Slightly different footage of Senna's crash...

[anonymous-user]

heebeegeetee said:

The race is only 90 minutes long, I doubt that's long enough to get the full story and then ensure all of his immediate friends and family (many on the other side of the world) have been informed and had time to take the news in.

Everyone attending to Senna. Medical team.


The race was stopped for a long time before it was restarted. The medical team were working on Senna before the car itself could be removed.

The people in the know would have been kept informed on exactly what was going on.

I will post what Bernie stated to Leonardo Senna after the accident once I find it.

[anonymous-user]

What Bernie was supposed to have said to Leonardo Senna.

The source is Betise who was Ayrton Senna World Wide Press Officer (90/94)

https://betisesportsworld.net/2014/05/01/senna-wha...

Edited by anonymous-user on Thursday 12th January 14:23

[JNW1]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

What Bernie was supposed to have said to Leonardo Senna.

The source is Betise who was Ayrton Senna World Wide Press Officer (90/94)

https://betisesportsworld.net/2014/05/01/senna-wha...

Edited by ELUSIVEJIM on Thursday 12th January 14:23

What a truly awful story that is; playing with the emotions of Senna's family at the most sensitive time all in the interests of PR and ensuring the show went on. Hardly surprising Bernie wasn't welcome at the funeral....

[The Surveyor]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Yes Brundle was very upset and annoyed. The drivers were told very little until after the race.

I am sure Bernie and other officials would have been updated by Professor Sid Watkins and knew fine Senna was going to die.

The fact a cancelled race would cause a lot of issues must have been spoken about.

Difficult situation all-round. Senna didn't die at the trackside but had sustained head injuries Prof Sid knew he would never recover from. Bernie would have known there was no hope, but equally others would have known that he wasn't dead when he was airlifted away. So much scope for confusion and mixed messages.

To cancel the race due to Senna's accident would (IMHO) have been very disrespectful to Roland Ratzenberger and there was never a policy to cancel races as a result of accidents so I don't know why Brundle would have expected it. People being upset and annoyed is understandable though.

The last fatality in F1 prior to that weekend (Paletti at Canada in the early 80's) wasn't cancelled in very similar circumstances so why would anybody have expected the race to be cancelled.

[hora]

vonuber said:

So one death is acceptable?

No but two is indefensible for a show to go on for the sake of money.

[heebeegeetee]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

Everyone attending to Senna. Medical team.


The race was stopped for a long time before it was restarted. The medical team were working on Senna before the car itself could be removed.

The people in the know would have been kept informed on exactly what was going on.

I will post what Bernie stated to Leonardo Senna after the accident once I find it.

Ok, that's all very interesting, but as the piece says, there was 5 hours of talking to people and translating etc. I'm in the camp of thinking that the show must go on, all of the drivers had already chosen to race past the spot where Ratzenberger died. Do the race, go home, announce the death properly and at the right time. To do otherwise would mean people close to Senna learning of it through the media.

[angrymoby]

GreigM said:

Rubbish. The "black box" in this case is a simple ECU recording telemetry. The phrase "black box" is misleading, in this case it is used simply because the plastic housing of the box is black. In those days it would be a fairly fragile unit, certainly not ruggedised or anything like an aircraft data recorder.

In an accident like that it could easily have been covered in fluids from the engine, any amount of flying debris could have pierced it or even an electrical event caused the data to become corrupt (this was early 90s technology after all, solid state memory was notoriously prone to failure).

There are an abundance of tinfoil hats on this thread.

Indeed.

& there were/are far better ways to destroy the data held within them, rather than hitting them with a hammer ...& when i say 'better' i mean by not raising suspicions that you'd tampered with it. e.g putting 1000 volts through it

[The Surveyor]

JNW1 said:

.....playing with the emotions of Senna's family at the most sensitive time all in the interests of PR and ensuring the show went on. Hardly surprising Bernie wasn't welcome at the funeral....

You see I didn't read it like that, I read it that Bernie was being totally honest with Leonado in that Senna was lost, whereas the press officer was wanting to only put out the known facts which was that he wasn't dead when he left the circuit.

What would Bernie have to gain by getting it wrong if he was wanting to ensure the race went ahead. If that was the case he would have been more inclined to imply Senna was alive or have I missed something here?

[JNW1]

The Surveyor said:

JNW1 said:

.....playing with the emotions of Senna's family at the most sensitive time all in the interests of PR and ensuring the show went on. Hardly surprising Bernie wasn't welcome at the funeral....

You see I didn't read it like that, I read it that Bernie was being totally honest with Leonado in that Senna was lost, whereas the press officer was wanting to only put out the known facts which was that he wasn't dead when he left the circuit.

What would Bernie have to gain by getting it wrong if he was wanting to ensure the race went ahead. If that was the case he would have been more inclined to imply Senna was alive or have I missed something here?

The reference to not wanting to communicate Senna's death so as to not to stop the race has a slightly nasty whiff to it IMO; however, technically he was still alive until after the race finished and therefore his death couldn't have been announced earlier in the afternoon anyway.

In terms of playing with the emotions of the Senna family, the article says Bernie and Martin Whitaker talked for a minute or two before Whitaker came across and told Leonardo and Betise the situation; therefore, that surely suggests Whitaker was communicating a party line he'd agreed with Ecclestone? In the subsequent one to one conversation Whitaker explicitly tells Betise "he is not dead" - which was factually correct at the time - but that in turn prompted a second call to the Senna family in Brazil which raised a completely false hope (albeit for only a few hours).

I'm sure Bernie would have talked to Syd Watkins and therefore he'd have known exactly what the situation was; that being the case, an honest comment should have been more along the lines of "he's sustained very severe head injuries and, although he's still alive at the moment, the medical advice is he won't survive". The "he's alive but has head injuries" bit would have been consistent with Whitaker's briefing to the press but at the same time the family would have known the injuries were fatal and could therefore have been spared the roller coaster of "he's dead, actually no he isn't, ah yes he is". They would have known he was in hospital with head injuries - as the whole world knew - but they'd also have known he wasn't going to survive (which was feared by many but known for certain by only a few).

I seem to recall something at the time about Bernie having initially told the family "he's dead" only to retract and say he'd mis-heard and that actually the message was "he's hit his head"; however, there's no mention of that in the article so perhaps it's just part of the urban folklore that's grown around all of this! What is clear, though, is that the family felt they had been given mixed messages about Senna's condition and felt strongly enough about it to not want Bernie at the funeral....

[F1GTRUeno]

George29 said:

F1GTRUeno said:

Of all the things in this thread this is actually the least shocking.

It's well known that for whatever reason, Williams engineers were allowed to remove the black box which was against the law. Charlie Whiting agreed to it.

It's also well known that they returned it to the authorities a month later and it was returned in an irretrievably damaged state

Aside from a news report where is your evidence that it wasn't damaged in the crash? What I have been told by someone directly involved in the trial contradicts what you have claimed. The data logger was in the RH sidepod, I.e. The one that took a lot of impact. This supposedly forced the dzus fastener that held the data logger panel in place into the data logger. Seems pretty self explanatory to me. Also it's pretty obvious why Williams would take it to try and recover any data if possible

Well that's just it, these are the articles that were written at the time about it.

I'm quite sure you can't and won't reveal your source which is fine and I'm quite happy to be proven wrong about it. I'd much rather it wasn't intact to be completely honest.

I did find this, although I can't find anything after it to show what happened for the next stage.

http://www.williamsdb.com/black-box-examined-in-se...

'IMOLA, Italy (Apr 2, 1997 – 13:13 EST)

Ayrton Senna’s ‘black box’ data recorder came under scrutiny Wednesday, as the trial continued into the Brazilian’s fatal crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.


Witnesses said last month that the recorder had been damaged when Senna’s Williams-Renault hit a concrete wall after leaving the Tamburello bend, and could not be connected up to the team’s computer.

Marco Spiga, a technical expert called by state prosecutor Maurizio Passarini, demonstrated how the external sockets of the recorder worked — thank to three pin connectors supplied by Williams expert Giorgio Stirano. However, the session here proved inconclusive because the recorder also requires a data card to be connected up, in order to send the information across to a computer.

Williams lawyer Edda Gandossi said: “I think it’s clear today that it would be pointless in this trial to try and cast any suspicion or inferences on the behaviour of the Williams engineers – a behaviour which has always been courteous and professional.”

Passarini said: “Only today are we told we need a card. Williams never told us this before. Why wasn’t it made available?”

Stirano replied: “Because we were only asked for the pin connectors.” On Passarini’s request, he added that a card could be made available for the next court session — April 15 and 16.

The next stage, which could continue on April 22 if necessary, is expected to see crucial expert evidence about the steering column, which the prosecution claim failed and caused Senna’s fatal accident.

Bernie Ecclestone, head of the Formula One Constructors Association and other FOCA experts, are expected here on April 24.

(c) 1997 Agence France-Presse – 2/4/97.'

Not entirely sure what's so obvious about Williams wanting to gather the data so quickly though. So quickly that they had to contravene FIA ruling and get Charlie Whiting to agree to it. If they were that worried about a technical failure to Hill's car they'd have pulled him in straight away rather than go and grab the box from Senna's car. The race and cars were also stopped by the time Senna's car reached the pit lane so they would've had plenty of time to survey Hill's car and get his feelings on how it was at the time.

I'm not saying there would've been anything to add to what we already know on the recorder but the doubt over it persists after 23 long years. It's because of conduct like that, that people are suspicious of Williams.

In any case, I often wonder what would've happened to the whole event had roles been reversed and Ayrton crashed and passed away before Ratzenberger.

Even if everybody accepts that he was technically still alive but obviously not going to make it and they announced it at the hospital after Qualifying, surely the uproar over Senna dying would've been too much for them to carry on? Not to disparage poor Roland but he gets rather forgotten about in the whole Imola mess because he was a rookie in one of the slowest cars, not the three time World Champion and current most famous and most vaunted driver on the grid in the fastest car.

Either way they should've cancelled it after Ratzenberger crashed. It was plainly obvious to millions of people watching that he was dead, whether you argue the ethics of it or not. The only reason it wasn't cancelled was because the organisers stood to lose a load of cash and they didn't want the hassle over the Italian legal system needing to find an assailant to blame for the death at the circuit.

[Vocal Minority]

ELUSIVEJIM said:

So if this footage was not used live but was submitted at a later day why then does the clip stop at the most important part?

This obviously proves that the camera was recording the race from Senna's car.

Edited by ELUSIVEJIM on Wednesday 11th January 19:59

It stops at 'the crucial point' because it has been distributed on mainstream media - VHS, Tele and so on. I think it is very self explanatory why it has been cut.....(because those places didn't want to show the accident by the way...not a cover up - that's fairly obvious unless you are trying to bend it to a theory)

but yes I agree there is footage past that of that broadcast

[anonymous-user]

Vocal Minority said:

It stops at 'the crucial point' because it has been distributed on mainstream media - VHS, Tele and so on. I think it is very self explanatory why it has been cut.....(because those places didn't want to show the accident by the way...not a cover up - that's fairly obvious unless you are trying to bend it to a theory)

but yes I agree there is footage past that of that broadcast

I am not trying to "bend" anything.

This is all the footage which was taken from the on board of Senna's car.

It is stated that they recording just happened to end at that exact point.

This is the reason I have questioned it.

[The Surveyor]

F1GTRUeno said:

........

I'm not saying there would've been anything to add to what we already know on the recorder but the doubt over it persists after 23 long years. It's because of conduct like that, that people are suspicious of Williams.

.........

Either way they should've cancelled it after Ratzenberger crashed. It was plainly obvious to millions of people watching that he was dead, whether you argue the ethics of it or not. The only reason it wasn't cancelled was because the organisers stood to lose a load of cash and they didn't want the hassle over the Italian legal system needing to find an assailant to blame for the death at the circuit.

Your extract only adds to the conspiracy theory around the data box, just further finger pointing at Williams. If Williams and Charlie Whiting had left the data boxes in the car at trackside, your extract shows that the Italian authorities were totally incapable of getting any data from them, damaged or not. They didn't have the right connectors, and even then they needed a data 'card' to access the data, a card which they never asked for. Shear incompetence.

There was also no conspiracy to ensure the race to run, letting the race run is just what happens. Races were just not stopped or cancelled due to the death of a driver. There isn't a precedence for that, and how would running the race or not impact on the 'hassle over the Italian legal system' ?

You're looking for another angle to a conspiracy that just isn't there.

[HustleRussell]

HustleRussell said:

Eric Mc said:

Why is it so obvious?

Are you unable to accept that he might have got it wrong in a car that wasn't easy to drive?

Personally I would find it easier to dismiss it as driver error if I thought it looked like driver error. However...

Eric Mc said:

I'll leave it there because the Sennistas will never believe that their hero could make mistakes..

And just like that, my optimism for having a meaningful discussion like in the real world is clumsily crushed.

[JNW1]

The Surveyor said:

There was also no conspiracy to ensure the race to run, letting the race run is just what happens. Races were just not stopped or cancelled due to the death of a driver. There isn't a precedence for that, and how would running the race or not impact on the 'hassle over the Italian legal system' ?

I'm not looking for a conspiracy plot but personally I just don't think it was right to restart the race in the circumstances. Ok there's no rule about it but it strikes me that what happened following Dan Wheldon's tragic accident in Las Vegas a few years ago was more appropriate; awful accident, driver taken by helicopter to hospital, death announced to the other drivers a few hours later, no restart of the race.

Sid Watkins knew from the moment he arrived at the scene that Senna wouldn't survive; technically he was alive when he arrived at the hospital but, as Watkins later told Senna's PR manager, in reality he was killed at the track. I'm sure that would have been communicated to Bernie Ecclestone and the race organisers so for me the race shouldn't have been restarted; doesn't make me right of course, just a personal view.

Edited by JNW1 on Friday 13th January 07:27

[vonuber]

Again it raises the question of why not cancel it after Roland's death?

[JNW1]

vonuber said:

Again it raises the question of why not cancel it after Roland's death?

I think that's a fair question and personally I don't think they should have resumed the qualifying session on the Saturday afternoon following Ratzenberger's death. However, they did and interestingly one of those who refused to take any further part - despite being threatened with disqualification if he didn't go back on track - was Senna. I think at least some drivers (including Senna) weren't keen to race on the Sunday but I suppose there's an element of "that's what racing drivers do" and, as Damon Hill says, there's a huge difference between not wanting to do something and feeling like you have to (going over the top at the Battle of the Somme is the analogy he uses in his book). So a day after an awful event the drivers had had the opportunity to reflect and probably felt it was their job to continue; even Gary Brabham (Roland's team mate) decided to race although he admits his mind was all a bit of a blur.

For me, though, restarting the race after Senna's accident was like restarting qualifying after Ratzenberger's accident; both happened when in my view neither should. The horrible situation with Dan Wheldon was more analogous with what happened to Senna (in the sense it stopped a race) and personally I think the organisers in the US made the right call. As I say, though, it's purely a personal view and perhaps if I'd had a career as a professional racing driver I'd have a different mindset (just get back in the car and race, etc?).

[The Surveyor]

JNW1 said:

vonuber said:

Again it raises the question of why not cancel it after Roland's death?

I think that's a fair question and personally I don't think they should have resumed the qualifying session on the Saturday afternoon following Ratzenberger's death. However, they did and interestingly one of those who refused to take any further part - despite being threatened with disqualification if he didn't go back on track - was Senna. I think at least some drivers (including Senna) weren't keen to race on the Sunday but I suppose there's an element of "that's what racing drivers do" and, as Damon Hill says, there's a huge difference between not wanting to do something and feeling like you have to (going over the top at the Battle of the Somme is the analogy he uses in his book). So a day after an awful event the drivers had had the opportunity to reflect and probably felt it was their job to continue; even Gary Brabham (Roland's team mate) decided to race although he admits his mind was all a bit of a blur.

For me, though, restarting the race after Senna's accident was like restarting qualifying after Ratzenberger's accident; both happened when in my view neither should. The horrible situation with Dan Wheldon was more analogous with what happened to Senna (in the sense it stopped a race) and personally I think the organisers in the US made the right call. As I say, though, it's purely a personal view and perhaps if I'd had a career as a professional racing driver I'd have a different mindset (just get back in the car and race, etc?).

I totally agree from an emotional perspective, it would feel that cancelling the race would have been a 'nicer' thing to do.

But, and a very big 'but', that was never ever going to happen because it never has in F1 as far as I am aware.

Also, where do you draw the line? Do you never run the GP again at Imola out of respect and to save the drivers from, passing his shrine at every race, or never run another GP at any circuit where a driver has perished? Of course not. The sad fact is that the whole of F1 history has been tainted by the loss of drivers both relative new-comers like Roland, or champions like Senna. Every track has a tragic legacy so whilst I agree with your sentiment, F1 has never been a sentimental sport.

[JNW1]

The Surveyor said:

JNW1 said:

vonuber said:

Again it raises the question of why not cancel it after Roland's death?

I think that's a fair question and personally I don't think they should have resumed the qualifying session on the Saturday afternoon following Ratzenberger's death. However, they did and interestingly one of those who refused to take any further part - despite being threatened with disqualification if he didn't go back on track - was Senna. I think at least some drivers (including Senna) weren't keen to race on the Sunday but I suppose there's an element of "that's what racing drivers do" and, as Damon Hill says, there's a huge difference between not wanting to do something and feeling like you have to (going over the top at the Battle of the Somme is the analogy he uses in his book). So a day after an awful event the drivers had had the opportunity to reflect and probably felt it was their job to continue; even Gary Brabham (Roland's team mate) decided to race although he admits his mind was all a bit of a blur.

For me, though, restarting the race after Senna's accident was like restarting qualifying after Ratzenberger's accident; both happened when in my view neither should. The horrible situation with Dan Wheldon was more analogous with what happened to Senna (in the sense it stopped a race) and personally I think the organisers in the US made the right call. As I say, though, it's purely a personal view and perhaps if I'd had a career as a professional racing driver I'd have a different mindset (just get back in the car and race, etc?).

I totally agree from an emotional perspective, it would feel that cancelling the race would have been a 'nicer' thing to do.

But, and a very big 'but', that was never ever going to happen because it never has in F1 as far as I am aware.

Also, where do you draw the line? Do you never run the GP again at Imola out of respect and to save the drivers from, passing his shrine at every race, or never run another GP at any circuit where a driver has perished? Of course not. The sad fact is that the whole of F1 history has been tainted by the loss of drivers both relative new-comers like Roland, or champions like Senna. Every track has a tragic legacy so whilst I agree with your sentiment, F1 has never been a sentimental sport.

I take your point about where do you draw the line and for me that would be if there's been a fatality part-way through either a qualifying session or a race then that session or race should be stopped as a mark of respect to the driver who's been killed. On that admittedly subjective view the situation with Dan Wheldon was handled correctly in my eyes whereas the situations with Ratzenberger and Senna weren't. However, I totally understand that drivers know the risks before they get in the car and want to race and compete; therefore, come the next session or race the default has to be "back to work" as otherwise the sport stops. I certainly wouldn't suggest a track should never be used again purely because there was once a fatality there although an incident of that sort may prompt a rethink of the layout (as indeed it did at Imola).

However, I don't think you can necessarily use an argument that because something's not happened in F1 historically it never should. After all, go back to Zandvoort in 1973 and most of the drivers continued to race past Roger Williamson's car while the poor bloke was literally burning alive; if people had taken the view "that's just the way we do things in F1" nothing would have changed but thankfully it did and for the better!

[Roofless Toothless]

I used to own a collection of Official FIA annual videos (on VHS so that puts a date on it!) and I remember noticing that in the year prior to Senna's death there were no repaired sections of track round Tamburello. Yet in the fatal year several patched sections of tarmac are visible, and I believe that the Williams actually seemed to veer off line while crossing one of them.

Given all the discussion about ride heights and bottoming out, I still can't help thinking that a poorly repaired surface might be a contributory cause here, but I can't recall ever seeing this mentioned.

It might also explain the Italian authorities' eagerness to steer the blame towards the Williams team and away from any contribution from the circuit owner towards the tragedy. Or am I being unfair?