Ayrton Senna

May 1, 1994 - A tragic weekend < Prev  Next >  Posted By: tonicco3 Sat May 1, 2004 9:26 am  | Options

www.timesonline.co.uk   THURSDAY APRIL 28 4pm: The helicopter carrying Ayrton Senna lands on the infield at the Imola circuit. With Senna are the president of Ducati, the firm making the Senna motorbike, and the chief executive of TAG-Heuer, who is masterminding the production of a Senna watch. The Brazilian’s plane, an eight-seat British Aerospace HS125, has been taken by Owen O’Mahony, his personal pilot, to the little airfield at Forli, where the landing fees are cheaper than at Bologna. Senna had been in Modena in the morning, launching a Senna mountain bike, but he wants to see his team before going to the hotel. He checks on the car’s preparations and talks to Richard West, director of marketing for Williams, about his commitments. 5pm: Senna arrives at the Castello, a small hotel run by the jovial Valentino Tosoni, on the outskirts of Castel San Pietro, a spa town ten kilometres west of Imola. The Castello is the McLaren team’s hotel and Senna has stayed there for the San Marino Grand Prix since 1989. He always books the same room, No 200, a junior suite costing £150 a night consisting of a bedroom, a bathroom and a small sitting-room. Tosoni understands the routine of his most famous client: he has ordered extra supplies of profiteroles, Senna’s favourite dessert. Senna travelled light to races. He did not need a vast entourage but liked to relax with friends away from the track. He is accompanied by his brother, Leonardo, Julian Jakobi, his business manager, Antonio Carlos Braga, an old friend from Brazil, Galvão Bueno, a trusted journalist with Brazil’s TV Globo, Celso Lemos, managing director of Senna Licensing in Brazil, Josef Leberer, his physiotherapist and dietician, and Ubirajara Guimaraes, the head of Senna Imports. It is a bigger party than usual. The one notable absentee is Adriane Galisteu, Senna’s girlfriend and, according to many, his future wife. She is not returning to Faro, Senna’s European base, until the next day after finishing an English course in Brazil. Mindful perhaps of the delicate relationships with his family over Galisteu and of the importance of the weekend to his World Championship chances, Senna has decided she should stay in Portugal. 8pm: Senna dines in the hotel — steak, pasta, profiteroles and mineral water — and returns to his room at about 10pm, his usual curfew hour at races. He rarely goes to bed before midnight. FRIDAY APRIL 29 7.30am: Senna arrives at the track for the usual briefings before practice. 9.30am: He completes 22 laps, recording a fastest time of 1min 21.598sec. 1.14pm: Senna completes the fastest lap in the first qualifying session. As he is returning to the pits, the Jordan of Rubens Barrichello hits the kerb in the middle of the 140mph Variante Bassa chicane, hurtles through the air, clears a metre-high tyre barrier and smashes against a fence. The crash looks horrific and stuns Senna. FRIDAY APRIL 29 1.40pm: Qualifying resumes. Senna betters his time and then sets the quickest lap, 1min 21.548sec. But he is not happy with his car. He has a long and animated discussion with David Brown, his race engineer, and later, having arranged to meet journalists, cuts short the interview because of a “big engineering problem”. 8pm: Senna leaves the circuit and dines at the Trattoria Romagnola, a small restaurant in Castel San Pietro — antipasto, Parma ham, tagliatelle with a plain tomato sauce and fruit. He takes no coffee, no alcohol, and likes his mineral water carbonated and slightly warm. He returns to his room just after 11pm. SATURDAY APRIL 30 9.30am: Senna completes 19 practice laps with a best time of 1min 22.03sec. 1.18pm: Roland Ratzenberger, the popular Austrian, crashes in his Simtek during the second qualifying session with no chance of survival. 2.15pm: The death of Ratzenberger is confirmed. Senna, who had seen the accident on the monitor as he prepared to go out in the Williams, fears the worst, commandeers a safety car and drives to the scene. When he returns, Senna finds Professor Sid Watkins, the head of the international motor sport federation (FIA) medical commission. Watkins has to tell Senna of the Austrian’s death. The qualifying session is cancelled, but Senna has no appetite for racing anyway. He goes back to the motorhome where he is left alone with Damon Hill and Hill’s wife, Georgie. Senna declines to attend the pole position winner’s press conference, for which he should be fined. But Martin Whitaker, the FIA press officer, advises that no action should be taken. 3pm: Senna is called to a meeting of the race stewards, who want to reprimand him for taking an official car without permission to the scene of the crash. Senna says that he represents the drivers, is a three-times world champion and is concerned about Ratzenberger and the safety of the track. The exchange is highly charged, with Senna shouting: “At least someone is concerned about safety.” John Corsmit, the race director, takes no further action. Senna is certainly too upset to pose with the bride and groom when he returns to the Castello to find a wedding reception. He calls his girlfriend twice that night. He tells her that he does not feel like racing the next day, but says nothing about fears for his own life. He feels it would be morally wrong to race. “He was shaken. Crying, really crying,” Adriane said. “He told me he did not want to race. He had never spoken like that.” She tells him he does not have to race; he says he has to. After dinner, Senna calls Adriane again, sounding in far better spirits. Senna says he is going to race. His last words to her are: “Come and pick me up at Faro airport at 8.30pm tomorrow. I can’t wait to see you.” SUNDAY MAY 1 7.30am: Senna is woken in room No 200 at the Castello hotel in Castel San Pietro by a familiar voice on the telephone. “Baggage service”. It is Owen O’Mahony, Senna’s personal pilot, wanting to know what time to pick up the bags from the hotel. Senna flies by helicopter to the Imola track and is comfortably fastest in the morning session. He tells David Brown, his race engineer at Williams, not to change anything on the car. He records a televised lap for TF1, the French network, for whom Alain Prost is working. “I would like to say welcome to my old friend, Alain Prost,” Senna says over the radio. “Tell him we miss him very much.” As the pair have been longstanding enemies and have barely spoken for several years, the olive branch is unexpected. Prost is deeply touched and the pair talk — “really talked”, Prost recalls — for a long time in the paddock that day. Senna wants the Frenchman to become involved in the safety commission. Prost agrees that they will meet before the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks later. Senna also talks intensely to Niki Lauda, another three-times world champion, enlisting the Austrian’s help, too. 11 am: Senna goes with Gerhard Berger, his old McLaren team-mate, to the drivers’ briefing. The meeting is short, but animated. The drivers stand in silence for a minute in memory of Roland Ratzenberger. Senna is particularly concerned about the use of the pace car on the warm-up lap. The car had been used for the first time at the Pacific Grand Prix in Japan two weeks earlier to keep the field bunched before the start. Senna says the car did not go fast enough to get the tyres properly warmed up and, with Berger, proposes it should not be used again. He is also worried that the safety car, brought out to slow the race in the event of an accident, will also not be fast enough. 12.00: Senna goes to the Williams hospitality area where, in a well-rehearsed show, he and Damon Hill entertain the guests with a corner-by-corner commentary on the track and a few comments about the weekend. Senna had not wanted to go, but knows promotion is part of the job. 12.20pm: Senna begins his preparations for the race. Usually, he eats a light lunch of fish or pasta, then shuts himself away to gather his thoughts. Often, at McLaren, he would turn the driving seat of the motorhome round and read his Bible. He has his Bible in his briefcase but nobody sees whether he reads it that morning. 1.30pm: Half an hour before the start, Senna goes to the Williams garage. Jaime Brito, a Brazilian journalist, asks him to sign three pictures. “The photos were so sad. I remarked about it at the time,” he said. In Brazil, the images of Senna, the people’s hero, looking gaunt and pale, are to shock and haunt the nation. “He did something that day I had never seen him do before,” Brito recalls. “He walked round the car, looked at the tyres, rested on the rear wing, almost as if he was suspicious of the car.” 1.45pm: Senna breaks his usual routine on the starting grid by taking off his helmet. While most other drivers get out of their cars on the grid, waiting for the start, Senna, once in the car, almost always stayed in the cockpit, concentrating on the first corner. 2pm: The starting light turns green and the cars, headed by Senna, stream into the first turn. But there is trouble on the grid. Pedro Lamy’s Lotus slams into the back of J. J. Lehto’s Benetton, which has stalled, scattering debris all over the track. A wheel flies over the debris fencing injuring nine people. 2.03pm: The safety car comes out as the debris is cleared. Senna follows at a respectful distance, with Michael Schumacher, Berger and Hill behind. 2.15pm: The Williams pit radioes to Senna that the safety car is about to pull off. Senna acknowledges. It is the last contact. When the race begins again, Senna and Schumacher open a gap on the rest of the field. 2.17pm: Taking the Tamburello Curve for the second time, Senna’s Williams veers off the track just after the apex of the bend at a speed of 190mph and slams into an unprotected concrete retaining wall. The front-right side of the car takes the full brunt of the impact, a wheel flies off, the suspension crumples and the Williams catapults back on to the track. In the split-second before it hits the wall, Senna manages to slow it to 131mph. The monocoque stays intact and a slight movement of Senna’s head gives brief cause for hope. But he has suffered massive head injuries. Aerial pictures of the car, blood seeping from it like oil, are seen by millions of television viewers. Senna is lifted from the wreckage and taken by helicopter to the Maggiore Hospital at Bologna. On board, doctors fight to revive Senna’s heart. 2.55pm: Thirty-seven minutes after Senna’s crash, the race is restarted. Berger leads for the first 11 laps before pitting and retiring on lap 14. He goes straight to the hospital. In Portugal, Adriane Galisteu, Senna’s girlfriend, has seen the accident on television and, for an instant, is pleased because Senna will be home early. She soon realises the full horror and is called by Luiza Braga, the wife of Senna’s old friend Antonio Carlos, who has arranged a plane to fly them both to Senna’s bedside. The journey is in vain. The plane turns back soon after leaving Faro. 4.20pm: Schumacher crosses the line to win his third successive grand prix. Soon after, electrical tests confirm that Senna is brain dead and being kept alive only by artificial means. Under Italian law, doctors are not allowed to turn off the machines for 12 hours. But even this support proves insufficient. 6.40pm: The chief medical officer, Dr Maria Theresa Fiandri, pronounces Senna dead. Back at the track, in the shattered remains of Senna’s car, they find a furled Austrian flag. Senna had intended to dedicate his 42nd grand-prix win to Ratzenberger’s memory. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- António Sousa - Cascais, Portugal FOSA (http://fosa.org.uk) & FOSA List (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fosa) Motorsport World (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MotorsportWorld)