Imola at 20: Did the rule changes play a part in F1's horror weekend

By Simon Wright – Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

The fourth instalment of this special week of articles to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Formula One’s darkest weekend involves a look into the rules and regulations that were enforced on the teams at the start of that fateful 1994 season.

It is unfair to say what caused the accident that killed Ayrton Senna. However, Senna for one did warn of concern at the changes made by the sport’s governing body that eliminated the electronic war and ensured driver skill returned to the cars. So, Imola at 20 continues with a look into the rule changes and how much of a part they played in the horror show that was the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

How complacent were the FIA?

The pinnacle of motorsport is Formula One. Teams come and go, drivers arrive and depart and circuits change and evolve over time. The same can be said for the cars designed to blast around some of the fastest tracks in the world.

The FIA had lost control of the costs that were engulfing teams. Five years before Imola 94, more than 40 cars were turning up at Grand Prix weekends, with only 26 of them to start the main event on a Sunday in 1989. Eight cars were already on their way home by the time pre-qualifying ended at 10am on a Friday morning! By 1994, that number had dwindled to just 28.

Two new teams arrived at the start of that particular season but in the previous four years, Brabham, March/Leyton House, Dallara, Fondmetal, AGS, Osella, EuroBrun, Coloni and Zakspeed had all collapsed as racing teams due to financial implications – whilst the historic Lotus team were in crippling debt and France’s number one team, Ligier needed Flavio Briatore’s help to save them from a similar fate.

Having let standards slip greatly when it came to budgets, sweeping rule changes were introduced for 1994. Electronic driver aids were all outlawed, including ABS braking, traction control and active suspension. Whilst the technological affect was making the sport less than appealing in the early 90s, was too much change at the same time too much?

Narrow escapes

Before Imola 94, Formula One had escaped the turbo era with a belief that it was almost impossible to die behind the wheel of a racing car. After the appalling 1982 championship, where two drivers died and Didier Pironi suffered career-ending injuries at Hockenheim, there had just been one fatality since and that was Elio de Angelis during a private test session in France four years later.

However, that didn’t mean to say there weren’t narrow escapes. Both Nelson Piquet and Gerhard Berger had humongous accidents at Imola on the Tamburello corner in the late 1980s that would claim Senna’s life. Erik Comas, Martin Donnelly and Alessandro Zanardi all cheated death in the early 90s and Riccardo Patrese walked away from this massive crash on the pitlane straight at Portugal’s Estoril circuit (video below) during the 1992 race.

There were a feeling though that the cars could be strong enough to anything thrown at them. This was probably part to luck, part to the hard safety work already in place by Professor Sid Watkins and also because of the electronics in the cars.

The active suspension system in particular when it worked did the job, made you fast and seemed to protect the driver from almost invincibility.

Electronic criticism

The competition became distorted when the clever designers at Williams pioneered the active suspension concept. In 1992, they produced a system that left the rest of the field standing. What it basically did was control each side of the car from four different angles and all the driver had to do was put his feet on the accelerator and brake pedal.

Nigel Mansell won the championship with a record (at the time) nine wins in the season but frankly, you could have put any average racing driver in that car and they would have also won the title by a country mile. By the start of 1993, it became clear that if you didn’t have the active suspension technology, you were basically beaten before the year had even begun.

Concerned about increasing corner speeds and pressure from teams who couldn’t develop such clever technology (McLaren being a prime example), active suspension was banned by the FIA at the end of the 1993 championship. When the car worked, it was fine but an active suspension failure for Zanardi during practice for the Belgian Grand Prix nearly killed him. FIA president Max Mosley’s concerns about the technology’s safety seemed to have been vindicated.

Senna was one of those who voiced his displeasure at this electronic war during his late McLaren days. He was fed up of driving his heart out and getting little reward for it. By the time he was off to Williams, his mind seemed to have changed.

Did traction control have to go?

Whilst the banning of active suspension was the only way forward for the sport at the time, traction control was another matter. Sure, it made an ugly noise when cars were braking into bends and accelerating away from them but making too much change sometimes doesn’t work and is extremely risky. The sense was that it was going to be difficult for the FIA to police this.

After early testing signs, despite being the pacesetter, Senna wasn’t happy and warned observers that this would be a season with a “a lot of accidents.” This was a man who wanted traction aids banned a year earlier but now with the team, who had pioneered such software, seemed to have had his head turned by his new employers.

The FIA did struggle to control the traction control effect. Accusations of cheating began from an early stage with Senna himself privately concerned that not all of the banned aids had been taken off the Benetton of Michael Schumacher, who had comfortably won the first two races of 1994. He asked his team principal Frank Williams to protest the results, which Frank decided not to do. Nevertheless, Benetton had now become public enemy number one and with Senna voicing his concerns in the build-up to the Imola race to the public, he had got the media on his side.

Michael Schumacher was the early 1994 pacesetter, but were Benetton bending the rules?

Whilst not fully proven, the allegation is Schumacher’s car (pictured above) had a traction control function within its system, behind a blank menu labelled ‘option 13.’ Anyone who saw his unbelievable getaway at the start of the French Grand Prix later in the year had every right to be further suspicious. Ferrari were also accused of cheating when test driver Nicola Larini made a remark a fortnight before Imola about switching off the car’s traction control system in Japan.

Therefore, whilst the FIA had been keen to get rid of all electronics with immediate effect, they only managed to open up a web of allegations, suspicion and criticism by getting rid of traction and launch control.

Did the rules play their part then?

1994 had already begun with a chain of crashes. JJ Lehto injured his neck heavily during a pre-season testing shunt at Silverstone, whilst Jean Alesi missed two races after damaging his back in a similar kind of crash at the Mugello circuit in Italy. Jos Verstappen, subbing for Lehto had been involved in a colossal multiple pile-up in the first race, with one of his Benetton wheels striking Martin Brundle’s helmet and an ambitious lunge on Karl Wendlinger during the race in Aida had seen Michele Alboreto ride over the Sauber’s front suspension.

The danger signs were there before Imola, so did the rules play their part in the weekend that claimed the life of a rookie and one of the greatest drivers of his generation?

Well many believe it played a role, but how much of a factor was it all? It is dangerous to say it was significant but the changes did make the cars far harder to drive which was fine but had made it much more difficult to control when it came to spins and accidents.

Changes were needed to bring driver skill back to the heart of the sport but perhaps too much alteration and the bickering from the teams, both mid-1993 and early 1994 had not helped in the lead-up to the Imola weekend.

The 1994 regulations were among the biggest and most complex of changes in the sport’s history. It is fair to say they weren’t very popular but to ensure the integrity of racing in later years, it was needed. It is a shame that the longer term benefits couldn’t be seen by all.

Categories: 1994, Accidents, Active Suspension, Ayrton Senna, Benetton, FIA, Imola, Rules, Traction Control, Weekend

Schumi's toughest battle

By Simon Wright - Follow me on Twitter @Siwri88

As fans of the legendary Italian car manufacturer Ferrari gather outside the Grenoble hospital in France to hold a silent vigil, the world of motorsport and particularly Grand Prix racing says a prayer, holds its breath and hopes that the greatest driver of his generation and possibly of all-time pulls through.

Friday, 3 January marked the 45^th birthday of the seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher but he would have known nothing about it. The former Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari and Mercedes GP driver has now been in an induced coma for a week after a skiing accident whilst on a family holiday in the French Alps.

Michael Schumacher faces his toughest battle - this one to survive

This isn’t going to be a piece about why the accident happened, or what might have saved Schumacher’s life, nor will it look into the consequences of skiing in the slopes. This will be looking at Michael Schumacher (pictured) the man, Michael Schumacher the racing driver and now the human being who is fighting for his life in a French hospital as we all hope he makes a complete recovery from the serious brain injuries suffered.

While my recent F1 2013 season review before Christmas was my last regular piece on the sport for this website, I felt this was something I wanted and needed to write about. There is no doubt that Schumacher has his millions of fans around the world and others who put him down as an arrogant, smut and petulant German who would win at all costs, even if that meant bending the rules to do so. However I’m sure we can all unite in saying that he needs to come through this barrier and that he is among the best that have ever driven a Grand Prix car.

The arguments will reign on to who is the greatest. Was it Juan Manuel Fangio at a time where drivers were racing with no safety restrictions and consequently, accidents were often fatal? Was it Ayrton Senna – the iconic Brazilian who showed the first signs of ruthlessness required to become a multiple world champion and died doing what he loved? Is it even Schumacher’s countryman Sebastian Vettel, who is sweeping all before him and could well surpass Michael’s records in the years to come? It is a debate that will rage on for years but Schumacher has to be placed among the best. The stats will back this up too. 91 wins, seven world championships, 68 pole positions, over 1500 points amassed and 308 Grand Prix starts.

As a racing driver, he was extremely competitive and hated losing but also loved a challenge. In 1995, he raced to a second successive title with the unheralded Benetton team, becoming the youngest back-to-back world champion until Vettel arrived. Rather than stick with the Enstone unit, he decided to turn his back on them and accept a new challenge. That was to lead the Prancing Horse of Ferrari back to the top. Ferrari had been in the doldrums for far too long when he arrived for 1996. They hadn’t won a constructors’ title for 13 years, a driver’s title for 17 years and there were tough times such as driveshafts snapping in the pitlane and engines blowing up on the formation lap. Not once did he criticise the team though and he moulded them into a winning breed once again. He deserves great credit for accepting a new challenge and building a team around him.

The near-misses were tough to take but the relief and the pride was always there. When he finally achieved his goal of becoming world champion for Ferrari after victory in a gripping wheel-to-wheel duel with Mika Hakkinen at the 2000 Japanese Grand Prix, the majority were delighted. Formula One is not the same without a winning Ferrari outfit. He then proceeded to crush the opposition for the next four seasons. He won the title in 2002 by late July, 2004 by late August – something that with the number of races nowadays is unlikely even for Vettel to achieve. Even when Ferrari didn’t have the best car in 2003, Schumacher put in some meteoritic performances when required to snare the titles away from McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen and the Williams BMW driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

Of course there were dark moments in his career where he had to win at all costs and I’m sure these are things the great man would regret. His move to take Damon Hill out of the 1994 title decider in Adelaide was a rash moment of desperation; the attempt to eliminate Jacques Villeneuve in Jerez at the 1997 finale was blatant and frankly disgusting – even his own tifosi support were incensed by that rash moment. There was also the worst parking offence of the 2006 season at La Rascasse during the dying moments of qualifying in Monte Carlo when he deliberately stopped his car to prevent other quicker cars stealing his pole position. The dark stains on his character are a real shame as it does taint a great champion.

However, I will remember him more for the epic drives he produced time and again. His drive from 16^th on the grid to win the 1995 Belgian Grand Prix for Benetton; his first win for Ferrari at a wet and soggy Barcelona in 1996 when he didn’t have the best car but won by a mile; the 1998 Hungarian Grand Prix on a qualifying style strategy when McLaren had the measure of his chassis; the classic race with Hakkinen in Japan 2000 and the cameo in his comeback in Canada 2011 when he rolled back some of his prime days with clever overtakes in a car that was well below the standard he normally had underneath his disposal. 

As a man, Schumacher has great respect with the general public. He is a loving family man, who cares deeply about the achievements of his kids and his wife. He also spends a lot of time working for charities now his racing days are done and donating money to good causes. He gives a lot back to more unfortunate people who have suffered worst and that means he has my respect. While I admit that when he was winning all the time, it wasn’t great to watch – I appreciated the success and the ‘Dream Team’ at Ferrari more as history was being carved out, something we are witnessing again today with the Red Bull/Vettel combination.

The whole of the motorsport fraternity is thinking of Schumacher and his family at this horrible time. The tributes from former rivals, ex-team-mates and current competitors have been lovely to see. It shows that F1 and the sport in general is a family and we are all deeply affected when something terrible happens. Schumacher would know that from experience; shown when he broke down in floods of tears during a televised press conference after victory at Monza 2000 as he digested the news of a marshal being killed from injuries sustained in a multiple accident earlier in the race. I just hope Michael can pull through and will be able to see the general love, affection and respect that has been fully evident over the past week.

Ferrari fans show their support for their former hero outside hospital

Last Sunday, things didn’t look good whatsoever and I had almost given up hope with the way the reports were coming through of his injuries. Like the fighting desire he showed on the racing track time and again, the signs from Grenoble (Ferrari fans outside pictured) since 29 December have been slightly more positive. The situation is still critical and there is a long way back to recovery or even a stage where we can confidently say Schumacher is out of life danger. We will probably only know the severity more when the induced coma he is currently in is eased slowly by the hard-working and determined doctors over the next week. It would be a terrible irony that after 19 seasons driving around some of the hardest racing circuits at speeds upto 220mph relatively unscathed that this supremely fit human being succumbed to an impact that eyewitnesses have suggested was no more than 10mph.

My thoughts are with Michael Schumacher and the whole of his family. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed, say some prayers and hope that he comes back from the brink and makes a full recovery. This is his toughest battle yet but having seen him at his prime and peak, I know he can beat this, just like he did to all his rivals when he took the chequered flag in first place so often throughout his career.

Categories: Benetton, Charity, Controversy, Ferrari, France, Grenoble, Injury, Jordan, Michael Schumacher, Skiing