What caused Ayrton Senna’s fatal accident on May 1, 1994 in Imola? For many days, weeks, it was not possible to understand the real reason why the Brazilian Williams driver went off the track at the Tamburello curve. There were many hypotheses, until the belief took shape that the steering arm had broken. Just a few days after the Imola drama, Autosprint published a photo which highlighted how a serious steering failure had occurred. Initially this theory was not confirmed, but it was corrected.
On 17 August 1994, Auto&Sport Rombo, the newspaper for which the writer worked, published as a world exclusive the telemetry of that moment which perfectly photographs what happened. The director of the aforementioned weekly, Alberto Sabbatini, had managed to get hold of that precious document which showed how the hydraulic pressure of the steering and the speed had collapsed when Senna operated the steering wheel to tackle the fast left-hand bend at Tamburello.
In a few tenths of a second, Ayrton realized that the steering was not responding, he tried to overcome the problem, he dropped from 306 km/h to 210, but his Williams, out of control, slammed violently against the protections. A piece of the front suspension, which broke off, pierced the upper part of the visor of Senna’s helmet, causing a deep wound that caused his death.
Sabbatini wanted to talk about those moments on his YouTube channel.
Here is the video and, below, his written explanation
Alberto Sabbatini
On May 1, 30 years ago, Ayrton Senna’s tragedy occurred in Imola. As a journalist I followed that story thoroughly and thanks to an informant I managed to come into possession of a truly exclusive document: the telemetry of Senna’s Williams. I couldn’t hold it, but I was able to make a copy. In this video I tell you what really happened on Ayrton’s car at Tamburello: the telemetry traces demonstrate it and what he desperately tried to do to avoid the accident.
Even 30 years later, it is an exceptional document that the court underestimated in the inquiry into the tragedy. And from those few colored lines, you can see all the drama of a driver who understood very well what was about to happen and desperately tried to stop the car, but he was unable to avoid the accident.
As an F1 correspondent, I had known Ayrton Senna well with whom I had an excellent professional relationship: I spoke in depth in the book, which I published a few years ago, both the reasons for his superiority as a driver and the man we had not all understood character thoroughly. In the book I also analyze the telemetry affair in detail.
You can find my book “Senna, the magic of perfection” (Kenness editions) on sale in bookstores or on Amazon.
Finally, an anecdote about the theme song of this video: the song of which you hear a hint in the opening and closing theme is the beautiful “Ayrton” written by the late Cesena singer-songwriter Paolo Montevecchi. The song was also performed by Lucio Dalla, but here you can hear it from the author’s original voice during an outdoor performance a few years ago in Imola, in front of the fans right at the Tamburello curve, in which he paid homage to Ayrton Senna by singing the song dedicated to him.
