Senna remembered - 15 years on

One of the last F1 races I remember watching was his 1992 duel with Mansell in Monaco.

Absolutely incredible. Terrifying, even as a kid on an arm chair at home, but truly remarkable.
 
At least lessons were learnt and the safety aspect of F1 pushed (thinks like HANS devices).

Pity that it took the death of, arguably, one of the greatest motorsport talents of all time. I remember watching the practice session when Ratzenberger died, and then the utter disbelief during the race of what happened to Senna.
 
Just read the "facts behind the crash" bit on it, unbelievable reactions of 0.15 seconds between the rear end skidding and him trying to correct it!
 
philjohn said:
Pity that it took the death of, arguably, one of the greatest motorsport talents of all time.
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Very true, but he was always destined to die on track given his racing sytle and the safety standards of the day (looking back from todays standards that is)
 
Watched 20 mins of that, thanks for posting. Will try and watch the rest later :)

May he rest in peace! Legendary driver.
 
one of mods posted a big thread about how well formula 1 as come on over years with safety for the drivers

also a list of who have been killed, i had a good hour or 2 looking up this senna and from what i watched and read its seems like alonso is the new him, a lol

seemed like a very good driver though and made the track his own!
 
For some reason I never watched F1 around that time, earliest I can remember is 1996 and on.

A lot of people slate Schumacher for celebrating but after the race wasnt the reports that Senna was in a coma.


Still amazing that on that day weekend 2 drivers died and we have never had another driver die since, safety has come on leaps and bounds.
 
Rybo89 said:
i dont :(
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You need to do some research, Senna is probably the greatest racing driver ever to live, talented, charismatic, a hard racer and certainly not how you've descibed him. He is extremly highly regarded, reverred even by all who saw him race.

As you say Alonso can be a ? at times and in no way comes close to the talent that was Ayrton Senna. If we are really lucky we'll see another of his calibre in our lifetimes.
 
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Many thanks for sharing that Dangerous, Senna is a real hero of mine & that video is a great reminder of his talent.

Ignoring the fact that Schumacher is quite emotional with that record Monza win, the press-conference video really shows just how his relationship with Ralf is quite unemotional.

Rest in peace Ayrton.
 
The Senna documentary on the link at the top is looping on the Red button interactive service if you want to watch it on TV, very good it is too.

I first got into F1 in 1991 when I was only about 9 or 10 but some of my earliest sporting memories involve Senna and Mansells battle that year (the famous wheel to wheel sparks flying in Barcelona etc)

Senna was a special talent one from an era of F1 when I'd say the drivers ability had more a say in the result of a race than it does in this technology dominated era. Not too take anything away from todays drivers they can only drive what is put in front of them.

Formula 1's darkest weekend that was almost unbelievable to think today that in that one weekend 2 drivers died, spectators were injured when a debris flew into the crowd and people in the pit lane were hurt when a wheel flew off a car coming out of the pits! Rubens also had a bad crash and was hospitalised.

What came out of it was the hugely safe F1 you have today though.
 
RIP Ayrton. I don't remember the day, as I was only 5 and started following F1 from 1997, but everything about that weekend was appalling. Barrichello's crash on Friday was a very lucky escape, and he was lucky not to be worse off after the way the marshals just dropped the car after flipping it back over. Ratzenberger's crash, Senna's crash, Lamy and Lehto's crash, that tyre flying down the pit lane.. it was a disaster from the start. I hope we never have a weekend like that in F1 ever again, and I'm pretty sure we won't. Safety has come a long way since 1994 and very rarely have we had a "serious accident".

Only ones I can think of are:

13 cars - Spa 1998, Fisichella/Nakano in the same race was pretty ugly.
Schumacher - Britain 1999.
Burti - Spa 2002?
Alonso + Webber - Brazil 2003
McNish - Japan 2003

Thankfully nobody was killed in those, but bad accidents are getting rarer.
You could add Kovalainen in Spain last year to that, I was seriously concerned when he crashed. Feel free to add more, those are ones that instantly spring to mind.
 
mrthingyx said:
One of the last F1 races I remember watching was his 1992 duel with Mansell in Monaco.

Absolutely incredible. Terrifying, even as a kid on an arm chair at home, but truly remarkable.
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I just thought that was an electric dual. Both incredible drivers and it was made more exciting by Senna setting blistering pace and Mansell, the most exciting overtaker of the time battling to get past. Ok we all knew by Monaco that the Williams was shaping up to be a much better car and Senna was going to have his work cut out but I suppose that just helped make the dual even more exciting really as Senna was leading and not interested in letting Mansell pass!
 
Flibster said:
Ralf Schumacher cracking his back at Indy (2004 and 2005)
Kubica - Canada 2007
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I still wonder how he walked away from that, he took the first hit against wall then all the the energy, amazing how he was talking a week after it, thank the FIA they made the cars super strong.

Slow mo makes it worst.
 
philjohn said:
At least lessons were learnt and the safety aspect of F1 pushed (thinks like HANS devices).

Pity that it took the death of, arguably, one of the greatest motorsport talents of all time. I remember watching the practice session when Ratzenberger died, and then the utter disbelief during the race of what happened to Senna.
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I don't believe that's strictly accurate. Imola '93 was a freak weekend, the major safety improvement from these accidents being higher cockpit sides but I doubt it would have saved Senna. HANS might have helped Ratzenberger. 12 years without deaths had perhaps lulled the sport into a false sense of security.

I'd rate the major safety innovations arriving in the mid 80's - carbon fibre constuction, better protected fuel tanks and moving the drivers feet behind the front axle line.

I've still got a copy of this documentary on VHS from the original broadcast.
 
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