two questions about Senna witnessing other drivers accidents

Hi
There are two events that I vagly remeber and would thank anyone who can shed some light on:

1) German GP 93 ( I think). Mark Blundell in the Ligier has a hugh shunt near one of the chickanes.
I seem to remeber AS stoping his Mclaren and running to help Blundel. I think he hit his own car against the wall in the process and Ron Dennis got very pissed about it. I think it happend in Qualifying. does anybody remeeber this event ? Why did he have to hit the wall ? Was it in the wet ?


2) Imola 94 - saturday. Ratzenberger lost his life and I remeber AS getting a ride from one of the course car and taking a deep look at the striken Simtek. for some reason I think he was peanelised for it. Does anybody remeber why and what was the punishment ?
Thanks,
Nir.

The first instance is the 1992 Belgian GP, where Erik Comas crashed at Blanchimont, and Senna stopped to check on him. I don't think he hit the wall, he just spun on the straight following Blanchimont leading up to the bus stop. He did the same thing at Jerez in 1990 with Martin Donnelly.

As I recall, the crash that really affected him at Imola in practice for the 1994 San Marino GP was the one Barichello had.

I'm sure an incident happened in Monza too, though im not too sure. Someones car blew up in smoke or maybe it was flying gravel but Senna stopped and got out of his car and ran to help, anyone confirm this?

With regards to the Ratzenberger crash - he borrowed an official course car to get to the scene of the accident - for this he was reprimanded by the officials and possibly fined

As for the Comas incident - I believe he was first on the scene and watched over Comas until the docs arrived.

To me this says alot about his character!!! Regardless of his ruthlessness while racing he seemed to recognize that some things were more important.
SENNA

Originally posted by 420
To me this says alot about his character!!! Regardless of his ruthlessness while racing he seemed to recognize that some things were more important.
SENNA

yes he was a very warm man, though this was unrecognised by many

It allways struck me as rather arrogant. Seeing him do that I never thought "wow what a sympathetic guy" but "why does he think he can help any better than someone else?"


Its not like when they pulled Niki Lauda out of a burning car, or that Williams guy, and other stuff.

Originally posted by mikedeering
With regards to the Ratzenberger crash - he borrowed an official course car to get to the scene of the accident - for this he was reprimanded by the officials and possibly fined

Do you mean to say that Senna drove the car by himself to the scene ? This seems very unorthodocs. I have never seen a driver do that. I have this picture in my mind where he gets out of th back seat of some kind of Alfa Romeo. Not sure I remember it right , though.

i think at imola he asked Sid if he could go out in the course car and see the accident?

As for the earlier accidents,i think the reason Senna wanted to help the others was that he saw them as less fortunate than himself,it seems that senna felt that as a religious man who believed in god,that he was imortal,there are many instances of the other drivers saying that senna thought this.That is a very dangerous thing to think as a racing driver and many also believe that when ratzenburger died that senna began to doubt this.

less than 24hrs later he was dead

"Those whom the gods love,they take young"

There was another case in 1993, where Alex Zanardi had his big shunt exiting Eau Rouge. Senna right behind him, spun to a halt and was right there to help Zanardi.
IIRC it was at Spa in 1992 where he helped Eric Comas, all the other cars went right by the accident, Senna was the only one who stopped.

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
It allways struck me as rather arrogant. Seeing him do that I never thought "wow what a sympathetic guy" but "why does he think he can help any better than someone else?"


Its not like when they pulled Niki Lauda out of a burning car, or that Williams guy, and other stuff.

Why should it strike you as arrogant?

Do you think that a driver's concern for a fellow competitor's well being is an arrogant statement?

Gosh, where is your humanity?

Ross Stonefeld wrote :

It allways struck me as rather arrogant. Seeing him do that I never thought "wow what a sympathetic guy" but "why does he think he can help any better than someone else?"

_________________________________________

I wish upon nobody that in case of an accident you'd be the first one on the scene.

To all,

I suppose that we are drifting away from the topic and are getting involved in a discussion about Senna being a good guy or not.

Senna isn't the first driver who seemed to appear at the scene of dreadful accidents first. I am always thinking about Mike Hailwood in that subject. He saved Clay Reggazoni in 1971 (72???) and in 1973 he appeared at the sene of many big accidents as first man. One driver joked that year that it would be better to fit Hailwood's car with fire fighting equipment and so on because he was such a brave guy, willing to help out crashed drivers. (pity he wasn't there when Roger Williams was .... (name it what you want it))

And Arturo Merzario, I know he was involved with saving Lauda. But wasn't he the driver who rushed to the Ignazio Giunti wreck when he was killed after crashing into Beltoise's stationary Matra?


Back to Senna.
Personally, I was never impressed with this behaviour of Senna. It might have been different if I could have erased the memories of Japan '90 in particular.
Being concerned about the results of an accident is one thing. But then, why didn't he felt such concern in Japan when he ran into Prost, ignoring the fact that there were some 20 or so cars still behind him and if he and Prost didn't spin of the track but got stuck at the track the entire field would have ran onto them with how many consequences? If that `racing accident` had gone wrong we could have seen things like Silverstone '73 or Spa '98
Thus, were we dealing with a calculated risk how to eliminate a driver from the track? Just while he felt treated uncorrect and wanted to make a statement to Balestre?

But I admit one thing: It seemed as if there was a change within Senna those final weeks of his life and if fate had permitted him to do so, perhaps he should have been able to show off being a genial driver but less brutal and ruthless as his `antifans` came to know him.
One thing comes to my mind then. I read this in Autosport that year in Nigel Roebuck column, con't remember anymore if it was before or after Imola.
That second race of the season in Japan, Senna was knocked off the track by Mika Hakkinen. After the race, his manager Keke Rosberg told Mika that it was better to apologize to Senna for it, even if it had been unintentional.
Senna refused to speak to Mika, complaining about young upcoming drivers not showing respect or manners anymore. (don't forget that a few months before at Suzuka he had have the incident with Eddie Irvine re-overtaking him)
Rosberg then made the comment about having seen something like that happen 7 or 8 years ago when a yellow helmeted driver made his first impression in F1 and refused to pay respects to the elder guard, even refused to talk about the subject.
And Rosberg was quite outspoken about Senna. Read Nigel Roebuck's biography on Gilles Villeneuve published in 1990. Thus before Senna got killed. In that book Rosberg made comparisons between Gilles and Senna. I wonder if Senna ever read that because....
Again, I admit, it seemed as if there was a change in Senna those last weeks of his life. And we will never know what may have happened if he had been given more time.
An maybe then his behaviour the scene of an accident may have made more sence than it does right now at first sight.
At least for me.

I know that he went to the Ratzenberger scene and was punished for that.
And that was a needless act by FIA.

My apologies for having drifted off the subject too much after all myself.
I am sorry if Senna fans who read this are insulted or feeling bad about what I wrote. But this is my opinion and I accept it that most people think different about him than I do.
His driving capabilities were indeed something else.



Henri Greuter

Because ive felt that Senna's motivation for stopping was not his compassion but his own ego.

Originally posted by AndreasF1
There was another case in 1993, where Alex Zanardi had his big shunt exiting Eau Rouge. Senna right behind him, spun to a halt and was right there to help Zanardi.
IIRC it was at Spa in 1992 where he helped Eric Comas, all the other cars went right by the accident, Senna was the only one who stopped.

I thought that the only reason Senna spun to a halt was that he totally ignored the waved yellows and nearly ran down a marshal who was crossing the track to help Zanardi. IIRC he got fined for the incident.

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Because ive felt that Senna's motivation for stopping was not his compassion but his own ego.

cheez....Now I am really interested in your argumentation: what made you feel that it was Senna's ego making him stop, instead of his compassion?

I guess him crying when Barichello crashed in 94 at Imola was also for his ego, Ross?

Looking forward to your sound argumentation on this one.....Ross..

Senna sounds like a Formula 1 Samurai.

He'd slice his opponents to bits, but he respected and deeply cared for all those that it was his mission to defeat.

Originally posted by biercemountain
Senna sounds like a Formula 1 Samurai.

He'd slice his opponents to bits, but he respected and deeply cared for all those that it was his mission to defeat.

That is why HONDA engineers so much admired them. He was The Samurai and they'd take care of His horse, and they gave Him their best sword. Mind you that when handcrafting many swords...there can only be one best sword. So if Senna got the best engine, it was because He was the best Samurai......and if anyone tells me that I am elevating Senna to Mythical status here....I'am!!

Gee
I asked two INFORMATIVE questions, and yet most of you go into this argument whether Senna was a good or bad guy.
For those who provided answers : thanks !
For this one guy who seems to be unhappy with Senna stopping to help people ( I'm not going to even bother to lool up your nick), I can pnly say this:

Slightly O.T, but on the subject of Senna - the man.....

I was never a great fan, though I admired his speed. However, back in about 1992 the wife and I had a long weekend in a farmhouse near Duns in the Scottish borders. As it happened, the landlady of the establishment had been at school with a certain little chap who came from a farm just down the road - Edington Mains, I think it was called. This chap and a mate of his named McRae apparently used to tear around the local lanes with the local girls in the back of the car, scaring the pants off them.... er, sorry!

However, I digress somewhat. Earlier that year, while Ayrton Senna was in Britain, he paid a visit to the school near Edinburgh where the aforementioned little Scotsman went to school. Apparently, the boys were captivated by the talk he gave them. While there, he requested to be taken to Duns so that he could pay his respects in the small museum dedicated to the area's most famous son.

This much I can verify because I saw his signature in the visitor's book and was told by the gentleman who took our entrance money that Ayrton reverently studied every glass case holding trophies etc, and was visibly moved by the whole experience of seeing the Jim Clark Trophy Room.

As I said, I was not and have not become, a great Senna fan but these actions do not smack of arrogance to me.

So he behaved like a human being when interacting with 'normal' people. Oh how we were blessed

Like Henri said, he didnt show a lot of compassion at Suzuka in particular

I never liked Senna,he was one of the best but still had to drive people off the track
He was a bad role model for younger drivers(like Schumacher)

However in 1982 I had a change to meet him,I thought it would be nothing special:
he was not the first driver I had met ,but something happend,it was like a glow,I kid you not
something touched me ,a warm feeling,I was very impressed!

btw Mansell was the opposite

Cheers Rob
http://www.fastpaintings.com/

Dear Ross Steinfeld
With you Senna is in a no-win situation. Had he not stopped at any of the accidents you would probably say the same thing about him. Something like, "what do you expect from a ruthless and selfish guy such as Senna?". But because he did stop and paid attention to the crashed drivers you call him arrogant. So with you Senna could only go wrong. I feel it a shame that Senna gets criticised for stopping and checking on his fellow drivers.

The Eau Rouge incident .. I'm not sure, I can't recall if this is correct.. but Comas? had his big one and ended up in the tyres at the exit of Eau Rouge. Senna came storming up the track and was caught out as the accident had only just happened.. now I'm not sure if he lost his car unintentionally or what, but there was talk I think that he put his car into an intentional spin to avoid hitting one of the other cars. Not too sure.

Senna was one of the key safety guys in F1, as is Schumacher.

This concerns Senna’s personality. I never knew him, but I think he basically was a very warm person. Everyone that knew him closely will attest to that and his charitable work is posthumously well known. But he was also very proud, even a little arrogant. It is not incompatible to be warm and arrogant.

The problem is that in a competitive environment, if you are warm and proud, you’ll have to stop being one of them. So I think he forced to be tough, and that produced a steely character. Senna himself said that in F1 it is best to be on the harder side, because even if one is too hard that is better than being too soft. So he turned all the emotions to being hard and blocked all the warmness which he was deeply afraid would interfere with his competitiveness.

Of course that doesn’t apply outside the direct competition, and that explains why he was so very concerned about other drivers’ problems and so upset when someone had a serious accident. That also explains the love-hate relationship he had with Prost. If I’m not mistaken they shook hands in Imola, a day or so before the accident, after Senna having said that he missed Prost.

I may well be mistaken. But he was a very complex personality and I think he tended to harden himself against a self perceived softness.

But whatever the merits of this ‘explanation’ it covers the fact that he was so remorseless towards opponents and so warm to other fellows.

Originally posted by mikedeering
With regards to the Ratzenberger crash - he borrowed an official course car to get to the scene of the accident - for this he was reprimanded by the officials and possibly fined

Professor Sid Watkins refers to this incident in his book Life at the Limit.

He was attending to Ratzenberger at the Intensive Care Unit at the circuit whem Senna appeared at the door.
"He had been to the scene of the accident in a course car that he had comandeered (for which he was later chastised) and, having questioned the marshals about the accident, went to the medical centre area, where he had been debarred (properly) from entering. But he had jumped over a fence at the rear to get to the door of the unit. I took him round to the circuit side of the area and answered his questions with complete honesty. As we talked, Charlie Moody, the team manager of Simtek, arrived. I then had to tell him the bad news that Ratzenberger was beyond medical help. It was tough for me to deal with two such devastated people at the same time, and remain cool and unemotional.

Ayrton was beside himself: he had not been close to death at a circuit before....

Ayrton broke down and cried on my shoulder. After all why shouldn't he...."

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
So he behaved like a human being when interacting with 'normal' people. Oh how we were blessed

Like Henri said, he didnt show a lot of compassion at Suzuka in particular

Please Ross, don't mix apples with oranges.

Besides, did he had to after what Prost and his bitch Balestre did to him a year earlier?

Originally posted by Ferrari_F1_fan_2001


yes he was a very warm man, though this was unrecognised by many

Well, Nelson Piquet for one recognised it...

[see http://www.atlasf1.c... gay#post405471]

Besides, I absolutely side with Ross here: Senna was a master show man, always trying to manipulate his public image. If he cared so much about his fellow competitors, why did he ever only stop at an incident when it was an untimed session, and red-flagged at that? Same with his social commitment, he always made sure the press knew about it before the beneficiaries did...

The incident that best sticks in my mind with regard to his "caring" attitude is one which happened during the Mexican GP in '87. In order to stay in with a chance of winning the championship that year, he absolutely needed a finish in the points, but then he spun off the track and stalled the engine. Since his car was stranded at the exit of a very fast corner, some marshals rushed to the scene and tried to move the Lotus out of what was a very dangerous spot on the edge of the track, but in his eagerness to keep his fading championship chances alive, Senna refused to cooperate and used his steering wheel to point the car in the direction of the circuit, instead of off track.

This went on for about a minute or so, with the marshals frantically trying to take control of the steering wheel, only for Senna to keep stubbornly pointing towards the circuit. During this time, the Brazilian showed absolutely no care for the lives of the marshals and his fellow drivers, and to think another car could have spun off into that scene...

In my opinion, the FIA clearly missed an opportunity there to calm Senna down a bit. If he'd been banned from starting the next race, maybe he would have had time to consider his actions and recognise he wasn't the only worthy person in the world - because that's the way he thought, it seems, and it showed in many other incidents later in his career. Instead, he was only fined for beating one of the marshals afterwards, a fine his team payed from the coffee budget.

Sorry if this sounds like Senna bashing again, but I can hardly think of anything positive about the man.

I think it goes without saying that Senna was a very complicated individual with a number of contradictions in his character. There are only two who can say if Senna's concern for other drivers who had crashed was genuine. God and Senna himself. Somehow I don't think either will be clearing the matter up anytime soon.

I just regret that I never saw Senna race.

those who fail to see Senna for what he was (Ross..you're no Ayrton Senna) are just jealous bitches beacsue their fav MS has never shown any compassion for his fellow drivers.

Ayrton's foundation should be enough but yes he stopped ON THE STRAIGHT to help the overturned Comas, slid into the wreck area of Zanardi but helped out immediaetly and went to the Villeneuve bend after they have removed RR. not to mention is worry over RB who said teh first person he recognized after he awoke in hospital was AS.

Fines bringing up NP assertion joking that AS (who was married at 21) was gay.

Schumacher didnt even bother to attend Ayrtons funeral, Rossco.Too busy trying to beat the Great Hill who did attend like most then current and many past drivers. Where can I donate money to the MS Foundation??

wtf is this readers comments? Im not some Schumacher lap dog. I do recognise what Senna is/was. Supremely fast, but at the same time a supreme jerk. Forgive me if I dont quiver at the very though of him.

Most F1 superstars have shown to be egotistical and very focused man. In any top level sport there is no room to be nice. As a famous teamboss once said: Nice guys finish last. Senna, Prost, Piquet, Mansell, Schumacher etc.. are no Saints. Even Berger said of Senna that he was a selfcentered man in F1, yet they were great Friends. However, this selfcenteredness has to been seen in context with the sport. Sennas selfishness gave him an edge at Lotus by eliminating Warwick, getting more support from Honda, getting paid more money, Fighting with Prost etc. However, it is this egotistical behaivor that made the man a superstar. The same goes for Schumacher with his on and off track antics. Look at Prost and Mansell at Ferrari, how they treated each other. Or Piquet and Mansell at Williams. Very few would doubt that these men had an intense pressures to deal with, and beeing soft would not have allowed them to cope with the situations. As an outsider it is very easy to condemn some of the actions of the superstars but we dont live their lives, therefore we should not judge. And then there is the life outside the world of competition, that we are not exposed too. Sometimes we hear of good things these F1 pilots do off-track. But thats not what interests us as we thrive to see the competition and we rather see jerks racing against each other, than a few buddies who are in love with each other.

Originally posted by AndreasF1
There was another case in 1993, where Alex Zanardi had his big shunt exiting Eau Rouge. Senna right behind him, spun to a halt and was right there to help Zanardi.
IIRC it was at Spa in 1992 where he helped Eric Comas, all the other cars went right by the accident, Senna was the only one who stopped.

Those who consider Senna arrogant should do their homework and read about his life. In the track, unbeatable, in life a good human being. So far, the best champion ever to me.

Senna Forever!!!

Originally posted by chooch
those who fail to see Senna for what he was (Ross..you're no Ayrton Senna) are just jealous bitches beacsue their fav MS has never shown any compassion for his fellow drivers.

Ayrton's foundation should be enough but yes he stopped ON THE STRAIGHT to help the overturned Comas, slid into the wreck area of Zanardi but helped out immediaetly and went to the Villeneuve bend after they have removed RR. not to mention is worry over RB who said teh first person he recognized after he awoke in hospital was AS.

Fines bringing up NP assertion joking that AS (who was married at 21) was gay.

Schumacher didnt even bother to attend Ayrtons funeral, Rossco.Too busy trying to beat the Great Hill who did attend like most then current and many past drivers. Where can I donate money to the MS Foundation??

This is a rather bizzare post Chooch and this thread has nothing to do with Michael Schumacher and I really hope that people dont respond to it and start a downhill spiral.

Senna was one of the key safety guys in F1, as is Schumacher

im sorry but that is wrong.

Both drivers have intentionaly put the lifes of others on danger by deliberately driving into them at high speed,senna in 90 at suzuka and Schu at adelaide in 94 and then Jerez in 97.these are not the actions of men concerned about safety,these are the selfish actions of men who care more about winning than about the safety of there fellow drivers.

As mentioned before,Senna was a very complicated person and i just cant get past the fact that he felt he was imortal,that is why he was so devestated at ratzenburgers fatal accident,like he said he had never been that close to death in a race meeting before.much has been writen about how senna did not want to race at imola the next day,he was in tears,an emotionaly broken man,To me that is when Ayrton realised he was not imortal and that motor racing was about more than winning,it was about life and death.he was to discover that for himself all to soon.

On Ayrton's personality in general.we should not underestimate the effect that Gerhard Berger had on Senna when he arrived as his team mate,he really changed senna as a person and for the better.Berger deserves a lot of credit for that.

On the track senna was near unbeatable,in my book he is right up there with Jimmy as the greatest and probably Ayrton was the greatest single lap driver of all time,his qualifying laps were something truly special.

So, Nir's question has degenerated into an 'I like'/'I never liked' topic.

Formula One is many things - a sport, a business, a carnival, a technological showcase - but it is not a popularity contest.

I've been a member here for a few years now and I have to say that I don't call in as often as I'd like, simply because of the irrelevant bitching about drivers.

I can't say "I like Schumacher" or "I never liked Senna" because I never had the chance to go down to the pub with them, spend the evening in their company and assess them as human beings. But that doesn't matter. I still admire any driver who has the skill and talent to drive in Formula One. They are all heroes to me and whether I 'like' them or not has nothing to do with it. How can I judge a person through their TV persona?

Yes, I have my favourites. Sport by its very nature demands that you support a particular team or competitor. But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the skills of others.

Was Senna a nice guy or not? Does it matter? As a follower of Formula One, I care about his driving and racing skills, not about whether or not he was arrogant - that is immaterial.

Why is a driver's personality so important?

You're right, it shouldn't matter at all...

But then again, when that personality leads to murderous intent, then I personally draw the line.

I think it is one thing to (rightly) berate drivers for foolish, on-course and quasi-calculated actions such as running someone else off the road.

However, I think it is an entirely different thing when you react to something shocking that is not happening directly to you but to someone around you.

In these instances where Senna stopped, spun or whatever to check on others or in fact drive to the scene of an accident, I think it is something, well, something different.

Have you ever been at the scene of someone else's accident? Were you thinking about driving to your destination when you saw it? Probably not.

Senna's reaction, like so many others, was just normal and human and (I would say thankfully) devoid of any thoughts of competition.

To Slyder:

You wrote:

"Besides, did he had to after what Prost and his bitch Balestre did to him a year earlier?"

Maybe we're going entirely beyond the original topic by now. nevertheless:
I am not a fan of either Prost or Balestre but please refresh my memory to which incident between Senn vs P & B you refer?
There were a bunch of them as I remember but which one in particular do you refer to here?
Because I still can't think about any incident which justifies the tactic of "either I'm first in the first turn or we both spin off" as Senna applied in Japan in 1990.
Like I stated in an earlier comment in this topic: Doing that deliberately, knowing that an entire starting field was following him and Prost and if his tactic of taking Prost off did go wrong and the entire grid running into them, that was an unacceptable risk he took for which, in my point of view, Senna should have been banned for life from the track. That was a totally unacceptable risk he took, no insult by Balestre or whomever justified such a strategy.
So Slyder, please fill us in on which incident you refer to that justified Senna's Samurai act of '90.

thanks a lot.

Senna a Samurai?
After Japan '90, genuine Samurai should have been forced to something .....

Fortunately for him: Senna wasn't a real samurai.

And to return to the original topic.
I admit I gave Senna a beating too in this thread.
But:
I don't blame him for lending helping hands at the sides of incidents, having a look at places of accidents and so on. I also don't think that it was because of his own ego. There must have been something else on his mind that made him do so.
But given his past at the track and his behaviour to other drivers that challenged his superiority, I can't understand his motivation do all that.
And I regret we will never find out why.
Because he was in a process of changes within his behaviour to others. I admit I never cared for him at all because of what I saw of him at the track and if he was such a neat guy, well I was never in a position to experience such. I also admit I respect what he tried to do for Brazilian kids.

(Wasn't MS involved in playing footbal games for charity by the way?)

But I can only judge Senna as a driver and he impressed me and gained my respect in several aspects. But I remember him the most of all for bad behaviour and selfish behaviour.
If he was a religious man, he must have warshipped a different God then I did at that same time.

But one thing is for sure with Senna: You either love him or hate him.

Greetings,

Henri Greuter

well I didn't like him, but I respected him. (kaiser sosé?)
that shoe maker character is another matter altogether.....

Maybe a little late,but anyway here is a video of Senna trying to help Comas


http://www.senna4eve...m.br/videos.htm

Originally posted by Henri Greuter

That second race of the season in Japan, Senna was knocked off the track by Mika Hakkinen. After the race, his manager Keke Rosberg told Mika that it was better to apologize to Senna for it, even if it had been unintentional.
Senna refused to speak to Mika, complaining about young upcoming drivers not showing respect or manners anymore. (don't forget that a few months before at Suzuka he had have the incident with Eddie Irvine re-overtaking him)
Rosberg then made the comment about having seen something like that happen 7 or 8 years ago when a yellow helmeted driver made his first impression in F1 and refused to pay respects to the elder guard, even refused to talk about the subject.

Henri Greuter

I don't know when Rosberg made that comment, but according to Hakkinen's interview, maybe '96 in Finnish TV, he said that even Senna had first refused to speak to Mika, later in a plane back from Aida (or Japan?), Senna came suddenly to speak to Mika and after a little conversation Senna accepted Mika's apologizes..