“It was twenty years ago today,” as The Beatles lyric goes, and if you want to find tributes for Ayrton Senna today you don’t have to look too hard. Here, though, is a video from 1 May 1994 showing how BBC television reported on Senna’s death, including some words from legendary F1 commentator Murray Walker.
Last year Adrian Newey, designer of the Williams FW16 Senna was driving, said: “What happened that day, what caused the accident, still haunts me to this day.”
A failure in the steering column is thought to be the most likely cause of the accident. Although, Newey added: “There is no doubt it [the steering column] was cracked. Equally, all the data, all the circuit cameras, the on-board camera from Michael Schumacher’s car that was following, none of that appears to be consistent with a steering-column failure.”
Unsurprisingly, the events of Senna’s death have attracted incredible scrutiny. The Williams F1 team was held to account with Newey and Patrick Head brought before Italian courts to answer charges of manslaughter. The focus of the trial centred around the failure of the steering column in Senna’s car.
While both men were originally acquitted in 1997, Head was later found guilty in a 2007 retrial. Head avoided a penalty due to the statute of limitations being passed.
One reply on “BBC News: Announcing the death of Ayrton Senna”
Thanks for posting this. I remember watching the race at the time and it was pretty awful.
Likewise the footage of Ratzenberger’s crash where you could see right away the lack of movement and strength in his head was a very bad sign.