25 years ago.....

[Life's Good]

F1 was enduring an absolute nightmare of a weekend at San Marino.

Arguably most associate the death of Senna with this weekend but it was just an endless horror show.

Barrichello crashing at Variante Bassa on Friday

Ratzenberger with a front wing failure pitching him at pretty much full tilt into the wall at Tamburello & dying (little known fact is he raced a BMW M3 at Bathurst in the wet 1987 race as part of the WTCC)

Start line pile up with debris injuring some in the crowd

A wheel coming loose from Alboretos Minardi & running wild in the pits

Halo arguments aside, the work put in by Max Mosley & Sid Watkins made the sport infinitely safer. The death of Jules Bianchi is the sad anomaly, of course.

 

[Reflector]

They ruined the circuit after those accidents but. Tamburello and Villeneuve were the best parts of the lap and they put two chicanes in- with the Villeneuve chicane being right before a 2nd gear corner. If they'd had a tyre wall at the apex of both those corners, there almost certainly have been no driver fatalities that weekend and the glorious flat-out blast from the main straight to the Tosa hairpin remains intact.

Fact is sometimes drivers, marshals or spectators are going to lose their lives. While I think in '94 they needed to change run-off areas and replace concrete barriers with tyre walls, they went overboard in some regards (the double chicane that ruined Imola, the chicane at Estoril etc). The halo I am not a fan of- it's the first step towards them covering the cockpit entirely because "it's safer" and then we might as well not call F1 open-wheel racing anymore.

On another note, recently I watched a YouTube doco on Dale Earnhardt and it's eerie how many similarities there are with Senna. They were both fast drivers, arguably the best ever seen in their categories, with an all-or-nothing approach that earned them a big fanbase but also polarised many within the sport, they both lost their lives in accidents that were high-speed crashes but didn't look too serious compared to others where drivers emerged unscathed. Both those races were also won by drivers named Michael (Schumacher and Waltrip respectively). Likewise, for many fans their respective categories were never quite the same after their deaths- a certain "star" quality was gone. On another eerie note, the same day of that Grand Prix in Imola there was this race at Talledega. Listening to Earnhardt's first comment in the post-race interview is quite poignant with hindsight (around the 7 minute mark):

 

[Life's Good]

They ruined the circuit after those accidents but. Tamburello and Villeneuve were the best parts of the lap and they put two chicanes in- with the Villeneuve chicane being right before a 2nd gear corner. If they'd had a tyre wall at the apex of both those corners, there almost certainly have been no driver fatalities that weekend and the glorious flat-out blast from the main straight to the Tosa hairpin remains intact.

Fact is sometimes drivers, marshals or spectators are going to lose their lives. While I think in '94 they needed to change run-off areas and replace concrete barriers with tyre walls, they went overboard in some regards (the double chicane that ruined Imola, the chicane at Estoril etc). The halo I am not a fan of- it's the first step towards them covering the cockpit entirely because "it's safer" and then we might as well not call F1 open-wheel racing anymore.

On another note, recently I watched a YouTube doco on Dale Earnhardt and it's eerie how many similarities there are with Senna. They were both fast drivers, arguably the best ever seen in their categories, with an all-or-nothing approach that earned them a big fanbase but also polarised many within the sport, they both lost their lives in accidents that were high-speed crashes but didn't look too serious compared to others where drivers emerged unscathed. Both those races were also won by drivers named Michael (Schumacher and Waltrip respectively). Likewise, for many fans their respective categories were never quite the same after their deaths- a certain "star" quality was gone. On another eerie note, the same day of that Grand Prix in Imola there was this race at Talledega. Listening to Earnhardt's first comment in the post-race interview is quite poignant with hindsight (around the 7 minute mark):

Great post. You should post more in the Motorsport forum.

The sh*t thing with Tamburello is that Piquet & Berger had mighty accidents themselves yet nothing was done. Granted there was a river behind the wall but rows of tyres would have been something. Then they went the other way & changed a tonne of rules(holes in air boxes to reduce ram effect, wooden planks). Definite overreaction(don’t forget a chicane into Eau Rouge)but Mosley had to act as European Parliament was starting to ask questions(lest they dig up dodgy deals with Bernie).
Yeah, not a fan of the Halo & I dont like it at all but if it stops there I’ll live with it.
Earnhardt was a giant and his death had a level of freakishness similar to Senna. It was seatbelt related(think it broke)& there were court cases against Simpson safety equipment).
Separately, Fox taking NASCAR off their coverage is very ordinary.

 

[Reflector]

The thing with Tamburello was that it wasn't considered a high-risk bend. Unlike Eau Rogue, drivers could take a variety of different lines through it flat-out. In fact, 5 years earlier (when Berger crashed there) Prost and Senna had a pre-race agreement that whoever got to Tosa first held the lead, ignoring Tamburello because it wasn't considered a corner. The risk with Tamburello was when there was a fault with a car that affected its' handling (Piquet, Berger and Senna). I've been to the circuit and behind Tamburello there's an embankment that drops away to the creek. It would have required considerable earth-work and a wall to expand the ground area for suitable run-off area. It's redundant now, but I'd love to see a parallel universe where there was a tyre wall at the apex of both those bends for the 1994 race weekend...

 

[Life's Good]

The thing with Tamburello was that it wasn't considered a high-risk bend. Unlike Eau Rogue, drivers could take a variety of different lines through it flat-out. In fact, 5 years earlier (when Berger crashed there) Prost and Senna had a pre-race agreement that whoever got to Tosa first held the lead, ignoring Tamburello because it wasn't considered a corner. The risk with Tamburello was when there was a fault with a car that affected its' handling (Piquet, Berger and Senna). I've been to the circuit and behind Tamburello there's an embankment that drops away to the creek. It would have required considerable earth-work and a wall to expand the ground area for suitable run-off area. It's redundant now, but I'd love to see a parallel universe where there was a tyre wall at the apex of both those bends for the 1994 race weekend...

I’ll never forget the innocence Senna portrayed in relation to the 2nd start at Imola in 89. He was adamant that their agreement only applied to the first start & couldn’t understand the uproar(probably driven a lot by the English press who were strangely supportive of Prost).
That 89 season would make a good movie story, even better if 1990 was thrown in.

Back to Tamburello, yes, considerable work was needed to move the wall back & that just didn’t happen back then(ignorance was bliss I guess).

 

[Reflector]

I’ll never forget the innocence Senna portrayed in relation to the 2nd start at Imola in 89. He was adamant that their agreement only applied to the first start & couldn’t understand the uproar(probably driven a lot by the English press who were strangely supportive of Prost).
That 89 season would make a good movie story, even better if 1990 was thrown in.

Back to Tamburello, yes, considerable work was needed to move the wall back & that just didn’t happen back then(ignorance was bliss I guess).

Rush 2. I'd love to see that whole saga given the Ron Howard treatment.

There were 3 factors that worked against Senna during his career: He wasn't an English driver (where the majority of F1 teams and the media came from), he wasn't a French driver (back when France had the balance of power in F1 and a tonne of French drivers on the grid) and he never drove for Ferrari (the most influential team in F1)

He was an intense, deeply spiritual South American and so was inherently misunderstood or deliberately taken out of context to create a story. Had he been a British or French driver, his career would be regarded differently by many people IMO.

 

[Life's Good]

Rush 2. I'd love to see that whole saga given the Ron Howard treatment.

There were 3 factors that worked against Senna during his career: He wasn't an English driver (where the majority of F1 teams and the media came from), he wasn't a French driver (back when France had the balance of power in F1 and a tonne of French drivers on the grid) and he never drove for Ferrari (the most influential team in F1)

He was an intense, deeply spiritual South American and so was inherently misunderstood or deliberately taken out of context to create a story. Had he been a British or French driver, his career would be regarded differently by many people IMO.

I tend to agree with you & it’s probably a similar situation with Shuey. During their career they were portrayed as the manipulative villains whereas now they are on the elevated level of mythical status- Senna for his aura, Shuey for his results.

 

[Disinterested third party]

Stewart’s role in regards to safety is probably the key to the sport still surviving. The 60s and 70s accidents were truly frightening.

 

[Disinterested third party]

The way Pryce and Williamson were killed especially... full on.

 

[Life's Good]

The way Pryce and Williamson were killed especially... full on.

The footage of the Pryce accident is simply distressing. Jacques Lafitte remarked that he wanted to get out & punch Pryce for crashing into him only to realise, when he got close to Pryces car, that he was dead long before making contact.
The vision of David Purley trying to help Williamson is just plain tragic.

 

[Parra]

Francois Cervert, Ronnie Peterson, Villenueve, Rindt - it is a long and tragic list.

Caught a "25 years on" piece in one of the major news sites - was news or fairfax. Had the glaring error of stating that Senna was the last driver killed on a race weekend.

Vale Jules Bianchi.

 

[Parra]

Sid Watkins "Life at the Limit" is a must read book on F1 safety and F1 in general.

 

[Life's Good]

Francois Cervert, Ronnie Peterson, Villenueve, Rindt - it is a long and tragic list.

Caught a "25 years on" piece in one of the major news sites - was news or fairfax. Had the glaring error of stating that Senna was the last driver killed on a race weekend.

Vale Jules Bianchi.

Somehow, Elio DeAngelis always gets missed and Ricardo Paletti for that matter. On Villeneuve, I race with #27 on my kart.

 

[Parra]

Somehow, Elio DeAngelis always gets missed and Ricardo Paletti for that matter. On Villeneuve, I race with #27 on my kart.

For sure. The Paletti story is tragic. 1982 was a helluva year. The link between this accident, and what happened to Pironi, is uncanny.

 

[Life's Good]

For sure. The Paletti story is tragic. 1982 was a helluva year. The link between this accident, and what happened to Pironi, is uncanny.

If you haven't already done this book is a great read. It has an interesting take on the whole falling out with GV.