Black weekend in Imola. Ayrton Senna’s death awakened the F1 world from the illusion of safety – CT sport – Czech television

The most talented driver of his generation was put into a go-kart by his father in his early childhood, it is said mainly to improve his poor motor skills and lack of concentration. And little Ayrton totally fell for karting.

So much so that his parents had to repeatedly deal with his troubles when the police caught him behind the wheel in the park or on the road. He knew how to drive a car at the age of eight and left school five years later to devote himself full-time to small single-seaters.

It paid off, he became continental champion at seventeen and after leaving for Europe to pursue his formula dream, he gradually dominated the British championship in three different categories. And the lasso for the F1 super talent didn’t take long.

He was first approached by the legendary Ron Dennis from McLaren, but the later highly successful connection did not yet click on the first try. Senna waited for his debut among the best until the 1984 season, when he sat down in the Toleman single-seater.

The rivalry with Prost defined F1 in the late 1980s

In his first season, Senna won the only three podium finishes in history for the small British team. Including second place in a rainy Monaco Grand Prix, which also saw the birth of his lifelong rivalry with Alain Prost.

In the race, even with a worse car, Senna was able to fight his way from thirteenth place at the start to behind the Frenchman, but then the race was ended due to allegedly too dangerous conditions, which enraged the spirited young man. “I’d get him!” he was still angry long after.

The pious Brazilian, who donated a significant part of his earnings to charity, was changing in the cockpit into a devilishly fast egotist, for whom there was nothing but victory. And the cold-thinking and systematic Prost nicknamed “Professor” was his complete opposite.

Senna was not afraid to take risks, his strong point was driving in the wet. In conditions where other riders slowed down, he still accelerated. He and Prost later formed the best driving pair in history when both raced with McLaren. But the explosive connection lasted only two years.

Senna got into the iconic white and red car through a three-year engagement with Lotus. Although he was able to win with him, he was the best in the overall ranking of the championship, third. And for him there was nothing but first place. “To be second is to be the first not to win,” he often said.

Their duels were among the highlights of car racing in the 1980s and early 1990s. During their time together, they hardly spoke to each other. Senna claimed about the Frenchman that he lost respect for him because he said he only drives for second place.

But Prost did not want to go over the edge. “Ayrton could not be compared to a normal racer. I gradually discovered that his motivation was not just to beat me, but that he wanted to destroy me. And I didn’t want to die in a racing car,” he recalled of his lifelong rival in the book Senna versus Prost.

When colleagues are the biggest rivals

In the first season, McLarens won 15 out of 16 Grand Prix. Eight of them were Brazilian and he became world champion for the first time, although Prost scored more points. But according to the rules of the time, only the eleven best results were counted, and the more reliable Frenchman thus deducted three second places (18 points), while Senna only got four points.

A year later, they switched the order. Senna attacked Prost in the Japanese Grand Prix and ended up colliding with his teammate. Unlike the Frenchman, he finished the race and won, but after an additional disqualification, the title went to Prost before the last race. But it was the last straw for him and he preferred to go to Ferrari.

The following two seasons belonged to Senna, but in 1992, McLaren began to run out of steam. The old field was dominated by rival Williams and the Brazilian was considering retirement from F1. Even with a weaker car, he still finished second behind Prost in 1993, who returned after a one-year break for his fourth and final title.

When the Frenchman then finally said goodbye, a place became available in Williams for Senna, who wanted to sit in the best car at all costs. But due to pre-season rule changes, which, among other things, banned traction control, the blue cars lost their technical lead.

Senna did not finish the first two races, including the Brazilian Grand Prix at home, while his new challenger Michael Schumacher won twice with Benetton. At Imola, Senna needed success at all costs. It is questionable to what extent this had a bearing on his decision to enter a race that perhaps he should not have entered in the first place.

Tragic Imola: Friday warning, Saturday death

The three-time world champion was not the only victim of the black San Marino Grand Prix. Already in training, Senna’s compatriot and close friend Rubens Barrichello crashed heavily. In Saturday’s qualifying, the Austrian rookie Roland Ratzenberger crashed into the barriers and died.

In the event of a death directly on the track, according to the legislation at the time, the race was supposed to be postponed until the accident investigation was completed. And although according to witnesses, the Austrian was practically dead on the spot, he officially succumbed to his injuries only after being transported to the hospital. So the racing weekend continued.

The world of Formula 1 shot the shadow of death after twelve years. Everyone was shaken, but Senna the most. “He collapsed and cried on my shoulder. Never in his career had any rival killed himself,” F1 chief medical officer Sid Watkins recalled of the fateful weekend.

The doctor persuaded him to withdraw from the race, but the Brazilian pilot wanted to continue. “I can’t quit, it’s not possible. Some things are given to us and we can’t change them,” he allegedly replied to Watkins. And Senna found his fate just one day later.

Since Ratzenberger’s accident, the Brazilian has been acting out of the ordinary. He arranged a meeting with Schumacher and ex-McLaren co-driver Gerhard Berger at the next Monaco Grand Prix to discuss increasing driver safety.

Before the start, he even had a long talk with Prost, who was participating as an expert on French television during the weekend. And on the starting grid, he sat in the single seater without his trademark yellow helmet, which was unusual for a superstitious pilot. Whether he had a premonition that he chose to ignore will forever remain a mystery.

Tamburello’s Fatal Bend

It was the ambitious Schumacher who chased Senna’s Williams from the start on the fateful Sunday in Imola. The seventh lap came and the relatively narrow and fast Tamburello left-hand turn, into which the Brazilian flew at a speed of 310 kilometers per hour.

He was unable to compensate for the skid he got on the cold tires and, despite hard braking, crashed into a concrete wall at a speed of more than two hundred kilometers. Nevertheless, the doctors said that the thirty-four-year-old competitor did not have a single broken bone in his body.

“I’ve heard and read a lot of theories as to why Ayrton crashed in such an easy corner, but nobody but me and him knew what it was like to go through it that day with unheated tires,” suggested the possible cause of the crash, Senna’s last teammate Damon Hill.

A piece of the suspension of the right front wheel that hit his helmet became fatal for the Brazilian, and the sharp impact caused Senna a skull fracture and other injuries. “I knew right away it was going to be a fatal head injury,” Watkins described the moments just after the accident.

As the doctors freed the driver from the wreckage, Senna let out a distinct sigh of relief. “I think that’s when his soul left his body. I’ve never forgotten it,” Watkins admitted. The pilot’s body was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Bologna. He was officially pronounced dead four hours later.

“The evening after the race I was absolutely devastated and seriously thought about quitting. I was devastated that I was doing a sport in which people die,” recalled Schumacher, winner of the restarted race. He did not finish, on the contrary, he became world champion at the end of the year and later added six more titles.

Still, he couldn’t step out of Senna’s shadow for a long time. “Both sitting in the same car, I’ll put money on Ayrton,” said long-time Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone. And it was Senna who won the poll among the racers themselves for the best pilot in history.

The trial, which dealt with the circumstances of the accident, was finally concluded after more than eleven years. The Court of Appeal in Bologna acquitted former Williams chief designer Adrian Newey and the team’s technical director Patrick Head was also acquitted.

The death of two pilots in a single weekend significantly affected the motoring world, but at the same time resulted in a drastic increase in safety. Even in the same season, tire chicanes appeared on dangerous sections of some tracks, escape zones were gradually expanded, and work on improving pilot protection continues to this day.

Fortunately, since the black weekend in Imola, only one competitor has died behind the wheel of the “fastest coffins in the world”. Frenchman Jules Bianchi succumbed to the effects of an accident at the Japanese Grand Prix in October 2014 after nine months in a coma.

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