Remembering Ayrton Senna 25 years after his death

1st May, 1994 was the day when the San Marino Grand Prix took place and the life of Ayrton Senna was taken from this world in a tragic accident at the Tamburello corner. In this post, I wanted to remember the early parts of the 1994 season.

The pictures are from the Minichamps cars released in 2016 in resin for each of the Grand Prix that Ayrton took part in, beautifully recreated.

Senna made his anticipated move to Williams, a front running team that would probably add to his championship tally. Judging by McLaren's woeful performance in 1994 with the new Peugeot engines, Senna was right to leave. But with 'driver aids' being banned for 1994, Williams had to prepare, set up and run a car without active suspension for the first time since 1991. The FW16's aero that had been fine tuned for active suspension now had to work in a wider range of conditions. Sadly the car was aerodynamically flawed, with the sidepods too far forward and causing intermittent stalls, thus losing massive amounts of grip suddenly, all of which doesn't give a driver too much confidence. But whilst Hill held back until this issue was fixed (and contending with Mansell returning for a few Grand Prix in the other seat), Senna pushed through it with a great self-belief in his car control. 

Benetton had produced the front running car in the hands of F1's next superstar, Michael Schumacher. Senna was all to weary of the threat, and perhaps over-stated the rivalry in his mind before it properly began. Senna needed a rival to motivate him, just as a superhero needs a super-villain. Senna needed a reason why the German's car was now the benchmark, and illegal traction control on the Benetton was his reasoning. 

Ibrar Malik researched the 1994 season along with its many controversies including Benetton's alleged cheating particularly on the issue of traction control. This is published in his book, 1994: The Untold Story. Though the writer leaves the reader to make their own conclusions, it is quite clear from the evidence that it is more than likely that Benetton did not have traction control and what Senna had heard in Aida was Schumacher's left-foot braking driving style as well as energising the exhaust blown diffuser on the B194. You'd have to buy this excellent book for the detail, but the evidence is quite compelling. 

Round 1: Brazil

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The Brazilian Grand Prix opened the 1994 season. Senna managed to gain pole position with a three-tenth's of a second advantage over Schumacher and a whopping 1.5 seconds ahead of team-mate Hill who started in 4th place. Senna got away well into the lead, whilst Schumacher fell behind Alesi in the Ferrari. The German passed the Ferrari at the end of lap 2 and closed the 4 second gap, showing that the Benetton was quicker. Schumacher got ahead in the pitstops and had a comfortable 10 second lead. But by lap 55, the two had lapped the rest of the field, and Senna closed the gap to 5 seconds when suddenly the Williams spun and Senna was out of the race. 10 points earned for Schumacher and a disappointing 0 points for Senna from his home race. This set up an tantalizingly competitive season, something F1 had been lacking since 1991.

Round 2: Pacific GP

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Japan's first of two races in the country was held at the Aida track for the first time, and the race was dubbed the Pacific Grand Prix. Senna again took pole position, two-tenths ahead of Schumacher and half-a-tenth ahead of team-mate Hill. It was Schumacher who got away well and passed Senna well before the first corner. Hakkinen tagged the Williams going into the first corner, sending Senna spinning off. To make matters worse, Ferrari substitute, Nicola Larini, also went off in turn 1 and ploughed into the stricken Williams, ending both their races. At the end of round 2, Schumacher now had a perfect 20 points whilst Senna remained on 0 points.

Round 3: San Marino

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It was well documented that Senna had safety in the very forefront of his mind. You can read more about the many serious crashes that happened during the early parts of 1994 in this 

blog post. Barrichello's accident and Roland Ratzenberger's death in qualifying would have rattled anyone, but with Senna visiting Rubens in hospital, and being driven to the scene of Roland's accident would not help anyone's mental state if you were about to jump into one of these machines and push it to the limit.

Yet Senna had no choice but to push the car to the limit. He was already 20 points behind a fast Schumacher, and with Monaco around the corner which should have suited Schumacher's Benetton (and history proved correct with a dominant display), Senna had to make the most his opportunity at Imola, a track that suited his powerful Renault engine.

Senna took pole position with a three-tenths of a second advantage over Schumacher in second. Senna took the lead at the start, but a huge start line accident lead to the Safety Car being deployed. F1 had wanted to spice up the show and introduced a number of things from Indycars, which was growing in popularity at the time. Though the Safety Car was reintroduced to F1 in 1993, there was pressure from the powers that be to use it more often. However the Opel Vectra was not really quick enough for F1 cars to maintain tyre temperature and tyre pressures at safe racing levels. Though not proven, it is the most likely cause of Senna's car bottoming out and causing the Brazilian to lose control of his car. Other factors may have been the aerodynamic stall, mentioned above, and a hastily extended steering column which was found to be broken.

Whatever the reason for the cause for the FW16 flying off the track, the impact, though heavy, was not in itself the reason for the fatality, the reason being a stray suspension element that came away from the car from the impact.

As it turns out, Schumacher was on a three stop strategy and Senna on a two-stop strategy, meaning the German had a lighter and faster car at the start of the race and so Senna didn't really need to push as hard as he did to stay ahead of the Benetton because Senna would have to stop less times.


A whole lot of what-ifs could be asked if Senna had survived the accident, would Senna have been able to win the 1994 championship? Hill was only able to close the gap to Schumacher because the German was disqualified from the British and Belgian Grand Prix and was banned for the Italian and Portuguese Grand Prix. But without Senna's accident, perhaps there would not have been the drive for safety, perhaps there would not have been the push to implement mid-season changes (which in the end favoured the FW16), perhaps the FIA might not have singled Benetton out with its penalties when other teams committing similar offences had lesser punishments. The likelihood was that had Senna stayed at Williams (and that was by no-means sure as he had talked with Luca Di Montezemolo about joining Ferrari prior to the San Marino GP), he probably would have challenge for the next three titles at least in fantastic Adrian Newey designed cars. Would Prost have been tempted back into the sport had Senna survived?

But what happened is what happened and we should be grateful for what we have of Senna's career including his three World titles and from his death came the drive for a safer F1 we have today. Sadly there has been a fatality since that day 25 years ago, but thankfully it is not the norm and the threat is much reduced. Senna is remembered as a true F1 legend, a driver of unbelievable talent and dedication, and rallied a nation behind him.