The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Passarini said his case was that the steering column of Senna’s Williams car had been badly designed and was not strong enough to withstand metal fatigue. He said: “The steering column had been cut and a new element – which was not of the same quality metal or of the same diameter, being 18mm instead of 22mm – was welded in. It was where the new element had been welded in that the column broke. When Senna had a steering wheel dangling in his hands, he was doing 192mph. He braked and hit the wall at between 130mph and 136mph. If the track had been completely flat, he would have been more able to brake and his speed could have been reduced to 105mph. Senna paid the price of these circumstances.” The weakness in his argument was that the video footage did not back him up.

  Dominioni denied that modifications to the steering column had been done ‘fast and furiously’ before the Imola race, and also pointed out that the steering column was identical to that used by Damon Hill in the other Williams car that season. He said he would be able to demonstrate that the steering column had broken after the crash, not before.

  Roberto Landi, the lawyer for Bendinelli and Sagis, denied there had been anything wrong with the track to cause the accident. He declared: “All the world’s circuits are like Imola.”

  Adrian Newey’s lawyer demanded a new forensic examination of the steering column on the grounds that Newey had not been able to appoint his own expert to attend the original tests, as he had not been warned he was under investigation and might face charges.

  Passarini, who spoke for over an hour and a half, also said he wanted to counter suggestions that he was waging a vendetta against motor racing by pointing out that no prosecution had resulted from Roland Ratzenberger’s fatal accident the day before Senna was killed.

  Passarini said that Ratzenberger’s accident occurred because of damage to the car sustained when it left the track, rather than because of design or construction errors – and that only in the case of Senna had the investigations demonstrated a case of manslaughter.

  He proceeded to admit various pieces of evidence, including a film taken by a camera on Senna’s car, analysis by consultants and a digital reconstruction of the accident using television pictures taken from several angles. He said he also wanted to use as evidence records regarding crashes on the same bend by drivers in previous years: Nelson Piquet in 1987, Gerhard Berger in 1989, Michele Alboreto in 1991 and Riccardo Patrese in 1992.

  In addition Passarini wanted to refer to television pictures showing cars grounding on the corner and sending up showers of sparks. Finally he wanted to admit film showing an object thrown into the air by the wheels of either Senna’s car or Schumacher’s close behind.

  Referring to the Sunday Times article, Passarini said: “I wish to clarify that I do not attribute any causal significance to the small object on the track.” Passarini also laid several other rumours to rest: Senna had not taken any drugs, did not make a driving error and did not pass out. He said the telemetry told him ‘Senna desperately tried to stop the car until the end’.

  Dominioni said he would be calling as a witness Massimo Angelini, who was driving the safety car around the circuit before the race restarted.

  Judge Costanzo put off his reply to Williams’ lawyers, led by Dominioni, who had asked for a new expert investigation of the Imola circuit.

  A week later, on 11th March, the defence presented its case through five sets of lawyers – but not before Passarini had made some more damning allegations, irrelevant to the case being tried, against the Williams team’s engineering prowess. He told the court that a metal plate was welded onto the rear suspension after it was damaged during winter testing at the Paul Ricard circuit at Le Castellet in France. He explained: “I mention that not to say that the rear suspension was the cause of the accident but to note that, despite the fact that these are very sophisticated vehicles, when a problem occurs it is patched up with a metal plate.”

  Among the early witnesses was Mario Casoni, the driver of the medical car that day at Imola. He said: “I noticed the abnormal state of Senna’s steering column, which had been uprooted and was dangling from the cockpit.”

  Williams’ lawyer Oreste Dominioni pounced: in 1994, he asserted, Casoni had said the column was lying on the ground. Casoni replied that he had made a mistake in his statement given to a police officer at the time.

  Dominioni had a difficult job. He had many ways of defending his client and one of them was to continually try and defer blame onto the track and therefore to Federico Bendinelli, managing director of Sagis, which operates the Imola circuit. Dominioni pointed to the track-surface problems, saying they had not been fully investigated. But seemingly unknown to Dominioni, Bendinelli’s lawyer Roberto Landi produced an amateur video shot at Imola on 9th March 1994 when the Williams team was testing prior to the Grand Prix. The video, taken by a fan, showed Senna talking with track director Giorgio Poggi, apparently discussing track conditions on the Tamburello curve. Another witness, police inspector Stefano Stefanini, head of Bologna’s traffic accident unit, said Senna was complaining about dips in the asphalt, which were taken care of the following day by track workers. Other witnesses confirmed what the video showed. At that point Senna had the ability to save his own life. If he had asked for a row of tyres to be placed against the wall it would have been done without question. The reason he did not – and neither did anyone else – at arguably the most dangerous bend of any track in the world is an enduring mystery.

  Passarini also took the trouble to prevent the defending lawyers citing the condition of the tyres as a possible reason for the accident. He asked Stefanini about Senna’s lap times before the accident. Indicating that Senna was driving absolutely on the limit to put some time between him and Schumacher in second place, Stefanini told the court that Senna, with a fully-fuelled car, had posted a time of 1m 24.887secs on the sixth lap of the restarted race. “That was a very good time,” he said. “Only two drivers bettered it – Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher – and that was at the end of the race.”

  Traffic police commissioner Marcello Gentili was asked about the car’s trajectory and signs of braking prior to impact, to ascertain whether problems with the tarmac could have caused the accident. Gentili said there was a 21cm angle between the track and the trackside and there were intermittent signs of braking.

  Two doctors who pulled Senna from the wreckage testified that they did not encounter any obstacles, or have to remove the steering wheel, in pulling his body out of the car. This led them to suppose that the steering column was already broken.

  The trial resumed the next day with Passarini calling Pierluigi Martini to testify as a former Formula One driver knowledgeable of both the Imola circuit and the Tamburello curve. Martini said: “A driver like Ayrton Senna didn’t go off the track at that point unless there was a problem. A lot of things can happen during a race, but in this particular case I don’t know what the problem could have been. Drivers took the curve at 300kph and there was a small dip in the middle of the track which disturbed the cars. The bump effect was perfectly normal and is common to every racing circuit in the world.

  “I was at Imola with Senna and others weeks before the race when we noticed a small bump in the Tamburello bend. The circuit officials were very efficient and had the asphalt smoothed out, which was the only thing they could do. The cars still touched the ground and were disturbed so you just had to hold your line.” He continued: “The repairs had only slightly improved the situation. Senna had complained to me three weeks before Imola at Aida [Japan], that his car was nervous and the cockpit narrow. But Tamburello could have only created problems for a car that had problems. The people at Imola did everything they could to give us drivers what we asked for.”

  Martini felt he could not say that the Tamburello bump had caused Senna to veer off the track. There was only one line into Tamburello and the bump could not be avoided without leaving the track. He added that Senna’s fast lap time indicated that his tyres were fully warmed up
.

  Eight course officials who were present at the Imola race were then asked by Passarini whether they had been aware of anything lying in the path of Senna’s car, and whether they believed his Williams Renault had left the Tamburello curve in a straight line.

  All felt that Senna’s car went off in a straight line towards the wall and all said there had been nothing in his way.

  The trial then adjourned for the customary week’s break until 17th March. When it resumed, crucial evidence was heard concerning the recovery of the car’s two black boxes. The first, belonging to Williams, was designed to record data from the chassis and gearbox; the second, belonging to Renault, stored information on the V10 engine.

  The wrecked chassis was initially brought back to the parc fermé and locked in the stewards’ garage, before being impounded by the Italian authorities after Senna’s death was announced. Imola circuit engineer Fabrizio Nosco testified that he had removed both black boxes from Senna’s Williams after the crash, having obtained permission from FIA race director Charlie Whiting. The black boxes were then handed over to the two Williams mechanics, who had arrived in the garage with Whiting, and they took them away. They were not handed over to the authorities, as they should have been under Italian law, although at that stage no one knew Senna was dead, or even seriously injured. Nosco stated: “Apart from a few scratches, both were intact. “This vital evidence was refuted by almost everyone else who saw the boxes. Williams witnesses were adamant that once the power was removed the data, being RAM, was lost. Peter Goodman, Williams’ lawyer said: “The blow was so significant that it caused the chassis to split. The box was severely damaged in the impact.”

  Bernard Duffort, a Renault engine-electronics expert, was the first to see both boxes. He claimed that the Williams box showed signs of impact and had been damaged. When examined it contained no data. Duffort said the data from the Renault box was transferred onto a computer disk on the day of the crash and a copy handed to the Italian authorities on 18th May 1994, along with the data recorder. By that time, however, the recorder’s information had mysteriously been wiped from its hard disk. Duffort said that tests done on the recorder in Paris shortly after the accident, on an engine test bench, had erased its data. Taken at face value, it was all scarcely believable, as the looks on the faces of the prosecutor and the judge reflected. The defending lawyers were embarrassed. But perhaps it wasn’t explained well enough. Renault engineers maintained its black box was merely a recording device and once the data had been downloaded to a floppy disk the recorder was totally irrelevant. A lot of people didn’t believe it but it was undoubtedly true. Peter Goodman said after the trial: “People didn’t understand that the box is simply a recording instrument. There was no interest in the box which was a standard instrument and undamaged. The interest was in the data and this was removed from the [Renault] box in the usual way and put onto a computer disk. The box was then reused. Nothing was mysteriously wiped from its hard disk.”

  The day’s star witness was Italian Michele Alboreto, who had survived a violent crash at Tamburello himself in 1991 when driving in Formula One. He testified that he believed Senna’s fatal crash was caused by a mechanical failure in the car, not a track defect. This opinion, he added, was formed from his many years’ experience of Imola and other tracks round the world.

  The Italian gave his verdict after viewing a video of the crash, replayed in the courtroom, and in particular pictures from a camera on board Michael Schumacher’s car, which was close behind Senna’s. Film was also shown of previous crashes at Tamburello involving Gerhard Berger, Nelson Piquet, Riccardo Patrese and Alboreto himself.

  Outside the courtroom he told reporters: “Senna’s shift to the right makes me think it was a mechanical failure. The situation at Imola was not exceptional – we’ve raced in much worse conditions than those. I hope this trial helps us understand what really happened to Senna, because it still isn’t clear. Mechanical failures are frequent, given the nature of the races and the fact that people always aim for the limit. But no engineer can ignore safety.” He went on to describe as ‘minor’ the bumps on the track surface just before the curve, which had been the subject of Williams’ lawyer Oreste Dominioni’s questions to him, and said they could not have forced Senna’s car off the circuit.

  The following day, 18th March, had as its star witness FIA race director Charlie Whiting. Initially he was questioned about the modification Williams had admitted making to the steering column. Passarini asked him if he had known about it. In his testimony Whiting said that Senna’s car had been modified without permission before the race, but that the modification would have been reported at the next regular check. Whiting said that he had approved Senna’s car in February and again in March.

  His evidence conflicted with that of the Williams witnesses, who claimed the team had already informed the FIA and could prove it. But after looking at photographs of minor changes to the chassis, Whiting told the court: “I don’t remember this on Senna’s car.”

  When asked to explain why he had allowed the black boxes to be removed from the car by the team before it was handed over to officials, Whiting replied that he had done so because of the overriding need to make sure the other Williams car might not suffer the same strange loss of control that had apparently affected Senna’s.

  He confirmed that he had authorised the Williams engineers to remove the two black boxes immediately after the accident, but that it had been damaged in the crash and the recorder was blank. The problem apparently was that the separate battery that powered the databanks had become disconnected, wiping all the memory.

  Whiting’s statement contradicted Fabrizio Nosco’s testimony the previous day that both black boxes were intact when he removed them from Senna’s car. Electronics expert Marco Spiga was called and disputed Whiting’s claim: he felt the data should have been available. He said it had taken a month for Williams and Renault to hand over the boxes to the investigators, and when they had received them both were blank. He told the court: “The Williams box was totally unreadable when we got it back.”

  The confused Passarini asked for a further investigation of the data recorder, and all the parties involved were summoned to an examination of the unit at the engineering department of Bologna University on 24th March.

  After the subject of the black boxes had been exhausted, the findings of the autopsy on Senna were read out by pathologist Corrado Cipolla. He said Senna’s injuries were caused by a massive blow above the right eyebrow. He affirmed that Senna had not died from the impact of the crash but from a blow to the head by a blunt object. He showed a photograph of a part from the front suspension. He said the blow crushed the front part of Senna’s brain, killing him instantly, although his heart and lungs continued to work, assisted by a life-support machine, which was eventually turned off. He therefore gave the official time of death as 2.17pm, although ‘cardiac death’ occurred at 6.40pm.

  Other experts said Senna’s blood indicated perfect health and a total absence of banned substances, and that his helmet complied with specifications. This testimony appeared to lay to rest rumours that Senna had been taking performance-enhancing drugs and had a light, illegal helmet to save on weight.

  The court resumed again on 2nd April when the subject returned to the black boxes. Maurizio Passarini called on electronics expert Marco Spiga to demonstrate how the external sockets of the data recorder worked. These were the sockets reportedly damaged in the crash. New pin connectors were supplied by Williams expert Giorgio Stirano. However, it emerged that a data card was needed to transmit the information to a computer and this was not supplied. Maurizio Passarini said: “Why are we only told today that we need a card? Williams has never told us this before. Why wasn’t it made available?” Giorgio Stirano replied: “Because we were only asked for the pin connectors.” The judge took a dim view of the state prosecutor’s much-vaunted technical advisers not be able to work that out before the trial.

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bsp; Edda Gandossi, a lawyer acting for Williams, said: “It would be pointless to try and cast any suspicion or inferences regarding the behaviour of the Williams engineers. This has always been polite and courteous.” The day was therefore a write-off and the trial adjourned until 15th April.

  Goodman subsequently explained the day’s events by saying that, after weeks of listening to ridiculous theories, and what he saw as defamatory accusations, he had decided to use the moment as an opportunity to illustrate that the prosecutor’s team of experts, however illustrious, were not familiar with modern racing cars. The Williams engineers co-operated by supplying the lead that Marco Spiga had requested, knowing full well that the lead would not help him prove his theory. The intention was to discredit him publicly and also, by implication, the technical expertise of the prosecutor’s team of experts. This was important to Goodman as the trial was about to move into quite complex technical areas.

  When the 15th of April dawned there was a surprise, as the two principal defendants, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey, appeared for the first time and spent the day as observers, very interested in evidence that was due to be given regarding the steering column. Passarini called Tommaso Carletti, an ex-Ferrari race engineer, who said: “There are three possible causes of the break: poor quality work, the quick movement of the steering column and a too small diameter of the joins between the three sections of the column.”

  Mauro Forghieri, ex-technical director for Ferrari, said: “I believe that Ayrton Senna turned his steering wheel firmly to the left shortly before the crash. If he had not done so he would have crashed immediately. Senna would have realised the steering on his Williams Renault was functioning abnormally and after twice easing off the accelerator, he began to brake.”

  Enrico Lorenzini, professor of engineering at Bologna University, also gave technical evidence for the prosecution. The following day the defence put its case regarding the steering. Two Williams engineers, Giorgio Stirano and Diego Milen, said that Senna had had a problem with oversteer as his car went over a bump on the asphalt surface of the Imola track. The bump was located just a few yards from where Senna’s car began to veer off the bend at Tamburello.