Much has been written about the calamitous 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, the tragic deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna thirty years ago are well documented but we have unearthed a report that details the final brutal Sunday of the great Brazilian's life like few do.
On 30 April we published the Final Lap of Roland Ratzenberger's life, to mark thirty years of his passing. Today, 1 May we publish one of the most detailed accounts of that terrible Sunday that can be found on the internet on StatsF1.
Written and compiled in French by reporter 'Tony' below is a blow-by-blow of Ayrton Senna's final Sunday, Google-translated to English with little retouching so as to capture the nuances and detail of the exceptional reporting. Be warned it's a long but riveting, educational and emotional read. A must for Ayrton fans.
Sunday morning: a palpable emotion
A moving moment took place during the warm-up. Ayrton Senna must comment on a lap launched live from his Williams-Renault as part of the “Auto-Moto” show, broadcast on the TF1 channel.
Knowing that his ex-rival Alain Prost is on set, Senna sends him this message: "Before we begin, a special greeting to my... to our dear friend Alain. I miss you, Alain!" Prost, both surprised and moved, will remember these few words all his life.
A great tension weighs down before the start. Everyone is of course thinking of Roland Ratzenberger, but also of the accident that happened to Rubens Barrichello. It seems that this Imola circuit brings misfortune upon itself. Senna, strapped into his cockpit, remains bareheaded for long minutes, contrary to his habit of immediately putting on his helmet.
Like his 24 colleagues (Ratzenberger's place remains empty), Senna tries to concentrate on the test to come, which promises to be very tough. Schumacher has made no secret of his desire to achieve a third victory in a row and further establish his domination of the championship. Senna knows it. During the warm-up, he set excellent times, just to put pressure on the German.
In the pits, the technicians and engineers from Williams and Benetton are preparing for a very strategic race, with at least two pit stops for their star drivers. Schumacher starts with less fuel than Senna and will therefore stop first.
At Simtek, Nick Wirth left David Brabham free to compete in the race or not. The Australian, after much hesitation, finally decided to start so as not to further demoralize his team.
1994 San Marino Grand Prix
Formation lap: Alboreto suffers an electrical failure on his race car. He will start with his mule from the stands.
Start: Senna starts properly in front of Schumacher, Berger and Hill. Lehto stalls from the third line. Frentzen and Katayama, located in line with the Benetton, suddenly moved away to avoid it. But further on, Lamy, blinded by the other cars, hits the obstacle at full speed.
He steers hard to the left but hits Lehto from the rear left. The shock was very violent: numerous pieces of debris, as well as two wheels of the Lotus, burst from the track and flew towards the stands, while Lamy executed a terrifying swerve which he completed in the wrong direction, nearly two hundred meters from the point of impact. The entire right side of his Lotus is missing, but fortunately he is not injured.
1st lap: Carbon debris litters the main straight. Roland Bruynseraede brings in the safety car. Although Lehto and Lamy were unhurt, debris from their machines had broken through the protective fences. Three spectators and a police officer were slightly injured by a loose wheel coming from the Lotus. The firefighters intervened in the stands to help them, but these facts will not be known until after the race.
2nd: The cars line up behind the Pace Car. Senna leads the pack ahead of Schumacher, Berger, Hill, Frentzen, Häkkinen, Larini, Wendlinger, Katayama and Brundle. Comas and Bernard come into contact. Martégal lost a few places in this misadventure.
3rd: The track marshals clean the asphalt at the timing line. They evacuated the two wrecks and swept up the oil spilled by the burst Lehto tank. Meanwhile, excited fans loudly encourage Berger.
5th: The safety car lights go out, meaning the race will restart on the next lap. Schumacher slips into Senna's wake, ready to surprise him with re-acceleration.
6th: The Pace Car fades, the green flags are waved. Senna maintains the ascendancy ahead of Schumacher who nevertheless does not let himself be let down. Berger, on the other hand, is sown. Touched by Bernard a little earlier, Comas felt vibrations on his Larrousse and returned to his stand to have it examined.
7th: Pressed by Schumacher, Senna approaches the big Tamburello curve at 300 km/h. Suddenly, as she prepares to exit the corner, the Williams no longer turns. Senna only has time to brake. The Williams shoots straight, flies over the sandbox and crashes into the concrete wall at a terrible angle. It bounced for a few dozen meters, raising a shower of debris, before coming to rest in the gravel.
The entire right flank is demolished, but the survival cell is intact. We are watching for a movement, a gesture from Senna. The yellow helmet bobs for a fraction of a second. And it's done. It’s 2:17 p.m.
Race is Stopped
The Grand Prix is of course interrupted by the red flag. The cars line up on the starting grid. It takes a good minute for the medical staff to arrive at Tamburello. And the horrible ballet seen on Friday for Barrichello, Saturday for Ratzenberger, begins again. Professor Watkins, leaning over the body of his friend, discovers with horror a lifeless and bloody face.
A suspension arm pierced Senna's skull like a sabre. The situation is desperate, but the unfortunate man's heart is still beating. He is medicalized on the ground. The rescue helicopter lands on the runway, in the stretch between Tamburello and Tosa, ready to take off.
Spectators, television viewers, journalists are experiencing horrible moments. In the pits, most managers opt for silence and do not warn their drivers of the seriousness of the situation.
About fifteen minutes after the impact, while the caregivers worked around Senna, Érik Comas came out of his garage, his car having been repaired. He reaches the end of the pit lane where, inexplicably, the light turns green!
Comas takes to the track, accelerates, crosses Tamburello... and discovers the medical helicopter and the marshals in front of him, in the middle of the track. He immediately brakes, turns off his engine and inquires about the situation.
At 2:35 p.m., Senna, placed on a stretcher, completely unconscious
This is how he sees Senna, the man who saved his life two years earlier, in Spa, lying in a pool of blood. He won't be able to do anything for him. Comas, terrified, the only pilot to know the sad reality, can only observe the scene.
In the wreck of the Williams FW16, a commissioner discovered a small Austrian flag. The irony of fate: Senna had planned to pay tribute to Ratzenberger during a possible lap of honour.
At 2:35 p.m., Senna, placed on a stretcher, completely unconscious, was airlifted to the Maggiore hospital in Bologna. Leonardo, his younger brother, follows him in a jet chartered by Bernie Ecclestone. Meanwhile, the cars return to the starting grid with their drivers.
FIA Race Director Roland Bruynseraede announces that the race will restart from the 7th lap and will be shortened by three loops. The classification will be done by adding the times.
The new grid goes as follows: Schumacher, Berger, Hill, Frentzen, Häkkinen, Larini, Wendlinger, Katayama, Brundle, Morbidelli, Blundell, Fittipaldi, Herbert, Panis, de Cesaris, Beretta, Brabham, Gachot, Bernard and Alboreto. Very shocked by what he saw a few minutes earlier, Comas decides not to leave again.
Drivers are not informed of Senna's state of health
Huge confusion reigns on this new starting grid. Everyone suspects that the matter is serious, but is unaware of the nature of the Brazilian's injuries. Some team managers vaguely try to reassure them so that they remain focused on the race. At Williams-Renault, there is of course dismay.
Frank Williams, Patrick Head, Adrian Newey, Bernard Dudot, Christian Contzen, David Brown and Ian Harrison, the sports director, hold a real war council. For the moment, the cause of Senna's accident is unknown but it is most likely a mechanical breakdown. The question is whether it is safe to let Damon Hill go again. He, obviously anxious, hesitates.
Ann Bradshaw, the team's press officer, admitted that her teammate's condition was extremely serious. Hill balks a bit. Dickie Stanford, the chief engineer, silences him by shoving him unceremoniously towards his cockpit, with an evil eye. At Williams, whatever happens, the race continues...
The report goes on to cover the race which ends as follows on 58th and final lap: Michael Schumacher wins this sinister San Marino GP. Larini, second, climbs onto the first podium of his career. Häkkinen finished third and gave his first result to the McLaren-Peugeot.
Wendlinger finished fourth ahead of Katayama. Hill pockets a point. Frentzen, Brundle, Blundell, Herbert, Panis and Bernard also finished the event.
After the race
Schumacher, Häkkinen and especially Larini happily greet the fans during their lap of honour. They know almost nothing about the drama that took place. On the podium, everyone responds with a smile to the cheers of the crowd, happy with the return to form of the Ferraris.
It was only moments later that the first three, as well as their colleagues, were informed that Senna was between life and death. We also learned that two of the mechanics affected by Alboreto's wheel, Maurizio Barberi (Ferrari) and Neil Baldry (Lotus) suffered respectively from a broken leg and slight head trauma.
The death of Ayrton Senna
Press, radios and televisions rushed to Bologna, in front of the Maggiore hospital, to obtain fresh news from Senna, even if the press release broadcast in the middle of the afternoon left little doubt about the fatal outcome.
And indeed very quickly the surgeons noted the desperate state of the Brazilian champion. The suspension arm that pierced his helmet caused irreversible brain damage. A great neurosurgeon from the Bellaria hospital is called by his colleagues from Maggiore for a last-chance operation, which will not take place due to its uselessness.
The minutes tick by, Senna's pulse weakens. At 6 p.m., Dr. Maria Teresa Flandri, chief physician, announced that Senna's encephalogram was flat. He is therefore clinically dead. A priest, Father Zuffa, administered extreme unction to him. The Maggiore hospital, surrounded by reporters, fans and onlookers, is taken over by the carabinieri, in order to prevent any overflow.
At 6:40 p.m. the horrible news finally comes: Ayrton Senna is dead. He was 34 years old, a year older than Ratzenberger.
Schumacher: The last image I have of is when he's bottoming-out again
The search for the cause of this fatal accident will generate an entire literature. It is undoubtedly a mechanical failure, as revealed by Michael Schumacher's eyewitness account: “The Williams was bottoming-out a lot from the rear. Already, on the previous lap, I had the feeling that it was very nervous at this place, where there is a bump on the track.
"Ayrton had almost lost control. The last image I have of is when he's bottoming-out again, a shower of sparks from the floorboards coming out from behind, and then he's gone out of my field of vision," added Schumacher.
The most credible hypothesis is the breakage of the steering column, the location of which, we remember, Senna had changed before the race. A bad weld, carried out in haste, would have caused this fatal breakage. We will also mention a drop in tire pressure following the start of a puncture (there was undoubtedly some debris left on the asphalt from the Lehto - Lamy collision) or the numerous laps spent behind the safety car.
After the Ratzenberger-Senna disasters
Formula 1 is devastated in its quiet billionaire existence. This incredible succession of disasters leaves its actors stunned, dazed, broken. Not since the 1960 Belgian GP and the fatal accidents of Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey have two drivers lost their lives during the same weekend.
And the cruel irony of fate brings together the neophyte, the low-ranking, the unknown Roland Ratzenberger, and the star, the idol, the greatest pilot, perhaps, of all time “Magic” Senna. A terrible symbol which reminds pilots that they are practising a dangerous sport, that everyone can be hit, the greatest as well as the humblest.
A warning shot also for the leaders, first and foremost Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone, who, too busy adjusting the regulations to economic imperatives, multiplying questionable innovations, such as refuelling with gasoline, ended up losing sight of the security requirements.
However, what shocked journalists and spectators around the world was the indecency of the decision-makers and stewards, who after Senna's accident maintained what could only be a parody of a Grand Prix.
On the evening of this tragic May 1, 1994, reactions oscillated between despondency and anger.
Prost: We must put sport back at the forefront, ahead of commercial interests
Alain Prost, devastated by the death of the man who had become his friend, spoke with bitterness on TF1: “We have just witnessed an absolutely incredible weekend. Three very serious accidents, with apparently three mechanical failures. For supplies, we knew that this type of incident would happen one day, it's almost the minimum that happened today.
"We can always say that F1 is a dangerous sport and that when you travel at 300 km/h on a circuit like Imola, there are always risks. But there is no inevitability. It's been a long time since we stopped worrying about security. Business takes precedence over sport. Before there was a distinct sporting power and economic power. Now they are gathered...
"As we saw today, only one thing matters: getting back to the start, continuing the race, not stopping it while there are people lying injured in the stands... Personally, I find it scandalous. The drivers themselves should have come forward after Senna's accident. We must put sport back at the forefront, ahead of commercial interests," declared Prost.
Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda also called on drivers to unite to put pressure on the FIA and work again in favor of safety.
Pierluigi Martini, for his part, underlines how difficult the single-seaters have been to drive since this season: “Today, F1 cars are totally rigid in order to make the most of the ground effect. We drive practically glued to the track.
"We thus feel all the roughness of the road which becomes so many dangers. With Senna, we carried out reconnaissance of the most dangerous points at Imola. There was the desire to make improvements, but there was not enough time..."
Schumacher: We discussed these risks with Senna
Mika Häkkinen added: "At Tamburello, there were more bumps than before, in the fast chicanes too. You absolutely must reduce the speed!"
"We discussed these risks with Senna,” recalls Michael Schumacher. “We will have a meeting on Friday in Monaco. It is becoming urgent that we make proposals."
Would pilots finally become aware of their responsibilities? What will Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, who is largely absent from this Imola weekend, respond to them?
But for now, it's time to mourn. Ayrton Senna, this extraordinary champion, capable of the most incredible exploits, this complex man, with secret drives, passionate, demanding, hungry for success but also for the absolute, transcended by an ardent faith, this simple mortal adored by millions of fans throughout the world, hero of the Brazilian people, will forever leave an indelible mark in the history of this sport.
His disappearance in full glory, repelling the attacks of the one who eyed his throne, this tragic exit mythologizes him and absolves his errors. Senna the Magnificent left as he lived: at the head of a Grand Prix, in front of all the others.
Latest News
Loading
