20 years ago... As it happened for me.

20 years ago, I was still a student working a part-time job in a local pub, making frequent trips to BTCC meetings and avidly following F1.

It was May Day weekend and I’d been scheduled to work Sunday lunch and generally most of the weekend. To be able to watch the race, I had to work the family room where there was a television I could use. Hours of serving pop and crisps was particularly dreadful, but it was worth the pain to be able to see the race.

We’d already had the dreadful accident of Barrichello, and on the previous day, the tragic loss of Roland Ratzenberger in only his third race. Most people that I talked to felt that the race should be cancelled. Not only out of respect for Roland, but because something just didn't feel right. But this is F1 and the show must go on regardless. Dollars come before sentiment in F1.

When the lights went out and Lehto failed to get away, all that anybody could do was hope that everybody could get out of the way… and they almost did… Until Lamy. Many people just wanted the race to be called off… stopped… ended for the weekend so that injured spectators could be treated, but instead, the utter carnage was bafflingly dealt with under safety car. 5 laps later, the track is deemed clear, the race restarted and we’re treated to a short display of Schumacher harrying Senna hard… until their second time through Tamburello.

As he hit the wall, I didn't immediately think he was dead or even badly hurt. I was actually thinking to myself that they’ll probably red flag the race now, since it’s Senna. Senna is invincible; Senna can’t die driving an F1 car. Then the car came to a rest, and it was clear that this was bad, Really bad.

While Prof. Sid Watkins worked to save Senna’s life, a helicopter camera gave a brief glimpse as to how bad the situation was before being quickly cut away by the producer. It was enough to know that there would be no coming back from this.

Hours later, we finally got official news of Ayrton Senna’s passing. It was the end to the blackest of weekends. There was a hole left in the hearts of every F1 fan… and many of us had the same question after such a tragic weekend. “What now?”

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Please add your own!

 

I was out sailing that day. Missed the whole thing. First I heard was in the car on the way back up to school in the evening.

 

Still studying at Uni at the time.
Was home for the weekend, you know, the usual getting mum to do the clothes, stocking up on food..
Was watching the race live on the Beeb...
He hadn't had a great start to the season, Schumi had won the first 3 races...
Having qualified on Pole I had hoped he'd win and get the title race back on track..
What happened afterwards has lived with me ever since.

I've only ever had one sporting hero, he was it...

I was devastated...

RIP Ayrton, we still miss you!

 

Didn't remember the race at all, but I do remember the funeral.

 

I had just gone into the kitchen, when my father called out: "Senna's off". We gradually realised just how serious it was.

I tuned in to the Giro d'Italia in 2011 just before Wouter Weylandt came off his bike and was killed. The sick feeling was the same but, sadly, these things happen in the name of sport/entertainment, and they always will. Senna was a particularly high profile victim and his accident was witnessed by so many, which is why people remember it more than most.

 

I was living abroad and working at the time, I asked someone if Senna had won or not and they told me he was dead, I thought they were joking at first, but when i saw it on the news I found it wasn't a joke, was in a daze for a week,my hero was dead. I didn't watch F1 for a while afterwards, and tonight I watched Senna and it's the first time I've seen the 3 crashes, the ironic thing is of all three accidents Barrichello's looked the worst, very similar to Weldons, yet he pretty much walked away unscathed.

 

Barrichello's crash was particularly violent and he was lucky to escape any serious injury. Sometimes it's crashes that don't look particularly bad that turn out to be catastrophic. Wendlinger's crash a few weeks later and Earnhardt's fatal crash being two that spring to mind.

I considered watching Senna tonight, but I just can't do it.

 

It's still shocking to see the accident when it arrives at the end of the film. I've seen the film twice, and both times when it goes to the footage from Senna's car when he driving round the last lap or so with just the sound of the engine, my heart is racing knowing what is to come.

 

I was crying as I was about 5 months old, can't exactly remember what I was doing really

 

Bhaji. It felt like the world had ended, I was driving my 4 kids to McDonalds as I heard the news on the radio, had earlier watched the "race" on TV but had to do something else, I had to stop driving and pulled over with tears in my eyes, my wife and eldest lad understood what was happening, they were also Senna fans.

Senna was awesome and destined for greater things on this earth, sadly we were never able find out, **** it.

Brings me to tears even now. What a ****ing waste.!!!

 

Same here, get a lump in my throat when I think about it..
I never cry watching movies but I was in bits when I saw the Senna documentary, that's why I have seen it again...

 

Nice thread…

 

The end, when they are in San Marino is quite surreal, the footage of Ratzenberger and Senna chatting away (not to each other), knowing that shortly afterwards both will have died. Then the crashes and Senna's reaction to them, then, as eddie S says, the in car footage.

 

The footage of Ratzenberger spooks me a ton for some reason... when he's chatting about doing crazy things with the car. Then moving on to the crash... That just sets the horrifying stage for the rest yet to come.

Awful weekend, awful time to be an F1 fan... I hope we never see another like it.. but it's inevitable at some point, regardless of how safe we think it is now.

 

The Imola weekend , 94 pre-season testing (Alesi was out for 3 races, J J Lehto never fully recovered from his Benetton testing accident, Pedro Lamy would also be seriously injured later in the year testing) and Wendlinger's accident at the very next race in Monaco was a big wake-up call for F1, which had got complacent into thinking that no one could get seriously hurt or killed in F1 after just 8 years from de Angelis' fatal crash in 1986, or 12 years since it happened at a race weekend which also took the life of a legendary driver.

The weekend should be commemorated for the loss of Senna and Ratzenberger, but also celebrated in a muted way as it was changes made following these tragic events that has seen no driver killed in a contemporary F1 car for 20 years, and those that have been seriously injured e.g Massa, de Villota etc has been down to exceptional circumstances that could not be foreseen.

 

I'm not sure that those two injuries were completely unforseen. The most vulnerable part of the driver is their heads poking out of the cockpit, and at the same time as Massa, we had the death of Henry Surtees. Nothing has changed in that area.

Considering that de Villota died as a result of her injuries, that could be counted as the last driver death in F1.

 

At this point, I'm not sure if I wished I had seen it, just to fully appreciate the magnitude of what everyone else has seen and felt and the impact it had, or if I'm relieved that I wasn't around at the time to see it.

 

Tough to say on that one... Deaths in sport are always hard to take, but that particular weekend was cursed from the outset. The racing gods were angry it seems.

 

Probably what I should have said is that they were freak injuries. It's not everyday a driver has a suspension spring fired at his head, or the hit the loading ramp on the back of a truck on an empty airfield.

de Villota took her own life a long time after the accident so it doesn't count, even if you consider her actions were ultimately as a result of the injuries sustained.

 

That's news to me. As far as I was aware her death was as a direct result of her injuries, not suicide.