after his second
pitstop.
The most
important thing now was to find out Senna’s condition. The news came through
before 6pm UK time that he was clinically dead at the age of just 34, as confirmed by Sky News (video
below).
It had been a
truly terrible weekend and 20 years on – the pain for those closely associated
to both Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna will never go away. Both left
memories and they will never be forgotten by anyone who is involved in the
Grand Prix fraternity today.
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