Ayrton Senna is overrated. Discuss...

[entropy]

London424 said:

I'll have to see if I can dig out some of those as a few are before my time.

I was watching this one the other day and wasn't massively impressed.

http://youtu.be/k5xLiQJdmck

Admittedly not a great example. Senna was human and had an off day

Other than the obvious that has been mentioned here are some better examples of Senna's mastering the wet conditions:

1985 Portuguese GP - IMO his greatest win as he had no driver aids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuM0GlmOM4I

1985 Belgian GP - started off wet but dried out and still took a dominant win in a non-WDC contending but race winnable car https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XyOjEbr25k&li...

1988 British GP - Even with the best car that year Senna worked for his win whereas Prost gave up as he as struggling with the conditions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkFiSbZEGTA&li...

[anonymous-user]

The biggest flaw with Ayrton Senna was his Williams FW 16 steering column at the tamburello curve.

[mollytherocker]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

The biggest flaw with Ayrton Senna was his Williams FW 16 steering column at the tamburello curve.

Nope. He grounded out due to reduced tyre pressures after the safety car.

[anonymous-user]

mollytherocker said:

Nope. He grounded out due to reduced tyre pressures after the safety car.

No doubt you got your information from the flawed 2004 National Geographic documentary entitled Seconds from Death.

Do you really think a driver of Ayrton Senna's skill level would lose the car in a curve?

Tamburello was fast but it was not difficult.

Both Nelson Piquet and Gerhard Berger's accidents there were due to car failures.

Quote by Adrian Newey

“The day after the race was a Bank Holiday Monday and some of us came in to try and trawl though the data and work out what happened, ” Newey adds. “They were dark weeks. The honest truth is that no one will ever know exactly what happened. There’s no doubt the steering column failed and the big question was whether it failed in the accident or did it cause the accident? It had fatigue cracks and would have failed at some point. There is no question that its design was very poor.

The car bottomed much harder on that second lap which again appears to be unusual because the tyre pressure would have come up by then – which leaves you expecting that the right rear tyre picked up a puncture from debris on the track. If I was pushed into picking out a single most likely cause that would be it.”

Further question put to Newey was

Could the bumps at Tamburello have broken the steering column?

It is possible.

So even after the accident they state they have no real idea of what happened.

I find that very hard to believe.

[coppice]

Damon Hill in his book also talks about the fact that Senna took the tighter line over the bump and the car bottomed . Obviously he has been paid to say this and he is part of a global conspiracy concealing The Truth...See also Princess Diana. Strange how only the higher profile drivers' deaths attract such
speculation and poor sods like De Angelis, Paletti , Fabi and of course Ratzenberger are just casualties.

[anonymous-user]

coppice said:

Damon Hill in his book also talks about the fact that Senna took the tighter line over the bump and the car bottomed . Obviously he has been paid to say this and he is part of a global conspiracy concealing The Truth...See also Princess Diana. Strange how only the higher profile drivers' deaths attract such
speculation and poor sods like De Angelis, Paletti , Fabi and of course Ratzenberger are just casualties.

Damon Hill's book. Says it all.

Senna took a tighter line. Really? The man who designed the car stated the above yet you think Damon Hill has the answer?

The drivers you have mentioned

Elio de Angelis died due to the rear wing falling off. Car issue like Senna

Riccardo Paletti died due to a start line crash into a stalled car. What speculation?

Roland Ratzenberger died due to going off the circuit at Imola and continuing instead of pitting. The front wing failed. Driver error and then wing failed.

All the above are explained yet no one can tell for sure what happened to Senna.

I can tell you one thing it was nothing to do with driver error.

[Halmyre]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

coppice said:

Damon Hill in his book also talks about the fact that Senna took the tighter line over the bump and the car bottomed . Obviously he has been paid to say this and he is part of a global conspiracy concealing The Truth...See also Princess Diana. Strange how only the higher profile drivers' deaths attract such
speculation and poor sods like De Angelis, Paletti , Fabi and of course Ratzenberger are just casualties.

Damon Hill's book. Says it all.

Senna took a tighter line. Really? The man who designed the car stated the above yet you think Damon Hill has the answer?

I can tell you one thing it was nothing to do with driver error.

Nothing Hill says contradicts Newey's statement. If anything it supports it. Newey says it bottomed out; Hill says it bottomed out. Newey says he maybe had a puncture; Hill says Senna took a tighter line - which maybe means he picked up some debris which punctured his tyre.

And anyone can make an error. No-one is infallible.

[mollytherocker]

Halmyre said:

Nothing Hill says contradicts Newey's statement. If anything it supports it. Newey says it bottomed out; Hill says it bottomed out. Newey says he maybe had a puncture; Hill says Senna took a tighter line - which maybe means he picked up some debris which punctured his tyre.

And anyone can make an error. No-one is infallible.

+1

[entropy]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Do you really think a driver of Ayrton Senna's skill level would lose the car in a curve?

Not an expert but skill level has nothing to do with it IMO. When the bottoms out it won't always/necessarily flick its tail out or throw a tank slapper but you can be a passenger as the momentum can spit you offline. This is Simon Pagenaud bottoming out and he ended up in the wall at the Pocono 500 this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhCAHh1oXg

Worth remembering that the SC was Vauxhall Cavalier/Opel Vectra



This is Senna gesticulating at the SC to go quicker https://youtu.be/pCZ18D3Xj7c?t=470

[coppice]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Damon Hill's book. Says it all.

Senna took a tighter line. Really? The man who designed the car stated the above yet you think Damon Hill has the answer?

The drivers you have mentioned

Elio de Angelis died due to the rear wing falling off. Car issue like Senna

Riccardo Paletti died due to a start line crash into a stalled car. What speculation?

Roland Ratzenberger died due to going off the circuit at Imola and continuing instead of pitting. The front wing failed. Driver error and then wing failed.

All the above are explained yet no one can tell for sure what happened to Senna.

I can tell you one thing it was nothing to do with driver error.

So you keep repeating - trouble is you have yet to convince anybody apart from yourself. Damon Hill ? Only his teammate- just might have more insight than a conspiracy theorist?

[Eric Mc]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Do you really think a driver of Ayrton Senna's skill level would lose the car in a curve?

Of course he could - and he did, many times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixxWrSmoa4

[Evangelion]

Not forgetting this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7i5hx786P4

I always find it intriguing that whenever a driver has a fatal accident, the pundits always come along afterwards to say, oh no it couldn't have been driver error, he wouldn't have made a mistake, he was too good etc. It is a fact that people do make mistakes.

It's inevitable, given the nature of motorsport, that occasionally such a mistake will result in the perpetrator paying the ultimate price.

[Mark A S]

I was watching that race on 1st May 1994. When Senna went off my first reaction was Something broke on the car.
I have not seen or read anything since that changes my mind.

[Eric Mc]

Mark A S said:

I was watching that race on 1st May 1994. When Senna went off my first reaction was Something broke on the car.
I have not seen or read anything since that changes my mind.

I was watching that race on 1st May 1994. When Senna went off my first reaction was "he's barely hanging on to the car - oh look, he's lost it".

Just like he did in the clips that have been put up for you to look at.

[KaraK]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Do you really think a driver of Ayrton Senna's skill level would lose the car in a curve?

What a ridiculous thing to say - of course it was possible for him to make an error. From what I've read/seen about the crash in '94 (including watching the race on TV at the time) I don't believe that he was at fault and that any of his actions (such as the aforementioned tighter line) were contributory factors at worst to an underlying mechanical or circumstantial problem such as a puncture.

I don't think we'll ever truly know what happened, and I'm not sure why you find that so "hard to believe" - there's just too much information that it's impossible for us to know. Since Senna never regained conciousness he was never able to tell anyone what he experienced and telemetry on F1 cars back then was like neanderthal cave paintings compared to what it is now (and even now there are still failures that they can't fully explain, you just don't hear as much about them because they haven't killed any household names of Senna's stature).

We do know that when the wreckage was inspected afterwards that the steering column was broken and that there was evidence of stress fractures around the modifications. Exactly what caused it to fail and at what point in the timeline the break occured is a lot harder to figure out. Personally I think Newey's theory makes the most sense, speaking of which your quote from Newey is incomplete and missed out some fairly crucial statements from him explaining why he thinks it unlikely that steering column failure caused the accident, here's the full quote (I've bolded the missing section):

Adrian Newey said:

The honest truth is that no one will ever know exactly what happened. There's no doubt the steering column failed and the big question was whether it failed in the accident or did it cause the accident? It had fatigue cracks and would have failed at some point. There is no question that its design was very poor. However, all the evidence suggests the car did not go off the track as a result of steering column failure... If you look at the camera shots, especially from Michael Schumacher's following car, the car didn't understeer off the track. It oversteered which is not consistent with a steering column failure. The rear of the car stepped out and all the data suggests that happened. Ayrton then corrected that by going to 50% throttle which would be consistent with trying to reduce the rear stepping out and then, half-a-second later, he went hard on the brakes. The question then is why did the rear step out? The car bottomed much harder on that second lap which again appears to be unusual because the tyre pressure should have come up by then – which leaves you expecting that the right rear tyre probably picked up a puncture from debris on the track. If I was pushed into picking out a single most likely cause that would be it."

I don't know if the selective quoting was yourself pushing the "broken steering column" theory that you seem to prefer or whether you picked it up from somewhere else doing the same but either way it's not really on

[anonymous-user]

entropy said:

Not an expert but skill level has nothing to do with it IMO. When the bottoms out it won't always/necessarily flick its tail out or throw a tank slapper but you can be a passenger as the momentum can spit you offline. This is Simon Pagenaud bottoming out and he ended up in the wall at the Pocono 500 this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhCAHh1oXg

Worth remembering that the SC was Vauxhall Cavalier/Opel Vectra



This is Senna gesticulating at the SC to go quicker https://youtu.be/pCZ18D3Xj7c?t=470

Oval racing is completely different.

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

Of course he could - and he did, many times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ixxWrSmoa4

Completely different corner to tamburello.

Mexico was extremely bumpy especially that corner.

[anonymous-user]

Mark A S said:

I was watching that race on 1st May 1994. When Senna went off my first reaction was Something broke on the car.
I have not seen or read anything since that changes my mind.

Exactly.

[anonymous-user]

KaraK said:

I don't know if the selective quoting was yourself pushing the "broken steering column" theory that you seem to prefer or whether you picked it up from somewhere else doing the same but either way it's not really on

So basically you are stating it is stupid of me saying Senna would not lose it at tamburello curve yet then post stating it was more than likely Senna had a right rear puncture.

And still Newey can not tell if the steering column broke before the accident or not?

BTW I know Senna could spin or crash but I am talking about Tamburello curve which was not even a corner.

The only accidents there have been due to cars hitting each other or a car issue.

Again Senna had a car issue.

While commentating on the race that weekend John Watson stated Senna must have had a car issue as it is not a difficult curve to take.

[anonymous-user]

Halmyre said:

Nothing Hill says contradicts Newey's statement. If anything it supports it. Newey says it bottomed out; Hill says it bottomed out. Newey says he maybe had a puncture; Hill says Senna took a tighter line - which maybe means he picked up some debris which punctured his tyre.

And anyone can make an error. No-one is infallible.

If the car bottomed out it was due to having a right rear puncture not Senna making a mistake or taking a different line.

Again car issue.