The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Another Williams witness that day was Max Nightingale, who was responsible for aerodynamics and hydraulic steering. Williams had first used power steering in 1994.

  Nightingale was asked about the tests done after the Senna accident with respect to the steering and suspension. He said: “Patrick Head asked for the tests to be performed. Our data was based on the high peaks of Senna’s telemetry, which were probably due to bumps on the track. These are incompatible with a break otherwise they would have been reset.” He confirmed that, as a precaution, the power steering on Hill’s car was disabled after Senna’s crash.

  The next witness was Williams employee Simon Wells, responsible for hydraulic tests. He testified that he had not found any signs of stress on the steering of Damon Hill’s car, but he had not carried out a test. In a strange outburst, Passarini accused Wells of being ‘a technician who conducted an examination that he was unable to accomplish’.

  Afterwards, reporters crowded round the lawyers as they left the courtroom, eager for their reaction to the TV programme the previous evening and in particular the suggestion that a mysterious ‘Mr X’, or presumably ‘Monsieur X’, knew the truth about the crash in which Ayrton Senna died. Maurizio Passarini said he had seen the programme but replied to all questions with a firm ‘no comment’. Williams lawyers had not seen the programme. Roberto Causo, the FISA lawyer, was more forthcoming: he confirmed the existence of ‘Mr X’ but said he was a French engineer whose only role was to transport the black box from Imola to Paris.

  On Thursday 3rd July Williams engineers Gary Woodward, Dickie Stanford, Simon Scoins and Brian O’Rourke testified for the defence. They said that the crash in which Ayrton Senna died was not caused by steering-column failure. Gary Woodward, who was responsible for the interior mechanics of Senna’s car, testified that the column in his Williams Renault was carefully checked before the race. He said: “After each Grand Prix the cars are subjected to a crack test, using penetrating liquids to identify any fractures in the suspension or steering columns. The steering columns are replaced halfway through the season. The tests carried out after the Pacific Grand Prix in Aida, Japan, found no defects in Senna’s car.”

  At that point Maurizio Passarini asked him if he was aware of the modifications made to Senna’s steering column. Woodward replied: “Steering-column modifications, which complied with the rules, were made to Senna’s car. All three cars had the same modifications prior to the race in Brazil.”

  Simon Scoins, a Williams electronics engineer responsible for downloading telemetry, admitted he had received the Williams black box from Senna’s car after the crash. He said: “I was shocked when I lifted the material cover from Senna’s car. The Williams data recorder was above the gearbox, 180cm from its natural position. Three of the four connectors were disconnected or damaged. I carried it to the garage where I attempted to connect it. It was useless. I tried inserting the RAM card but without success. I have no knowledge of the Renault data recorder.”

  Composite-materials specialist Brian O’Rourke said: “As the right front wheel of Senna’s car hit the wall, the violent impact caused a torsion on the steering column, causing it to break.”

  The following day Maurizio Passarini again showed the enhanced Betacam video images. They were taken from Senna’s in-car camera and, according to the prosecution, showed anomalies regarding Senna’s steering column.

  Two fixed points were shown located on Senna’s steering wheel: a yellow button and a V mark, the first with a distant radius 83mm from the centre of the steering wheel, the second 55mm.

  Relative arcs showed the shift of the points indicated with reference to two moments in the race, the period behind the safety car and the first lap of the restarted race.

  Then Passarini produced a new video regarding the evidence. The circumference traced from the yellow button was relative to the movement of the chassis, whereas just before the crash the yellow button lowered to the level of the V, which represented a deflection of 28mm.

  Dominioni introduced a video brought from the factory: the steering of Senna’s car showed it had a flexibility of 15mm. Mauro Forghieri told the court angrily: “Any driver would have refused to drive with steering in that condition.”

  The following Wednesday, 9th July, was destined to be the last day in court before the summer recess: the hot courtroom proved explosive.

  The witnesses called were Mr Nosetto and Professor Rafaele Dal Monte for the prosecution; and Mssrs Minelli, Marchionna, Saliti (general secretary of the Italian Motorsport Commission, or CSAI) and Muscioni (an FIA safety inspector) for the circuit.

  Roberto Causo, defence lawyer for FIA delegate Roland Bruynseraede, who was in court for the first time, attacked the conditions with regard to the concrete run-off area and the escape route from the track at the time of the crash.

  Roberto Nosetto was a director of Santerno, the company responsible for the circuit, between 1980 and 1989. He explained: “There were two rules, that of the CSAI of 1962 and an international one which had evolved with time. The wall at Tamburello into which Ayrton Senna crashed met the standard. It was constructed of resilient cement, made to absorb any impact at an angle not exceeding 30 degrees. Senna’s impact was 22 degrees.” Nosetto told the court that in 1989, when he finished his administration, to the rear of the grass border a course layer of wide cement was constructed measuring 9-13 metres. This area was to allow for emergency procedures.

  Passarini asked Nosetto for his opinion on the way Senna’s Williams Renault left the track. He told the court that the Williams flew, in the sense that the front wheels rose and fell, leaving visible tyre tracks. It then crossed over the grass/cement areas, with a braking distance of 38.5 metres, which happened in 0.6 seconds. On the track the deceleration was 4G, on the grass/cement it was 0.8G. Bendinelli’s lawyer, Roberto Landi, objected: “The word ‘flew’ is misleading. Better to say ‘a slight lifting’.”

  Professor Dal Monte told the court: “The Williams lost ground adhesion. The average gradient of the track then was plus 3.1 per cent, the average of the escape shoulder plus 2.1 per cent. At Tamburello there was not a way of escape as denoted by the regulations. There was not enough space to reduce the speed of the car.”

  Nosetto added: “The escape area should have had the same inclination as the track. There could be some undulations provided that the ideal line of track continuation was consistent, without gradients and with a maximum radius of 50 metres.”

  Then the defence lawyers for the Imola circuit produced a CD, based on the telemetry data, full of diagrams which gave the real and optimal braking times. According to this data, Senna hit the wall at 188kph (116.8mph) against the 216kph (134.2mph) calculated by the prosecution’s experts. In ideal conditions Senna would have crashed at 167kph (103.7mph), against the 140kph (86.9mph) estimated by the prosecution. But in both cases the front right wheel of his car would have become detached, hitting his head at the same point and with enough force to kill. And there it stopped, while the lawyers went on holiday and Jacques Villeneuve and Michael Schumacher wrestled for the world championship.

  After the long summer break, the trial resumed on 16th September in cooler weather. When it opened there was drama as David Coulthard failed to appear as a witness. The day had been planned to examine Coulthard’s evidence and recall Michele Alboreto, whose earlier evidence conflicted directly with Coulthard’s.

  Williams’ lawyer, Oreste Dominioni, maintained that as Coulthard would not be available until the end of the Formula One season, his written statement should be accepted. This did not go down well with prosecutor Maurizio Passarini, who clearly felt Coulthard had been nobbled. He stated that as Coulthard lived in nearby Monaco he shouldn’t have a problem with travelling 400 kilometres to attend the trial. However, if his written deposition added nothing to that already offered by the defence, then it should not be admitted.

  The no-show put Dominioni in a difficult spot: he required Coulthard to refute Alboreto�
�s evidence as they were in direct conflict over the movement shown on Senna’s steering wheel.

  Passarini took the opportunity to make a speech but he was preaching to the converted. The judge was also unimpressed by Coulthard’s no-show. He said: “People involved in Formula One don’t want to be thought hostile towards the environment. No one will go to prison for this, and that is logical as the whole sport entails risks hardly avoidable. But this trial is obliged to at least defend the memory of two drivers, I talk also of Ratzenberger, as they cannot defend themselves. It bothers me that people are defending positions which are indefensible.”

  In the event Passarini recalled Michele Alboreto to the stand. On 17th March he had testified, after viewing a VHS video of the crash, that he felt mechanical failure made Senna unable to negotiate the Tamburello curve. Now he was recalled because he had had a chance to view the much-improved Betacam version of the tape, and had made public his views based on that. Passarini wanted them put into the court record. Alboreto was again adamant that there was a technical failure. “You don’t go off on that bend unless there is a mechanical failure,” he said. He also stated that on circuits like Imola the stresses and strains on the steering column would cause flexing ‘in the order of two or three millimetres’.

  Oreste Dominioni then read out the written statement that former Williams test driver David Coulthard had made, which stated that the amount of movement seen on the steering wheel of Senna’s car was normal. The statement said that the steering wheel in the McLaren, which Coulthard drove in 1996, behaved similarly. Coulthard’s statement directly countered Alboreto’s evidence.

  Alboreto, very direct and impassioned, replied that movement was allowed, considering the torsion inflicted by the arms of the driver and the composition of the material. Oscillation could depend on the distance from the support, but only by two or three millimetres.

  Coulthard supported the Williams theory that the movement as seen on the Betacam video was perfectly normal. Judge Costanzo accepted his testimony, provided that he subsequently appeared in person.

  During Alboreto’s testimony, film was also shown of previous crashes at Tamburello involving Gerhard Berger, Nelson Piquet, Riccardo Patrese and Alboreto himself.

  Outside the court, Alboreto said he was convinced Senna’s crash was caused by mechanical failure, not driver error. Being semi-retired allowed him to speak freely, he said. This was in reference to Coulthard’s statement, which Alboreto implied was obtained under duress.

  He told reporters: “I’m even more convinced that it was a technical problem that caused Senna to crash, now I have seen the video. There is a tape which shows the flexing movement of the steering wheel was two to three centimetres. No steering wheel moves a few centimetres. Should the court accept this film as evidence it will prove that something was wrong with Senna’s car.” It was clear outside the court how close Alboreto and Senna were, as he declared: “I hope this trial will come to the defence of a man, a great driver, who is no longer with us. Shortly after his death I heard ridiculous stories – that the crash was caused by Ayrton fainting or because he was thinking about his fiancée. Senna deserves the recognition that he was not to blame for his own death. I don’t want to see anyone go to prison, but his memory must be protected.”

  Alboreto refuted Coulthard’s statement, claiming he was being told what to say to safeguard his future in Formula One. “Coulthard has the prospect of a long career in Formula One,” he said.

  Others felt at the time that Alboreto’s testimony was so vehement because he had a long-standing past grudge against the Williams team over a drive that was promised but never materialised. Whatever the truth, Alboreto has taken it to his grave. In 2001 he was killed in a testing accident in Germany, driving an Audi R8 Le Mans car.

  The debate over the Coulthard no-show set the scene for a spat between Passarini and Williams’ defence lawyers, who produced experts to conduct a simulation to prove that the behaviour of Senna’s car was similar to that of the simulator. This followed on from Mike Guttilla’s testimony.

  Passarini displayed the images from Senna’s in-car camera to prove that he steered to the right. A Williams expert said the movements visible were not only circulatory as dictated by the force of the torsion.

  Finally Williams’ lawyers screened a lab video of a 1994 car taken from the team’s museum. It featured a driver (David Coulthard) at the wheel simulating the movements made in a race. According to the defence, it reconstructed the oscillations of Senna’s steering wheel before the accident, with the yellow button that moved in a springy compatible way conducive to the materials used and the imposed effort from the driver. In his written statement, Coulthard said the steering wheel in his 1996 McLaren behaved similarly.

  Passarini was not impressed. “The film shown today has the same value as the defendant who says ‘I wasn’t in that place on that night’,” he said. “It remains the comment of a defendant.”

  The court reconvened on Monday 22nd September to examine the Williams computer simulation shown on the 16th. Passarini called Professor Pietro Fanghella of the University of Genoa to question Williams engineer Diego Minen.

  Professor Fanghella said: “My graphs showed that when superimposing the traces of the real telemetry onto those of the simulation there was a temporal difference of 1.5 seconds. Regarding Tamburello, the responses in the simulation do not relate to those of Senna. In comparing the two graphs there were discrepancies of 25 per cent, 50 per cent and in some cases 100 per cent. The simulation captures only the course of the vehicle, not the corrections made by the driver. The steering wheel is not in relationship with the angle of the steering wheel in the program.”

  Minen replied: “The relationship between the steering trajectory and the steering wheel is not comparable due to the unstable track surface – a phenomenon that happened only once but which, for Williams, is the reason Senna left the track. The temporal difference in the telemetry real-simulation is of 1.2 seconds and this is not relevant. It is impossible to quantify the angle of the steering applied by the driver by looking at the yellow button on the steering wheel.”

  The following day saw first questioning of two defendants, Federico Bendinelli and Roland Bruynseraede. Passarini reminded the court that Bendinelli was managing director of Sagis, the company that runs the Imola circuit, and that Bruynseraede was the FIA delegate present at Imola on Sunday 1st May 1994. Also due to attend was Giorgio Poggi, the circuit manager, but he was ill.

  Passarini repeated his claim that Senna’s accident was initially caused by steering-column failure, the secondary cause being his inability to brake sufficiently – a result of the raised edge of the track, which stopped the car’s wheels from gripping the surface.

  First to testify was Bruynseraede, who granted the FIA licence to the Imola circuit in 1994. He stated that he had inspected the track two months before the race, and that circuit officials had always observed any demands made to improve safety. He said the final track inspection was made on the Wednesday preceding the race and nothing was found to cause concern. He said: “The FIA had never required alterations to Tamburello and I had never received complaints from the drivers regarding that part of the track.” He added that in any case, he had not been involved in the bureaucratic procedures through which the Imola circuit obtained its licence from the FIA.

  Bendinelli stated that the Imola circuit had been modified but that all alterations were made with FIA approval. He said that the FIA had never found fault with the angle at the track’s edge, before or after Senna’s crash. Adding that Imola and many other circuits had modified their layouts after 1994, he explained why: “Critical situations were being created for the cars, most likely because of the abolition of active suspension. The FIA took remedial action with changes to the circuits, especially the faster ones, and also to the cars. The FIA felt that drivers were relying too much on computers and therefore the human element was being lost from the sport.” He said Senna
himself had welcomed the abolition of active suspension and was one of its most vocal opponents.

  Bruynseraede told the court that in 14 years he had received only one request to alter the circuit. It came from Alain Prost, who in 1989 was acting as the drivers’ representative. Prost requested that a grass verge at Tamburello be cemented over to allow drivers to brake more quickly and give more control should they exit the track at that point.

  Bendinelli’s lawyer, Roberto Landi, asked his client about the modifications to Tamburello after the 1994 fatal accident. He replied: “Tamburello is now different but the track gradient with the run-off area is the same as before the alteration.”

  The day ended with Passarini making presentations regarding David Coulthard’s no-show and the Scot’s previous protestations that he could not attend before the season ended on 26th October. He said that unless Coulthard attended the trial session on 28th October, his statement should not be admitted as evidence.

  The judge said that the trial would resume on 3rd October, when Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey would attend.

  When 3rd October dawned it took only five minutes for Judge Costanzo to adjourn the session after Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey failed to turn up. Lawyers told the court that due to a ceramics trade fair being held in Bologna, all hotels in the Imola area were booked up: their clients had found it impossible to secure accommodation. The lawyers told the court that they would attend on 29th October. To avoid a wasted day the judge and lawyers spent two hours finalising the trial’s schedule as it neared its conclusion: on 7th November, Maurizio Passarini would begin his summing-up for the prosecution; then on 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th, 17th, 18th and 21st November, the defence could sum up its case.

  As scheduled, on 28th October David Coulthard finally arrived to testify. Pressure had been put on a reluctant Coulthard to attend in person by the Williams’ lawyers because his evidence was vital. Peter Goodman denies it was. But there is no doubt they breathed a sigh of relief when he appeared.