By MALCOLM FOLLEY
PUBLISHED: 21:48 GMT, 19 April 2014 | UPDATED: 21:54
GMT, 19 April 2014
It is a sorrowful memorial.
Two Brazilian flags, bleached pale by two decades of sunlight, are pinned to a
perimeter fence outside the circuit along with a baseball cap, a pair of
trainers and some scrawled messages rendered illegible by the passage of time,
and the pain of returning here is evident in the eyes of the middle-aged woman
surveying the scene.
Nothing else tells you that
this is the spot at Imola where Ayrton Senna — ‘the greatest driver ever,’
according to Niki Lauda — was killed.
But then Betise Assumpcao
Head needs nothing else to re-awaken the haunting memories of the San Marino
Grand Prix that ran here with tragic consequences 20 years ago on May 1. For
Senna was her boss for the last four-and-a-half years of his life. ‘Just being
here makes my chest feel crushed,’ said Betise, a Brazilian who now lives in
London. ‘Standing where Ayrton lost his life is very emotional for me.’
A master at work:
Ayrton Senna pictured during the 1991 season, during which he won the last of
his three world titles / DailyMail
Before last week, she had
been back to Imola just once in the 20 years since the weekend that claimed the
lives of two drivers, an Austrian Formula One rookie called Roland
Ratzenberger, who died in an accident during qualifying for the race, and
Senna, a three-time world champion recognisable around the world, who suffered
a fatal accident in the grand prix itself 24 hours later.
On lap seven, his Williams car hit a concrete barrier at the 190mph
Tamburello curve, now, as a consequence of Senna’s death, redesigned as a
chicane.
Betise remembers watching the
drama unfold on a TV monitor in the Imola media room and — unaware of the
seriousness of Senna’s injuries — being concerned as his personal Press officer
with getting down to the pits to intercept him before he said too much to
reporters.
‘All we saw on TV was a fog of sand, then his blue and white car and
yellow helmet,’ she said. ‘I thought he’s
going to be angry when he gets back, swearing at everybody, whingeing about the
engine, the car, the tyres. I told myself, “I need to be there”.’
Once she got to the Williams garage, she saw TV images of marshals and
doctors, led by Formula One’s chief medical officer, Professor Sid Watkins,
racing to attend to Senna. The race had
been stopped by a red flag. ‘Now I knew he was not coming out of the car,’ she
said, ‘but I did not think for a second that he was dead. Then Ayrton’s head
moved. Someone said, “He’s alive”.’
Betise resolved to get a more accurate medical bulletin for herself and
Senna’s distraught brother, Leonardo. As
she headed for Race Control, they encountered Bernie Ecclestone, then, like
now, the man with the most influence in the Formula One paddock. ‘Bernie asked
to speak with Leonardo, who was so white he looked like a waxwork,’ said
Betise. ‘I told Bernie that Leonardo could not speak English and he gestured
for me to join them.’
Fatal: Senna's
Williams collides with a concrete barrier at the Tamburello corner
According to Betise,
Ecclestone told Leonardo: ‘He’s dead.’ Ecclestone has always disputed that,
insisting that he had been misheard and what he actually said was: ‘He’s got a
bad bump on his head.’ What is beyond dispute is that Senna never regained
consciousness after being airlifted to the intensive care unit at the Maggiore
Hospital in Bologna. He was officially declared dead in early evening, some
might suggest at a convenient moment shortly after the restarted, and now very
sombre, San Marino Grand Prix had ended.
Once back at the circuit to collect her belongings at about 10.30pm,
Betise was confronted by a tribute already being broadcast on TV. ‘Ayrton was tanned and wearing a colourful shirt,’ she
said.
‘He was talking about how wonderful his life was. And that was when I came out of auto-pilot. I started
crying so hard that I was losing my breath.’
Senna had arrived at Imola even more intense than usual. After moving to Williams for the 1994 season from
McLaren, where he had won three world titles, he had failed to finish in the
first two races, which had both been won by a German newcomer called Michael
Schumacher.
‘It was all that was on his mind,’ said Betise. ‘Ayrton was not alone in thinking there was something
“dodgy” about Schumacher’s Benetton.’
After Williams had won the
two previous championships, through Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, electronic
aids had been outlawed for the 1994 season. Yet Schumacher’s car, in comparison
to his rivals, looked like it was on rails, the hallmark of the traction-controlled
age of Formula One that was officially obsolete.
National hero:
Thousands of Brazilians line the streets as the funeral cortege makes its way
through Sao Paolo
‘At a race, Ayrton was often
intense and stressed,’ said Betise. ‘He would carry the weight of the world on
his shoulders. At the beginning, this was because of how important Formula One
was to him; as time went by, it was because of how important it was for
everybody and he knew how much was at stake every time he went out in the car.
‘In Brazil, Ayrton was bigger
than Pele. When Pele was achieving greatness, there were not so many people who
had television sets. Every Sunday people expected Ayrton to win in what was by
then a TV age. He was the only certainty of some goodness in the country.
‘Ayrton was not a light-hearted
man. He had no natural sense of humour, though he could laugh at a joke even if
he could not tell one. I think I made him laugh — that makes me happy — but I
did not dare tell a joke once he was in race mode. Yet in the last year of his
life, Ayrton had a new, much younger girlfriend, Adriane Galisteu, who was 19
when they met. His parents were never happy about any of his girlfriends, but
Adriane made Ayrton lighter. She would walk into the circuit wearing a bikini
top, can you imagine! She was a kid, dressed like a kid and behaved like a kid.
That’s what made Ayrton happy.’
That weekend in Imola,
Senna’s already pensive mood darkened when, watching TV in the Williams garage,
he saw the accident that cost Ratzenberger his life a day after young Brazilian
Rubens Barrichello had had a miraculous escape. Formula One had not had to deal
with a fatality for 12 years, since Italian Riccardo Paletti crashed on the
start grid of his second Grand Prix, and Senna was profoundly affected by what
he saw. Betise found Senna alone away from the Williams garage. ‘He was very
shaken, crying,’ she said. ‘He was vulnerable like I’d never seen him before. I
wanted to help him. He looked lost.’
Senna had commandeered a ride
in a safety car to inspect the crash scene for himself, and earned a rebuke
afterwards for his maverick action. Then he declined to go out on the track
when qualifying resumed. Betise was told to inform him that he would be
disqualified if he did not drive. ‘Ayrton still refused,’ she said. ‘Some minutes
later, it was announced drivers did not have to go out. To this day, I am sure
they changed the rules because Ayrton would not drive.’
That night, Senna spoke about
not racing in a telephone conversation with Galisteu, who had just moved into
his villa in Portugal. However, after a quiet dinner with some friends, Senna
spoke with team principal Frank Williams, and, feeling more calm, confirmed
that he was going to race.
‘There was so much pressure
on Ayrton that weekend — he was not going to come second again to
Schumacher,’ said his team-mate Damon Hill, years later. ‘The death of Roland
Ratzenberger had heightened his passion to be Ayrton Senna — and to win. It’s
how he approached his sport. And his life. It was his mission not to give in to
any form of fallibility.’
On the Sunday morning, Senna
fulfilled an obligation to drive a lap of the circuit to be broadcast by French
TV station TF1, for whom Prost, his most loathed rival, was now commentating in
retirement. ‘Ayrton despised Prost, who he would never mention by name,’ said
Betise. ‘He called him, “The Frenchman”.’
Prost felt similarly
indisposed to Senna. They had an embittered time together at McLaren, then
Prost retired from F1 at the end of 1993 rather than have Senna as a team-mate
again at Williams. Prost said later: ‘It was always Ayrton’s rules; if it’s
your rules, it follows you believe they are correct.’
Yet on that lap of Imola,
Senna directed an on-air comment to Prost: ‘I miss you,’ he said. Afterwards,
Senna went to see Prost at the Renault motorhome and made an earnest attempt at
a rapprochement. ‘He talked a little about the car, a little about safety
matters,’ said Prost. ‘It seemed he just wanted to share time with me.’
Incredible talent:
Senna mastered the wet conditions in Spa in 1985 to win the Belgian Grand Prix
ahead of Nigel Mansell
And then Senna went to work
from pole position with Schumacher alongside him. Behind them, J J Lehto and
Patrick Lemy crashed on the start line and a wheel, flying into the crowd,
injured eight spectators and a policeman. Senna led the pack behind the safety
car, at the time a new phenomenon in F1, for five laps; then on his first, real
flying lap, his Williams screamed out of Tamburello into a barrier. His head
could be seen to move, briefly. But then Senna was still, shockingly still.
Betise was one of the close confidantes of Senna who accompanied his
coffin back to Brazil in business class on Varig flight RG723. It was met by millions lining the streets for his ride
home to Sao Paulo. Brazil’s President, Itamar Franco, had declared three days
of national mourning for the 34-year-old, who won 41 of the 161 Formula One
races he drove.
Painful memories:
Betise recalls the fateful day Senna was killed
‘For years I dreamed of Ayrton,’ said Betise,
as she visited the statue to Senna in the park neighbouring the circuit. ‘I
miss him in lots of ways.
‘Ayrton was not easy,
anything he said could spark a massive reaction. He did some bad things on the
track, and out of the track, too. But he was so extraordinarily talented, and
also thoughtful and considerate. He was becoming more of the human being he
wanted to be — that is my biggest sorrow of all.’
Imola disappeared from the
Grand Prix calendar in 2006, priced out of the market by Ecclestone’s financial
demands more easily met by governments in Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia and now
Russia, supposedly hosting a race in October.
But the memory of Senna will
forever keep alive the circuit, where a couple of faded Brazilian flags and
knick-knacks pay humble homage to a remarkable champion’s career of courage and
controversy, of brilliance and belligerence which will be vividly remembered 20
years on with a four-day tribute here from May 1-4.
For Betise, it may never be a
closed chapter. But she said: ‘I will never come here again, there is no reason
now.’
LINK: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-2608623/Ayrton-Senna-died-Imola-20-years-ago-confidante-Betise-Assumpcao-heads-scene-tragic-death.html#ixzz2zNFLrT9Z
DATE: 04/20/2014
PHOTOS AYRTON SENNA AND BETISE ASSUMPÇÃO
PICTURES AYRTON SENNA AND BETISE ASSUMPÇÃO
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