Race day at Imola compounded a weekend that saw horrific injuries and the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.В?
At first glance, the 1994 F1 cars may not have seemed drastically different from their 1993 counterparts. However, with their low ground clearance and exposed cockpit, they presented a stark image to the vast worldwide audience. The driver’s neck, shoulders and hands were exposed, a design philosophy not repeatable today.
The banning of traction control and other driver aids ahead of 1994 now had F1 focusing on driver ability. However, as we know it today, safety did not exist, and accidents began to happen during the testing season. Benetton driver JJ Lehto suffered a high-speed crash in Barcelona. He was removed from his car unconscious with fractured neck vertebrae.
Lehto’s accident would be the first of many during the 1994 season. But the San Marino Grand Prix saw F1 painfully realise safety had to be overhauled when two drivers were killed in two days. 31-year-old Roland Ratzenberger, driving for the new Simtek team, and 34-year-old three-time World Champion Ayrton Senna both lost their lives at Imola.
An omen for the weekend
Imola, back in the early 1990s, presented a dangerous challenge to drivers. The track featured fast-flowing corners and high kerbs. With the cars riding low, mounting these could send the cars airborne. The Variante Bassa chicane just before the final corner caught many drivers out during the weekend.
But Tamburello presented the biggest challenge by far. A 200mph curve, all that greeted a driver running off the track was more tarmac and a concrete wall. Ferrari’s Gerhard Berger suffered a high-speed crash at Tamburello in 1989 but walked away unharmed. Berger and Senna pushed for changes to the corner, tragically in the exact spot where he would lose his life. These changes were not implemented.
During Friday’s qualifying session, Rubens Barrichello, driving for Jordan, mounted the kerb at the Variante Bassa at high speed. His Jordan B194 launched into the air and hit the tyre barriers hard. His car hit it while airborne, front first, before the car hit the ground, again front first, before coming to a rest on its side. The severity of the impact forced Barrichello’s head forward, striking the cockpit and knocking him unconscious.
His injuries were nothing more than a fractured nose and cut lip. His arm bandaged, the Brazilian played no further part in the weekend. Damon Hill and Mika Hakkinen were just some of the drivers who got caught out by the chicane, but none as severe as Barrichello’s accident.
Saturday Qualifying: Ratzenberger dies
Saturday’s qualifying saw F1’s first death since 1986 when Elio de Angelis died during a test for Brabham. Simtek’s Roland Raztenberger was feeling positive heading into qualifying. Simtek and other new team Pacific had to pre-qualify their cars for the race; if unsuccessful, the team would take no further part over the weekend.
The team progressed to official qualifying, with both Ratzenberger and David Brabham, son of legendary Jack Brabham. Ratzenberger started his flying lap, unaware the front wing on his S941 was close to failing after mounting a kerb earlier.
Taking the flat-out Tamburello corner, the front wing failed, and on the approach to the Tosa hairpin, he collided with the concrete barrier at 200mph, out of view of the camera.
When his car rejoined the circuit, Ratzenberger looked limp, without movement in the cockpit. Emergency crews arrived on the scene within seconds but were administering CPR. At this point, the TV cameras moved away from the scene. He was announced dead shortly after.
Drivers recall crash
Speaking to motorsport.com, Damon Hill recalls driving his Williams past the wreckage on his way back to the pits:
“I went past the wreckage of Roland’s car and my heart sank because it looked pretty bad immediately. Guys were standing around the car and waving us past, but there was no attempt to get him out of the car, and he looked limp.”
Upon seeing the car, Johnny Herbert also recalls his emotions: “I saw the red flags. I saw it was a Simtek, but I didn’t know which one. As I got to him I slowed up and looked. I remember him being slumped, and thinking, ‘s**t’…”
Herbert confessed to crying in his hotel room that evening and attended his funeral after the weekend. Like the other drivers, he opted to continue racing.
Teammate David Brabham, writing for formula1.com, said he knew instantly upon driving past the car that the Austrian had passed away: “As I’ve gone around the corner, seen him and seen the car… it’s a very vivid moment in my memory, and one that I can still see as clear as day. For me, I was looking at someone who wasn’t there anymore.”
“I went back to the pits and, of course, everybody’s in a state of panic…I drove past the car, so they were all asking me, ‘What do you think?’. I remember my wife, Lisa, asking me what I thought and I said, ‘I think he’s gone’. There was something about it.”
Simtek told of news
Simtek Team Principal Nick Worth recalled to motorsport.com when F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone told him the news that Ratzenberger had lost his life and spoke of feeling numb in the aftermath of the accident:
“It’s a set of emotions that I wouldn’t want anyone to experience. When you design a car, when you are as responsible as I was for so many things, plus meeting Roland, and essentially becoming a friend… It’s just an indescribable feeling of the world falling away from under your feet.”
“It was just so difficult, this feeling of numbness. It’s still difficult talking about it to this day. The hardest bit was when Bernie came and told us that Roland had died.”
“That day we all lost a friend. Someone who was doing the best he could, and we were doing the best job we could with him. He decided to come to a team that could have been a no-hoper team, but he decided to go with us, and saw we were capable of beating our direct opponents, and the future held promise. It was just awful.”
Drivers rally for change – as Senna struggles to comprehend fatality
Ratzenberger’s death prompted an immediate response from the drivers, who met to discuss driver safety. The aim was to reform the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers Association). Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, the two championship contenders, spearheaded the movement, along with friend of Ratzenberger, Gerhard Berger.
Senna was nominated as a Director, fitting given his push for driver safety and concern for his competitors. Two years earlier, in 1992, he stopped on the track to aid the stricken Erik Comas. Comas had crashed his Ligier at high speed at Spa and was knocked unconscious. Understanding the danger, Senna ran out of his McLaren, turned the Ligier’s engine off, and held Comas’s head up until help arrived. It saved his life.
Emotionally, Ratzenberger’s death deeply affected Senna. He reportedly collapsed on the floor of his motorhome in tears, having visited the crash site with F1 doctor and friend Professor Sid Watkins. Watkins revealed in his book “Life at the Limit” that he suggested to SennaВ? that he withdraw from F1 entirely: “Ayrton, why don’t you withdraw from racing tomorrow?”
“In fact, why don’t you give it up altogether? What else do you need to do? You have been world champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let’s go fishing.”
Senna responded: “Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on.”В? Despite reported concerns from Williams and Watkins over Senna’s mindset, he would race. He remarked the next morning in his motorhome that he was being forced to race, as photographer John Nicholson explains after he took one of the last photos of the three-time world champion:
“Then on the Sunday morning we were in the debrief room, and I took some pictures of Damon and Ayrton, and Ayrton was saying “I don’t want to race, they’re making me race” and it’s like what can I do, I’m just a photographer you know, you need to have a word with Bernie [Ecclestone], I can’t do anything.”
As he and the rest of the drivers prepared to take to the grid for the race, they were resolute in their resolve: Ratzenberger’s death must lead to a change in safety for F1. But Senna’s state of mind continued to concern those to close to him as he prepared for lights out.
Lights out leads to injury
Lehto’s Benetton on the third row stalled at lights out as the field moved around him. Pedro Lamy’s Lotus came across the Benetton unsighted and careered into the rear of the Finn.
The impact detached the front right and rear tyres from Lamy’s Lotus. Luckily, the Portuguese driver walked away unscathed from the incident. Lehto received a light arm injury but was otherwise unharmed.
But the wheels had managed to vault the spectator fence. Landing in a capacity crowd, eight fans and an on-duty policeman were injured, causing concern throughout the paddock.
The Safety car was immediately deployed, with Senna leading Schumacher while debris was cleared from the circuit. It pulled off the track on lap six as the race resumed. Senna attempted to use the heavily revised FW16 to get his season back on track following two consecutive retirements in the opening two races.
The accident that changed F1
One lap later, Senna went wide off the circuit at full throttle, hitting a concrete retaining wall at Tamburello hard. The impact destroyed the side of his FW16, as, again, a front and rear tyre detached from a car at Imola.
Commentator Murray Walker exclaimed in shock at the sight of the Williams slowly coming to a halt. Within seconds, everyone in the paddock knew the severity of the crash. Medical staff, including Professor Sid Watkins, were among the first on the scene.
Speaking for the Senna film, Watkins said he knew instantly that Senna’s injuries were fatal and revealed he believed he saw his friend die on the tarmac:
“We got him out of the cockpit, and got his helmet off and got an airway into him, and I saw from his neurological signs that it was going to be a fatal head injury.
And then he sighed, and his body relaxed, and that was the moment, I’m not religious, that I thought his spirit had departed”.
The atmosphere at the Williams team and the entire paddock was one of resignation and realisation. No one could quite believe the tragedy unfolding around them. A helicopter took the critically injured Senna to hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
The cause of Senna’s crash remains a mystery to this day. However, his death was caused by his FW16 hitting the wall at the precise angle for his detached suspension shaft to hit and penetrate his helmet.
Williams welfare
Speaking on FormulaNerds’ Cut to the Race podcast in 2022, former Williams Press Officer Anne Bradshaw spoke of her emotions and looking after the welfare of the mechanics in the immediate aftermath of the accident:
“I had to also remember that there were mechanics who had been working on his car and what they were thinking. I’d got a team of people who I needed to make sure they weren’t hustled by the media, get them back home,В?and get them away from what was a dreadful situation in the best possible way.”
“It was a defining moment in modern sport and a moment that nobody will ever forget…we had gone a long time without any shock event so to get a double-whammy in one weekend knocked everyone for six and shocked us all.”
“Every time I think of how that weekend unfolded, it is almost unbelievable. Everything seemed out of control. It was honestly horrific and a real test of your nerve and one’s philosophy about what is sane and what is not.”
“Ahead of the restart, [Williams’ PR officer] Ann Bradshaw came up to me and intimated that it was Ayrton and it wasn’t good. But I took that to mean it was a grave injury. I didn’t know at that time he was dead. In fact nobody competing knew he was dead until the end of the race.”
A final accident after the restart
The race restarted 45 minutes later, with the true gravity of Senna’s situation unknown. The field got away cleanly this time with no accidents off the line.
Another accident rounded off F1’s darkest weekend. Michele Alboreto’s Minardi exited the pits after making his second stop, with the right rear tyre detaching and bouncing backwards through the pits.
The out-of-control tyre hit three Ferrari mechanics, and one from Lotus. All sustained light injuries occurred as mechanics from up and down the pit lane rushed to assist in getting the injured medical treatment.
Michael Schumacher took victory from Nicola Larini’s Ferrari and Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren Peugeot. An overwhelming sense of tragedy overshadowed the podium celebrations.
In the post-race press conference, Schumacher summarised the thoughts of the F1 paddock:
“What happened this weekend I have never seen something like this. Not just one thing, so many things. The only thing I can say is I hope we learn from this. I think there is a lot to learn from, and we have to use this and things like this, they shouldn’t happen without taking the experience from it.”
Two deaths in two days devastated the sport. Brazil announced three days of official mourning in the wake of Senna’s death, with arch-rival Alain Prost a coffin bearer at his funeral, joining the other drivers who attended to show their respects for a true legend of global sport.
Safety changes announced
FIA President Max Mosely announced that sweeping car changes would be made immediately. The size of the diffuser was reduced, the front wing endplates were raised, and restrictions were placed on their size. This reduced downforce by a substantial 15%.
The car’s weight was increased by 25 kilos so that cockpit safety changes could be made. Particular emphasis was given to strengthening the wishbones to prevent tyres and other car parts from detaching and hitting the driver. The airboxes were removed from the engines, and teams were required to install air vents to reduce the effect.
The wooden plank on the car’s underside debuted later in the year. This required the cars to be raised, preventing them from bottoming out. A wear tolerance of 10% was permitted, but this equated to one millimetre.
The drivers also acted, officially forming the GPDA ahead of the next race in Spain. Niki Lauda joined as Director and worked with Michael Schumacher to ensure driver safety demands were met at tracks. This included installing temporary chicanes at circuits deemed too dangerous in their current configuration.
Legacy
Senna’s legacy and influence on motorsport cannot be understated. Every safety feature on a Grand Prix car up to 2014 can be attributed to his and Ratzenberger’s death at Imola.
Raised cockpits were introduced in 1996 after Senna’s death. The strengthening of wishbones and the introduction of barge boards aimed to prevent incidents similar to those seen in Imola.
Crash structure and side impact tests were introduced in 1995. These ensured cars could survive high-speed impacts and deform if needed. This is also still integral to F1. Thirty years later, the plank remains in F1, a testament to ingenuity and a push for safety that never ceases.
Senna died a three-time world champion, all achieved at McLaren while chasing a fourth with Williams. His achievements on and off track mark him as one of F1’s greatest drivers. We will never know the success he would have had with Williams in the later years of his career. Ratzenberger had his career cut short, having achieved his dream of driving in F1.
Senna’s death and Ratzenberger’s just 24 hours before highlighted the urgent need for a safety overhaul in F1. Senna’s death overshadowed Ratzenberger’s, but both were tragic losses. Motorsport is dangerous, and we can sadly never make F1 truly safe. Imola 1994 was the catalyst for much-needed change but came at a massive cost.
Feature Image Credit:@Cf27Magno on X