Time has passed so quickly that it has changed the world in practically every aspect, yet it is as if in some ways it has stopped forever. An incomprehensible contradiction, but which you can feel on your skin every May 1st, when sport pauses to commemorate Ayrton Senna: the greatest and most loved driver, the brightest star in the firmament who fell in Imola at 2.17pm on a sunny and It’s anything but a normal mid-spring Sunday afternoon. And even if Formula 1 has changed radically, especially in terms of safety on the track, 30 years after the tragic events of the 1994 San Marino GP weekend the memory remains indelible.
THE BARRICHELLO ACCIDENT
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It was already clear from the first qualifying sessions – at the time spread over two days – on Friday that the third GP of the 1994 season would not be a weekend like the others. The session was interrupted by the terrible accident of a very young Rubens Barrichello: due to the failure of the right rear suspension, the Brazilian driver’s Jordan hit the curb in an unnatural manner at the Variante Bassa and took off at a speed of around 225 km/h until coming to a stop. his crazy flight against the wall of tires and the protective nets positioned on the outside of the curve. A tremendous impact, even rated at 95 Gwhich puts Barrichello’s life at risk: the Brazilian, future Ferrari driver in the era of triumphs with Schumacher, loses consciousness but is saved by the timely intervention of the F1 doctor, Sid Watkins, which avoids suffocation. Rubens escaped with a fractured nasal septum, a broken arm, a cracked rib and some cuts to his mouth.
THE DEATH OF RATZENBERGER
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The relief for the fortunate epilogue of Barrichello’s bad accident lasts for a few hours. On Saturday 30 April, during the official practice session to decide the starting grid for the race, another serious accident devastated the weekend. At the wheel of Simtek-Ford, a bottom-of-the-table car struggling to make the cut to enter the 26 single-seaters qualified to start, Roland Ratzenberger, in his third career GP, loses control and ends up against the wall in the corner named after Gilles Villeneuve. The extremely violent impact, which occurred at the fastest point on the track at the time after the Tamburello semi-curve, was caused by the sudden failure of the front wing, perhaps damaged while crossing a curb a few seconds earlier. The deceleration from a speed of around 315 km/h will be fatal: resuscitated by rescuers on the track, the 33-year-old Austrian dies seven minutes after arriving by helicopter at the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna. He is the first Formula 1 driver to lose his life during a race weekend since the tragic death of Riccardo Paletti during the 1982 Canadian GP.
CURSED WEEKEND
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Qualifying restarts a few minutes after Ratzenberger’s accident in a surreal atmosphere. Some of the big names in the ranking, including Senna, never return to the track: nevertheless, it was the three-time world champion who secured the last of his 65 career pole positions. Ayrton is understandably very shaken and is seen having a conversation with Watkins, the F1 doctor who had rescued Ratzenberger a few minutes earlier, who later confessed to having tried to convince the champion to withdraw and not take part in the following day’s race. It is just yet another ominous omen of what would happen the following day: at the start of the GP, Benetton of JJ Letho remains stationary on the grid and is hit squarely by the Lotus Pedro Lamy, taken from the rear. The Portuguese fortunately manages to avoid a particularly unfavorable angle of impact, but a wheel and some debris pass through the containment nets and fall into the stands, causing injuries to nine spectators (one of whom remained in a coma for several days).
THE FATAL ACCIDENT
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Despite the bang at the start, the race was not suspended: the race judges instead chose to send the race to the track Safety Car, introduced in 1993 and used only twice more before the tragic weekend in Imola. At the restart Senna found himself in the lead, followed at close range by his rival Michael Schumacher. Until the start of the seventh lap of the San Marino GP: due to the structural failure of the steering column of his Williams FW16, Ayrton hits the barriers at high speed on the outside of the Tamburello, a semi-curve that the single-seaters navigate with wide open throttle. Even in this case, the accident against the barriers is very violent but it is the unfortunate one who causes the death of the pilot impact with a piece of the front suspension, which penetrated the inside of the helmet from the visor area. Sid Watkins, having immediately realized Ayrton’s very serious condition, after having attempted a tracheotomy to allow the pilot to resume normal respiratory activity, authorized the air ambulance to land directly on the runway a few meters from the accident site.
THE LAST DRAMA
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For Senna, however, despite the transfusion of over 4 liters of blood, there will be nothing left to do: the Brazilian champion will be officially declared dead at the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna at 6.40pm. The darkest weekend in the history of Formula 1 is unfortunately not over yet. Around 4.40pm, with ten laps left until the end of the GP which in the meantime has restarted after Senna’s accident, yet another drama comes close to coming in the pit lane: Michele Alboreto’s Minardi restarts after a pit stop with the right rear tire not well secured, which splashes into the air and overwhelms three Ferrari mechanics, one from Benetton and one from Lotus, before dangerously crossing the entire track. The five, hospitalized in Bologna, fortunately escaped without major consequences.
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AYRTON’S LEGACY
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30 years later, in addition to the memory of a terrible weekend, there remains the indelible memory of a never forgotten champion but also and above all the awareness of the great strides forward that Formula 1 has been able to make in terms of safety on the track. Right from the start, with immediate interventions to slow down the cars at the fastest points of some tracks on the 1994 calendar (for example, improvised chicanes were added in Barcelona, Spa and Montreal), but also with a view to the future by studying new procedures and safety devices : from the Hans collarmandatory in F1 since 2003 and designed, for example, precisely to avoid fractures at the base of the skull like the one suffered by Ratzenberger, at increasing severity of crash tests imposed for the cockpits and helmets, passing through the wheel retention cables and the latest addition of theHalowhich since 2018 has successfully protected drivers’ heads in the event of an accident.
