Ayrton Senna at Spa, in the 1992 Belgian GP, saved the life of driver Erik Comas. A year and a half later in Imola the Frenchman wanted to do the same thing, but he couldn’t. And at the end of the season he decided to leave Formula 1 forever.
Ayrton Senna he wrote the history of Formula 1, not just for world titles or victories and pole positions. An authentic legend, a man with characteristics totally different from everyone else. As magnetic as it is divisive. In ten years of Formula 1 he raced 165 GPs. Many stories could be told about him, among the many there is one that closely ties him to Erik Comasa French pilot whose life he saved Spa. Comas would have liked to do the same thing, a year and a half later, a Imola, but he couldn’t and years later he remembers those moments and the farewell well Formula 1.
The Comas accident in Spa
At the dawn of the 90s, Formula 1 was full of champions. There were Senna, Prost, Mansell and Piquet, followed by Berger, Alesi and Patrese. With them also a slew of good drivers on the grid. In 1992, driving the Ligier, for the second consecutive year, was Erik Comas, a French driver, who on 28 August of that year was in Spa, drove in the Friday tests and crashed. The accident is terrible. The transalpine crashes into the barriers at Blanchimont, he loses control and becomes only a passenger in his Ligier, which returns to the middle of the track. The blow is strong. The pilot loses consciousness and passes out due to the impact. He rests his head on his left side, those following the event fear the worst.
The situation is serious because Comas’ foot remains dangerously stuck on the accelerator pedal with the engine running at full speed. It’s not a small thing. The risk of explosion for the Renault engine is very highin the cockpit there is the pilot, still and immobile.
Ratzenberger’s father saw the accident in Imola on TV: “Looking at the helmet I understood that it was over”
Senna stops his McLaren on the track and rushes to Comas: it is decisive
Luckily for the Frenchman, the McLaren with the number 1 arrives at Blanchimont, that of Senna, who understands exactly what is about to happen, the danger is enormous. Nobody is ready to help him. Ayrton, after unfastening his seat belt, gets out of his car, he does so quickly, the images have become very famous. He, wearing a suit and helmet, rushes to Comas, personally risking himself. The Brazilian turns off the engine, eliminates the risk of explosion, and opens the mouth of Comas who risked choking, holding his head as Dr. Sid Watkins had taught him.
Senna technically saves the Frenchman’s life, who from that moment becomes a great friend of the three-time world champion. A true, pure friendship, due to a heroic gesture: “Without his help my Ligier would have exploded, it would have been if he hadn’t turned off its engine, and I would have been suffocated by my own tongue if he hadn’t supported my neck while I was unconscious. He helped me when even my teammate had kept going. He had a pure and extraordinary heart.”
Senna, Comas and that crossroads of destiny at Tamburello
They continue to find themselves on the track, because Comas’ career continues, with the Larrousse in 1993 and also in 1994. On that cursed weekend in Imola there is a curious, particular intersection, which can simply be defined as the child of the destiny that linked the two.
At 2.17pm on that Sunday 1st May Senna’s Williams he ends his run on the Tamburello wall. Schumacher and Berger are immediately behind him, red flag, race suspended. The anxiety for those glued in front of the TV is enormous, as well as for those who are there on the circuit. Everything stopped, race suspended. But at Larrousse they don’t know it, strange but it’s like that.
Comas is in the pits, he knows nothing, he hasn’t seen anything and is sent back to the track, takes off like a rocket, at full speed, towards nothing, because the race is stopped, when he gets to Tamburello he slows down forcefully and understands everything. He sees the Williams, he sees Senna’s helmet outside the car. He would like to come down and return the gesture, but he doesn’t. He can’t do it.
Because he sees doctors already largely at work, led by Dr. Sid Watkins: “When I came out of the pits there was confusion, they let me go, there was total confusion, after 300 meters I find a helicopter and an ambulance and I get there, I approach the ambulance very slowly, I stop the Larrousse, I get out of the car, I understand that Ayrton had had the accident, I see his body on the grass, I’m about to get closer. The ambulance doctor made me sit in the ambulance and I immediately understood that it was the end, without anyone telling me.”
He wanted to return the gesture, but couldn’t: “I wanted to get closer, they didn’t let me, there were doctors on site, it was devastating not to be able to help him, not to be able to help the person who had saved my life two years earlier. Emotionally, psychologically it was heavier than my accident, when you see a driver die on Saturday and one on Sunday it was terrible. Ayrton was God for us riders, and seeing God go was terrible. For me there was a life before and after May 1, 1994.”
It was also devastating to lose a friend who until a few hours earlier had chatted with Comas, who told Motorsport: “Rubens was miraculous, it was the scariest accident. On Sunday morning I was sitting at the drivers’ briefing next to him, he told me: “Eric there is something to change, we didn’t realize that Formula 1 has become dangerous. Before Monte Carlo we have to make some decisions. Suddenly we realized that we were doing a dangerous sport. We had the illusion of playing a sport that was quite safe.”
After Senna’s death, Comas decided not to race in Formula 1 again
Comas returns to the pits, is upset, gets out of the car and never gets back in. He goes away, leaves the circuit, discovers the terrible news at the airport, decides to leave his world. The team owner convinces him to end the season, which despite everything was also positive, but after the Suzuka race he says goodbye to everyone. Stop Formula 1 forever.
Years later he said: “I was paralyzed, I walked back to the pits, I said goodbye to the team, Larrousse, I started crying and left. I decided not to race, I didn’t rejoin the race, I left the circuit. While I was at the airport they were showing images of the accident, just before boarding the plane the news arrived. I decided to retire from Formula 1 immediately. I didn’t want to race anymore, the team owner convinced me to continue the season. But at the end of 1994 I left forever.”
