The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Less than a fortnight after Imola in 1994, the Formula One circus moved on to Monaco. It was there, during Thursday’s practice session, that Austrian Karl Wendlinger lost control of his Sauber Mercedes when exiting the tunnel and slammed heavily into the barriers at the chicane. The news was not good. Wendlinger suffered serious head injuries and remained in a coma for three weeks. To a paddock that was hoping to put the tragic events of the previous race behind it, it was a cruel blow. After the crashes of Ayrton Senna, Roland Ratzenberger and Rubens Barrichello at Imola and the testing smashes of Jean Alesi and JJ Lehto, it was clear that something had to be done immediately.

  On the day after Wendlinger’s crash, FIA president Max Mosley announced that an ‘expert advisory group’ would be instituted to decide on the best course of action. There would be five members: Professor Sid Watkins, FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting, FIA safety delegate Roland Bruynseraede, a representative for the drivers and one for the designers. Gerhard Berger, elected head of a newly-reformed Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, was chosen as the driver and Tyrrell’s Dr Harvey Postlethwaite as the designer.

  A plan was designed with the aim of cutting speeds, reducing downforce and improving track safety. Firstly, in Monaco, the pitlane would have a speed limit set of 50mph to prevent another accident like Alboreto’s. For the Spanish Grand Prix two weeks after Monaco, downforce would be cut by about 15 per cent by reducing the size of the cars’ rear underwing, removing all parts of the front wing behind the foremost part of the front wheel, and raising the front wing end plates by 10mm.

  The teams were originally hostile to the changes – they claimed any alterations to the technical regulations should not be rushed through in a matter of weeks. Former racer Jacques Laffite told Paris Match: “We need to think, and not take hasty, stupid measures. Each time a problem crops up, like the skirts a few years ago, the federation takes a common-sense approach and bans them. We need to see the same thing next year. What difference does it make to a crowd if a Formula One car goes at 280kph or 310kph? No difference. The spectacle is the same. The drivers are impressive virtuosos facing off on an asphalt arena. The race for power needs to stop. That’s the lesson to be learned from this black Sunday. Whatever regulations there are, drivers will always get killed. But don’t forget that we’re also test drivers, that our cars use new technologies which one day end up in Joe Bloggs’ car. We assume responsibility for the risks we take. That’s what we’re paid for, and we enjoy it. It’s a unique pleasure.

  “We’re reaching breaking-point. We might have practically indestructible vehicles, but the human body can no longer withstand the constraints being placed on it. Can you imagine that for a while now the engineers have been looking at fitting cars’ instruments in helmet visors using a holographic system? The drivers are human beings, not robots. By pushing things further, we’re ultimately signing drivers’ death warrants each time they go on the road.”

  But the FIA was under immense pressure. Governments, the press, the fans, safety campaigners – all were calling for something to be done. Even the Vatican had got involved. The changes were rushed through. Teams like Williams, which had nervous cars, were worried that the reduction in downforce would only make the cars more twitchy (although in the event, the drivers actually found the cars easier to drive).

  In fact there were only two more major accidents that year, and they came before all the new regulations were in place. The first was a few days after Monaco, when Pedro Lamy’s Lotus suffered a rear wing failure in testing at Silverstone, left the track and cleared a safety fence, leaving him with serious leg injuries; the second was at the Spanish Grand Prix when Roland Ratzenberger’s replacement Andrea Montermini crashed his Simtek into a tyre barrier at 135mph on Saturday morning. The Italian escaped with a broken foot.

  On the Friday of Spain, things had come to a head between the teams and the FIA. Throughout the morning’s free practice session, only five teams – Ferrari, Minardi, Tyrrell, Larrousse and Sauber – took to the track. The others were locked in urgent discussions with Max Mosley inside the Williams motorhome. As a result it was announced that the FIA technical committee would from then on include eight engineers and three drivers. The teams were, in effect, taking control of what would happen and when.

  The other change at Barcelona was to the track. At the instigation of the GPDA, which had threatened to boycott the race if the situation was not improved, a temporary chicane of tyre bales had been placed on the ultra-fast Nissan kink. Combined with a self-imposed, no-passing rule at the spot, it served its purpose. The corner would be redeveloped entirely for the 1995 race.

  Similar makeshift chicanes began to crop up at Grand Prix tracks around the world. Silverstone worked the hardest, managing to make permanent alterations to most of the track in just 19 days after consultation with the FIA and the GPDA. A temporary chicane was installed at Canada; Hockenheim’s chicanes were reprofiled; Monza’s Lesmos were adapted; Estoril’s turn eight was circumvented with a slow hairpin which actually caused a couple of accidents; a chicane appeared on a fast stretch of track at Jerez. Ironically, many of the changes were named after Senna, who would probably have disliked the restrictions to racing they posed. In the end, the situation got out of hand. When kerbing was used to turn Spa’s Eau Rouge into a ridiculous 50mph chicane, the authorities began to look at ways to improve run-off areas and crash barriers for 1995, so that the popular fast corners could be kept intact.

  Since 1994, many of the old famous tracks have gone from the calendar and have been replaced with safer equivalents. Only Spa-Francorchamps genuinely harks back to the old days. As a result, safety has been greatly improved, although often at the cost of spectacle and tradition.

  The second wave of safety revisions came into place at the 1994 Canadian Grand Prix, where the lower front wishbones were strengthened and the minimum car weight increased by 25kg. The German Grand Prix saw the first appearance of the plank. This constituted a skidblock made of hard jabroc wood bolted to the floor of the cars, which must not be worn down beyond a certain point. The move was intended to limit downforce by increasing ride height, thus preventing the cars from bottoming out. A loss equivalent to 60bhp was achieved by the middle of the season.

  A programme of high-energy crash testing took place to decide what should be done. By the end of 1994 the number of high-risk corners in Formula One had been reduced from 27 to eight, through both the changes to the tracks and the reduced speeds.

  For 1995 further restrictions were made to reduce engine power and downforce, which would result in stepped floors, three-litre engines and higher cockpit sides. In 1996, high cockpit sides became mandatory. In 1998, the FIA reduced speeds with the introduction of grooved tyres. A year later, the number of grooves was increased from three to four. From 2003, head and neck supports will be compulsory for all drivers.

  When Mika Häkkinen hit a wall at 105mph in Friday’s qualifying session at Adelaide in 1995, he was very lucky to survive. In the past eight years there have been several other lucky escapes at high-speed corners: Jos Verstappen at Stavelot at Spa in 1996; Olivier Panis at the Pont de la Concorde in Montreal in 1997; Mika Salo and Jacques Villeneuve at Spa’s Eau Rouge in 1998; Michael Schumacher at Stowe at Silverstone in 1999; Heinz-Harald Frentzen at the Pont de la Concorde in 1999; Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta at Eau Rouge in 1999; and Luciano Burti, perhaps the luckiest of all, at Blanchimont at Spa in 2001. There have also been a number of first-lap pile-ups when the drivers have emerged with only cuts and bruises, although two marshals have been killed in the past two years.

  There is no doubt that the accidents could have been vastly more serious if not for the improvements in safety, but just how much more dangerous can only be hypothesised.

  CHAPTER 36

  The Consequences for F1

  How Senna’s death changed the sport

  On a cold 2002 January morning at Silverstone, the new BMW Williams FW24 is unveiled to the public for t
he first time. It is an understated affair with nothing to entertain the gathered world media except the car itself and the key team figures and drivers. Williams has always seemed to prefer it that way.

  The car’s livery is substantially the same as the previous year – respectable navy striped with crisp clean white, although attention is drawn to the new FedEx decals that adorn the front wing. None of the attention is reserved for the small decal on the inside of the wing struts, which is barely visible in the shadow of the car’s nose. There, in white and navy, sits a small Senna S.

  Although he spent only three races with the team, Senna is not forgotten. His portrait is the only photograph of a driver that appears in Frank Williams’ study and Juan Pablo Montoya is an avid fan. The Colombian was delighted to be presented with a replica yellow helmet by the Senna Foundation over the winter months and remarked: “Some of my earliest Formula One memories are of watching Ayrton Senna on the TV. I loved watching the way he dealt with Alain Prost. Ayrton was different to everyone else. He was my hero.”

  Senna’s death left Williams in a state of chaos from which lesser teams would have struggled to recover – certainly Simtek never recovered from the death of Roland Ratzenberger. Williams left Imola in 1994 with just seven points to Benetton and Michael Schumacher’s 30, only one driver and the prospect of a manslaughter trial looming. But even this paled under the weight of one overwhelming fact: Ayrton Senna was dead and he had died in a Williams car.

  In the wake of Imola the team released a simple statement that both managed to capture the sadness of the moment and present a strong will to carry on. It read: ‘Williams Renault will find a replacement driver: Formula One won’t’.

  Gerhard Berger seriously considered retirement after the deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger, telling Austrian television shortly after the race that he had ‘absolutely no desire to get into a racing car’. On the Wednesday before Monaco he called an emotional press conference: “I earned good money. I was driving in good teams. I was winning races. I had pole positions. Basically not a lot to prove. So what is the point of still taking the risk? That was my question to myself last week. But the other side is, what is the rest of your life?”

  In Monte Carlo, several people admitted that they expected to see the familiar yellow helmet appear at any moment. There was a solemn minute’s silence on the grid and the front row was left empty in memory of Senna and Ratzenberger. There was little doubt that Senna would have taken pole, at this his best of tracks, had he lived. Hill went out after tangling with Mika Häkkinen on the first lap. Schumacher took a commanding win and the deficit in the championship was 40 points to seven.

  Williams had not replaced Senna for Monaco but there was constant speculation over who would take the second Williams seat. Rumour had it that Williams did not think Hill capable of leading the team through such a crucial period and was looking out for a worthy veteran to lead it in the championship fight. This may have been no more than a psychological ploy to boost Hill’s determination to succeed and if it was, it worked.

  Williams first turned to German rookie Heinz-Harald Frentzen, but in the wake of Karl Wendlinger’s accident he did not want to leave Sauber without a driver in such troubled times. It was eventually decided to draft in the team’s test driver David Coulthard and pay him £5,000 a race. He knew the car and had worked well with the team so far, although his appointment would at first be only on a temporary basis.

  In the wake of Senna’s death and the retirements of Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, Formula One was left without a star. Bernie Ecclestone was well aware of this and wanted Mansell back from the States to fill the vacant Williams seat. The 1992 champion was getting restless in IndyCars, where his second year had turned out to be a great deal less illustrious than the first. But Mansell’s asking price was $1 million a race and a further £12 million would be needed as compensation for the Newman-Haas IndyCar team. Ecclestone reportedly told Mansell to give up that ‘Mickey Mouse rent-a-car’ and ‘get back to the real stuff ’. Encouraged by Ecclestone and Renault, Williams agreed that Mansell would race at the French Grand Prix in Magny-Cours in June – which did not clash with any IndyCar commitments – and the final three races of the season after the American championship had finished. Coulthard would deputise in-between.

  But Mansell’s arrival was not the only financial problem that was dogging Williams in the wake of Senna’s death. Frank Williams had agreed to continue paying Senna’s salary for the rest of his contract in the event of a tragedy – a full £8 million a year for two years – while Lloyds had to pay out some £20 million to those who had insured against his demise. Though the team and sponsors got some compensation, Senna’s estate walked away with most of the loot. The trial itself cost Williams $4 million in legal and investigative fees, while Senna’s relatives were richer to the tune of £36 million as a result of his death. He was literally worth more dead than alive.

  Formula One also profited from Senna’s death. After the events of Imola, television viewing figures rose by a massive 30 per cent across the world. Some blamed ghoulish viewers; others said the extra viewers had merely had their attention drawn to the sport and the championship battle. Whatever the reason, the figures rose – and were certainly helped by the growing rivalry between Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill.

  The battle had grown so intense that Mansell’s return to action in France was relegated to a sideshow. His appearance seemed barely needed to spice up the action any more – Hill and Schumacher, with only five seasons’ Formula One experience between them, had caught the public imagination. The world was divided in its support. To his enemies, Schumacher was the arrogant, cheating German and Hill the noble saviour, trying to hold together his struggling team in the wake of Senna’s death. To his fans, Schumacher was the heroic genius struggling against the authorities and Hill the inferior challenger who had the authorities on his side. It was pure theatre.

  In Spain, Schumacher made the perfect getaway from pole and pulled out a second a lap from Hill until lap 18. Then his car got stuck in fifth gear and he was forced to drive like that for the remainder of the race. He finished second, a superb achievement, but one that was completely overshadowed as Hill took Williams’ first victory of the year. Adrian Newey wept openly and Frank Williams permitted a rare smile.

  It was a sorely needed victory. In Canada Schumacher won again with Hill second. In France Mansell returned and Hill beat him to pole by 0.07 seconds. It was all in vain, however, as Schumacher got away from fourth with a start so brilliant it reminded people of days of traction control. Schumacher won again – making it six times out of seven – and Hill was again second. When he returned to the Williams motorhome after the race he found Patrick Head glued to a television screen, repeatedly replaying a tape of Schumacher’s stunning start.

  The drivers’ championship stood 66 points to Schumacher, 29 to Hill and the constructors’ 67 to Benetton, 36 to Ferrari and 31 to Williams. The frequent changes of second driver had resulted in a lack of consistent points scoring. At Benetton, JJ Lehto and Jos Verstappen were alternating rapidly as Lehto struggled to recover from the neck injury he had received in pre-season testing, but neither driver had managed to get close to Schumacher’s pace. For that reason, with Williams able to boast Mansell and Coulthard in the second car, it looked as if the constructors’ championship was still open even if the drivers seemed way beyond reach.

  But Silverstone was the turning point. Hill took pole at his home track by just 0.003 seconds from Schumacher. Approaching the start, the Benetton driver seemed determined to gain a psychological advantage and he overtook Hill on the original warm-up lap, then twice on the second warm-up lap, which was called after Coulthard stalled on the grid. Schumacher then got the better start, but his pre-start behaviour was in contravention of the rules and he was shown the sign for a five-second stop-go penalty. For lap after lap as his team argued with the stewards he stayed out on the circuit, only to be forced in 10 laps la
ter at the risk of a disqualification. The rules said that the penalty had to be taken within three laps of the driver being notified, but Schumacher still managed second behind a jubilant Hill and the team was fined $25,000.

  Before the FIA World Council in Paris a few days later, that became $500,000, disqualification from Silverstone and a two-race ban for Schumacher. Defying the race stewards was heavily frowned upon, but all the same it seemed to be a hefty punishment for an originally small misdemeanour. In the midst of threats from irate German fans to torch the Hockenheim forests, blockade roads and harm other drivers, it was decided that the ban would be suspended until the Benetton team had had a chance to appeal, allowing Schumacher to compete in his home Grand Prix in Germany two weeks after Silverstone.

  That was not the only punishment for Benetton. At San Marino, software analysis company Liverpool Data Research Associates had been called in to investigate the allegations that some of the teams were using illegal driver aids. The top three cars of Michael Schumacher, Nicola Larini and Mika Häkkinen were investigated and the teams asked to surrender their source codes to LDRA. Ferrari – aware that it had been the centre of cheating allegations earlier in the season – readily complied, but Benetton and McLaren refused, claiming intellectual copyright. Under pressure from the FIA and fined $100,000, both teams eventually complied. LDRA discovered McLaren was running a programme that permitted automatic gearshifts, but after much deliberation the FIA concluded it was just within the bounds of legality. The findings from Benetton’s software, however, were dynamite.