36 replies to this topic

[John Player]

A brazilian journalist got access to exclusive footage from the onboard camera:

 

http://www.sbt.com.b...ou-Parte-3.html

watch from 4:18

[Tenmantaylor]

Does anyone else notice the car veers slightly left momentarily before continuing straight off to the right? The car looked stable and warmed up in the lap prior. I still don't believe the car bottoming out whilst on the racing line that late in the corner would be enough for someone of Senna's ability to lose control in that way without correction. I think something broke in the steering and it took a split second for the unconnected tyre to load up and veer the car off uncontrollably. Him being Senna kept his foot in trying to save it.

[hogstar]

This video does not add anything to the 'broken steering column' theory, which I still think is completely absurd. The footage looks like the rear end has stepped out. 

 

I still think it was a mixture of tyre pressures/ride height combined with a ill and marginal handling FW16. That car wasn't 'sorted' at that point as Newey would concur with.

 

Fatally Senna drove on and above the limit in a car which wasn't kind on the limit...   

[George Costanza]

Had there been a tire wall there, Ayrton would have lived.... Maybe a broken leg like Michael Schumacher in his 1999's crash at Silverstone.

[Michael Ferner]

Very strange that, after twenty years, all of a sudden this footage appears! Well, for what it is worth, it blows, once and for all, the broken steering theory. It is very obvious that the car twitched left before it steered right off the course.

[D-Type]

Had there been a tire wall there, Ayrton would have lived.... Maybe a broken leg like Michael Schumacher in his 1999's crash at Silverstone.

More to the point:  "If there had been room for a tyre wall at Tamburillo ..."

[Ross Stonefeld]

I don't see why there isn't, the wall doesn't come up to the edge of the racing surface.

[Nemo1965]

I would advise everyone with an open mind (if you don't want to change your mind, at all, don't read it) to read Martin Zustaks book Tamburello. It is a damn fine read, in which the author presents all the theses about the accident with an open mind, and yet, reaches a conclusion that changed my mind about the accident.

 

You can download it here: http://www.martinzustak.com/tamburello

[Tenmantaylor]

This video does not add anything to the 'broken steering column' theory, which I still think is completely absurd. The footage looks like the rear end has stepped out. 

 

I still think it was a mixture of tyre pressures/ride height combined with a ill and marginal handling FW16. That car wasn't 'sorted' at that point as Newey would concur with.

 

Fatally Senna drove on and above the limit in a car which wasn't kind on the limit...   

 

It adds as much as to the broken steering theory as it does the aero/bottoming theory. Why is twitching left proof of bottoming any more than broken steering? How do you know it was the rear stepping out and not the front momentarily veering left while the FL tyre was momentarily directionally ambiguous before the resultant lateral load forces pushed it the other way into a 'steering right' position? Or the power steering spiked and then failed making it impossible to hold the wheel while holding that many Gs? This would be more than enough to veer the car uncontrollably off the track in the fashion it did. The behaviour of the car in that instant looks like a broken left steering arm or broken power steering to me. 

 

Against your theory is how Senna, after the initial veer to the left, then seemed completely unable to make any corrections after the change of direction to the right. The car continued in a straight line right up till it left the tarmac, unaltered, uncorrected. A momentary loss of down force or rear end moment I agree could cause the initial loss of control but the subsequent inability of Senna to then affect the direction of the car in any way seems entirely unbelievable to me given that I'm sure he knew better than anyone how close the concrete wall was in Tamburello. A complete loss of control would have put the car into some kind of slide state, instead it went off in a very straight, controlled manner, apparently well within the lateral limits of the grip of the tyres. Why was he not steering left when it left the track? The only explanation I can think for this is that Senna knew instantly he was having an accident and kept the car straight to increase the possibility of reducing the speed of the impending accident.

[Nemo1965]

Tenman, kudo's for having an open mind.

 

Before I read Zustaks book my opinion was something like: 'Probably freak aerodynamic event/or holes in the cheese wrongly aligned/perhaps snapped steering-column. After the book my estimation is: Probable snapped steering-column/or holes in cheese wrongly aligned/perhaps freak aerodynamic event.

[Tenmantaylor]

Maybe it was freaky aerodynamic moment caused a small failure in the steering.

[Ross Stonefeld]

How often have cars crashed because of failed steering? How often have they gone off because of tricky designs? Or bottoming out/bumps/etc? 

[Hank the Deuce]

Problem is, no matter how many crashes have been caused by so many things, too many people who did, and still want to, deify Senna simply will not accept that he could fall victim to the sort of circumstances that have claimed other drivers.

A handful of threads suddenly appear (exiled it seems from RC), and while the topic IS historic, and Senna was a remarkable driver, that people seem to be still looking for fresh light on his crash, to confirm their close-held certainty that there WAS a shooter on the grassy knoll.

Senna, as good as he was, was no more immune to the motions of the hand of Fate than Jim Clark was, or Roland Ratzenberger for that matter...

Twenty years gone. Tempus fugit.

[George Costanza]

More to the point:  "If there had been room for a tyre wall at Tamburillo ..."

 

There was room, IMO. You would think after Nelson Piquet crash and Berger's crash, they would have put a wall there.

[Nemo1965]

Problem is, no matter how many crashes have been caused by so many things, too many people who did, and still want to, deify Senna simply will not accept that he could fall victim to the sort of circumstances that have claimed other drivers.

A handful of threads suddenly appear (exiled it seems from RC), and while the topic IS historic, and Senna was a remarkable driver, that people seem to be still looking for fresh light on his crash, to confirm their close-held certainty that there WAS a shooter on the grassy knoll.

Senna, as good as he was, was no more immune to the motions of the hand of Fate than Jim Clark was, or Roland Ratzenberger for that matter...

Twenty years gone. Tempus fugit.

 

Well, well, well... now posters like me - or the writer of the book Tamburello - are suddenly compared to conspiracy-thinkers that can't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter.

 

I really don't know how to react to this. The nostalgia forum is to discuss old events. There is a video, there is a book, there is still controversy (threads about Senna derail rather quickly), so why not?

 

There are plenty of accidents that are very clear cut. Ratzenburger had a failure in his car. And died. Gilles Villeneuve took too much risk in a qualifying lap, was catapulted by contact with Jochen Mass March and died. But there are also accidents of which the cause is not clear cut. Jim Clark and Aerton Senna. And yes, the mystery is bigger with Clark and Senna because they were almost too good to die. But at the same time...

 

Then you write: that people seem to be still looking for fresh light on his crash, to confirm their close-held certainty that there WAS a shooter on the grassy knoll.

 

Well, my impression is slightly different. The only close-held certainty I have witnessed on these boards and elsewhere, that it wasn't a steering failure. 

 

But again: I am baffled about your post. I do not 'deify' Senna, if I am honest I actually did not really like him. He played the mystic while he ruthlessly pushed people of the track. 

 

I am baffled because I am defending myself... and for what?

[DRSdisabled]

Problem is, no matter how many crashes have been caused by so many things, too many people who did, and still want to, deify Senna simply will not accept that he could fall victim to the sort of circumstances that have claimed other drivers.

A handful of threads suddenly appear (exiled it seems from RC), and while the topic IS historic, and Senna was a remarkable driver, that people seem to be still looking for fresh light on his crash, to confirm their close-held certainty that there WAS a shooter on the grassy knoll.

Senna, as good as he was, was no more immune to the motions of the hand of Fate than Jim Clark was, or Roland Ratzenberger for that matter...

Twenty years gone. Tempus fugit.

 

Don't think this has much to do with deifying Senna - I bet there will be forum threads like this one in twenty years' time if the cause of flight MH370's disappearance is never satisfactorily explained.

[ANF]

I don't get it. This footage has been around for at least 15 years 16 years. The picture breaks up in Tamburello and then it stops before the car leaves the track. It's the same old footage from the same old camera.

Edited by ANF, 29 April 2014 - 22:26.

[Hank the Deuce]

Nemo, apologies if you feel compelled to defend your opinion; that's certainly not required! 

 

My not-so-well-formed point is that ultimately there isn't any new data that would radically re-write the circumstances of Senna's accident. My comment came after reading a succession of similar topics (particularly one which commented that a recent, reflective interview with Adrian Newey didn't shed any more light on the crash, to which I would (and perhaps should've replied there, rather than broad-brush in here) say that there's unlikely to be any surprise in that, as the investigation was done and dusted a generation ago, with little more than outsider supposition to challenge it since. 

 

I do note in your earlier post that while you might've re-ordered probably causes within your thoughts, the same causes remain.  I do certainly agree with the Cheese Factor, or similar malicious synergies.  I concur that any number of other accidents with no less tragic results had far more obvious and definable causes.

 

A question I will ask as an open and general one is this: if it had been Damon Hill's Williams which had crashed so tragically at that day, identical leadup. same corner, identical in-car footage, same outcome, would the incident remain so hotly discussed and scrutinised, these 20 years later?

[John Player]

I don't get it. This footage has been around for at least 15 years 16 years. The picture breaks up in Tamburello and then it stops before the car leaves the track. It's the same old footage from the same old camera.

 

What is new is the part that shows Senna warming up the tires behind the safety car from the start/finish line. Until now the footage available started with Senna later around the lap. Who knows if those last 1.7s still exist...

[DavidI]

FWIW I didn't read Hank theDeuce's comment as a personal attack on Nemo, but I do agree with his sentiment - there are many people who simply cannot accept that, gifted steerer though he was, Senna was faced with a situation beyond even his considerability ability to recover from. He was, after all, human, and humans make mistakes, even the best. Sometimes they get away with it, sometimes not, sometimes the holes in the cheese line up....

As I point out to my children when they watch programmes like "Seconds from Disaster," these things happen not because of one single event, but an entire sequence of events wchich combine - remove one and the result is different. If Senna's car had hit the wall at a slightly different angle the suspension would have failed slightly differently and perhaps not penetrated his helmet, and he would have walked away. If his tyres had been at a slightly different temperature the car would not have bottomed out in the same spot, or at all. 

Panels of experts with far greater knowledge and far better access to fact, figures and data than the rest of us have reached a conclusion that the car went out of control for aerodynamic and mechanical reasons, not a component failure. No amount of wishful thinking could change that.

[Siddley]

If anyone hasn't read 'Tamburello' yet then they should. It's similar in style to an aircraft accident investigation report ( although not as formal and dry )

From an engineering viewpoint I cannot believe how poorly the steering column was modified. But at the same time I don't think it broke before the impact.

I honestly can't figure out why a team with the resources of Williams would do such a lousy cut and shut job on a vital component.

[Dmitriy_Guller]

Personally, I came around to the view that people are overthinking it.  Senna's car suddenly went straight on, and once it did so, it kept going straight in a very stable fashion.  In pretty much every other racing incident that I've seen over the last 20 years with that kind of accident pattern, it was caused by a sudden catastrophic failure on the front end.  I have a feeling that had this fatal accident happened in a country other than Italy, and to a driver like Roland Ratzenberger rather than Ayrton Senna, we would know exactly what happened, and we would be happy with the explanation.

Edited by Dmitriy_Guller, 30 April 2014 - 04:51.

[Glengavel]

If anyone hasn't read 'Tamburello' yet then they should. It's similar in style to an aircraft accident investigation report ( although not as formal and dry )

From an engineering viewpoint I cannot believe how poorly the steering column was modified. But at the same time I don't think it broke before the impact.

I honestly can't figure out why a team with the resources of Williams would do such a lousy cut and shut job on a vital component.

 

Time? I work for a company making high-tech widgets and we've got various departments who'll do electrical wiring, metal work and machining, printed circuits and such like but if you're less than a week from having to get some kit out for a field trial and the relevant department has a six-week backlog of work, then sometimes you have to indulge in some DIY bodgery - knock up a circuit on Veroboard or smuggle your own drill into work to put four holes in a metal plate.

[Catalina Park]

Well, well, well... now posters like me - or the writer of the book Tamburello - are suddenly compared to conspiracy-thinkers that can't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter.

 

I really don't know how to react to this. The nostalgia forum is to discuss old events. There is a video, there is a book, there is still controversy (threads about Senna derail rather quickly), so why not?

 

There are plenty of accidents that are very clear cut. Ratzenburger had a failure in his car. And died. Gilles Villeneuve took too much risk in a qualifying lap, was catapulted by contact with Jochen Mass March and died. But there are also accidents of which the cause is not clear cut. Jim Clark and Aerton Senna. And yes, the mystery is bigger with Clark and Senna because they were almost too good to die. But at the same time...

 

Then you write: that people seem to be still looking for fresh light on his crash, to confirm their close-held certainty that there WAS a shooter on the grassy knoll.

 

Well, my impression is slightly different. The only close-held certainty I have witnessed on these boards and elsewhere, that it wasn't a steering failure. 

 

But again: I am baffled about your post. I do not 'deify' Senna, if I am honest I actually did not really like him. He played the mystic while he ruthlessly pushed people of the track. 

 

I am baffled because I am defending myself... and for what?

How can we take you seriously when you claim that there is a mystery in Clarks death? He had a tyre failure. Pure and simple. No mystery at all.

[tifosiMac]

I don't get it. This footage has been around for at least 15 years 16 years. The picture breaks up in Tamburello and then it stops before the car leaves the track. It's the same old footage from the same old camera.

Yeah I thought that. The last frame is Senna's helmet moving left before the car leaves the track and it is certainly footage I have seen before. Quite a few documentary makers added a bit of fuzz to that frame previously to give it a sense of atmosphere of Senna's last moment of life, so perhaps this is just the raw unedited footage? Its not new I know that.

[Nemo1965]

First; Henk the Deuce. Thanks for you reply. Really grand and rare that someone reacts in a way like that. I did not feel attacked, it was not so bad. We're cool!

 

How can we take you seriously when you claim that there is a mystery in Clarks death? He had a tyre failure. Pure and simple. No mystery at all.

 

First: Why the personal attack?

 

Second: you are reading intentions in my post that are not there. Clark had a tyre-failure. I know that. I believe that. But... the death of Clark was hotly debated, just as Senna's was, and alternative theses about the cause have been hovering around for decades. About six (?) years ago, there was a thread that exploded on Autosport because a documentairy had an alternative theory about the accident. So... I was not referring to my believe about the accident of Clark, I was referring to the mystery surrounding Clarks death.

 

Regarding Senna's and Clarks accidents: I've felt - in which lies a very, very subjective quality, the word 'felt' - were comparable. Not so much in the cause, more by the way it could have been avoided. Clark knew something was amiss with his car (because he had said so before the race against his mechanic, waved some cars through), and I think Senna knew something was wrong with his car. Both chose to drive on... with dire consequences.

 

 I have a feeling that had this fatal accident happened in a country other than Italy, and to a driver like Roland Ratzenberger rather than Ayrton Senna, we would know exactly what happened, and we would be happy with the explanation.

 

Dmitry, do you mean that the (possible) man-slaughter pressed forward by the Italian magistrates prevented Head, Newey to give full disclosure? Or do you mean that the Italians made shabby work of the investigation? Because that would be not accurate, in my view.

Edited by Nemo1965, 30 April 2014 - 07:19.

[Ferrim]

What is new is the part that shows Senna warming up the tires behind the safety car from the start/finish line. Until now the footage available started with Senna later around the lap. Who knows if those last 1.7s still exist...

 

Some never seen before parts were also seen in the "Senna" documentary, where you could see Senna waving at the pace car and almost overtaking it, urging the driver to go faster. I believe it was after the Acqua Minerale chicane.

 

Even if it is the same old camera that finishes 1. something before the crash (I believe there are two versions, the one showing the back of Senna's helmet as he moves the head left is the longer one. In a few videos the cut finishes slightly earlier, which for sure looks suspicious...), I've finally been able to understand one small piece that I had never managed to get about the investigation.

 

As we know, Senna completed a full lap at speed before crashing (by the way, both that final lap and the lap of the accident don't exist for history books, as the race was red-flagged and re-started from the end of lap 5; ie, just after the pace car pulled in). Apparently, the onboard camera was activated from the start of the race until the moment of the accident, but we've never been able to see that video on full; the one you always find starts, instead, just after Senna fled past Tamburello, safely for the last time.

 

When I investigated this matter a few years ago, this was incredibly frustrating - because the whole "broken steering column" theory pivoted around the movement of the yellow button in the steering wheel. Apparently, the button was going down, and down, and down, clearly outside the circunference it should move, and therefore indicating the wheel was outside its normal operating zone - the steering column would be breaking. You can see it in the link to CINECA that ANF has provided before in this thread. To counter this, Williams prepared the famous video where David Coulthard would push and move the wheel around, to show that it wasn't completely fixed, and that this behaviour was within normal standards.

 

I was never too happy with the theory - how wouldn't Senna have noticed that the wheel was moving down as he entered the corner, if that wasn't a normal behaviour? Would he had kept pushing instead of slowing down the car? But what frustrated me is that images of lap 6, when he passed through the corner at top speed did exist and we never got to see them, because the damn video of Senna's final lap starts just after he exits Tamburello! We cannot use the first five laps to compare, because the pace car was on track (maybe the first one, as Tamburello is quite far from the start-finish line, but still), but the sixth lap would clearly have been representative. If the same study of the yellow button was made on the onboard camera for lap six, we could see if it was moving down just like it did during lap 7. If it was, then the broken steering column theory would be basically destroyed, and Williams' version that it was a normal movement for that wheel would be vindicated. If the yellow button moved only over the line of the circumference during lap 6, that would be a different behaviour from the one shown during lap 7 - and the broken steering column theory would be vindicated.

 

As it is, it looks like this will remain a mystery, but now I can understand why this comparation wasn't done in the first place. The Brazilian TV program finally showed the images of Senna going through Tamburello in lap 6... and, sadly, you can see almost nothing because of interference. It's almost painful to see it. Of course the conspiracy theory could be made of how they disturbed the image so nothing would show, but I won't enter into that territory.

 

Once you manage to see it, it's clear that the car veers slightly to the left at the middle of the corner, then it comes back to the right and keeps going straight into the wall. This is all we are likely to ever know.

[Spillage]

The onboard footage of the accident has never suggested steering column failure to me. It looks like the back end of the car steps out and Senna tweaks the wheel to correct that but unfortunately at Tamburello in those days there just wasn't time to do so. The reason he is then unable to alter the trajectory of the car is down to two things; firstly, the car seems to jump slightly over the astroturf(?) as it leaves the track and secondly there just wasn't time for him to do so. The car steps out - perhaps due to a combination of cold tyres and a tricky, highly sensitive Williams and less than two seconds later hits the wall. I think it's often easy to assume things happen more slowly than they actually do if you watch them frame-by-frame or in slow motion.

 

In Sky's recent documentary both Damon Hill and David Brabham admitted they had mixed emotions about what eventually became of Tamburello, but in hindsight I'm glad the track was altered in the way that it was. There'd been at least three horrible crashes there already, all of which resulted in injured drivers and any one of which might have been fatal on a different day. I think ultimately the neutering of Tamburello was a price worth paying.

[tifosiMac]

Even if it is the same old camera that finishes 1. something before the crash (I believe there are two versions, the one showing the back of Senna's helmet as he moves the head left is the longer one. In a few videos the cut finishes slightly earlier, which for sure looks suspicious...), I've finally been able to understand one small piece that I had never managed to get about the investigation.

 

The official reason the camera cuts away before the crash was apparently down to the TV director cutting to another camera in the fraction of a second before Senna's car left the track. That was the only footage available as it was from the live feed but nobody really knows why the footage contained on the car was lost. I assume a HD would have stored the footage as it contained the previous laps which are in the public domain.

[stuartbrs]

How often does this crash need to be discussed? The outcome was final... lessons were (sadly) learnt.

 

The cause of the crash, in my not expert opinion, was a combination of factors. New regulations, a car that was tricky to drive on the limit, a driver willing to explore those limits on a high speed corner, with tyres not running at the correct temperature, a compromised ride height, and a solid wall that had claimed several (first class) drivers before. 

 

And I`m guessing in another ten years more new footage will appear, and new threads will surface on TNF.

[DRSdisabled]

Some never seen before parts were also seen in the "Senna" documentary, where you could see Senna waving at the pace car and almost overtaking it, urging the driver to go faster. I believe it was after the Acqua Minerale chicane.

 

Even if it is the same old camera that finishes 1. something before the crash (I believe there are two versions, the one showing the back of Senna's helmet as he moves the head left is the longer one. In a few videos the cut finishes slightly earlier, which for sure looks suspicious...), I've finally been able to understand one small piece that I had never managed to get about the investigation.

 

As we know, Senna completed a full lap at speed before crashing (by the way, both that final lap and the lap of the accident don't exist for history books, as the race was red-flagged and re-started from the end of lap 5; ie, just after the pace car pulled in). Apparently, the onboard camera was activated from the start of the race until the moment of the accident, but we've never been able to see that video on full; the one you always find starts, instead, just after Senna fled past Tamburello, safely for the last time.

 

When I investigated this matter a few years ago, this was incredibly frustrating - because the whole "broken steering column" theory pivoted around the movement of the yellow button in the steering wheel. Apparently, the button was going down, and down, and down, clearly outside the circunference it should move, and therefore indicating the wheel was outside its normal operating zone - the steering column would be breaking. You can see it in the link to CINECA that ANF has provided before in this thread. To counter this, Williams prepared the famous video where David Coulthard would push and move the wheel around, to show that it wasn't completely fixed, and that this behaviour was within normal standards.

 

I was never too happy with the theory - how wouldn't Senna have noticed that the wheel was moving down as he entered the corner, if that wasn't a normal behaviour? Would he had kept pushing instead of slowing down the car? But what frustrated me is that images of lap 6, when he passed through the corner at top speed did exist and we never got to see them, because the damn video of Senna's final lap starts just after he exits Tamburello! We cannot use the first five laps to compare, because the pace car was on track (maybe the first one, as Tamburello is quite far from the start-finish line, but still), but the sixth lap would clearly have been representative. If the same study of the yellow button was made on the onboard camera for lap six, we could see if it was moving down just like it did during lap 7. If it was, then the broken steering column theory would be basically destroyed, and Williams' version that it was a normal movement for that wheel would be vindicated. If the yellow button moved only over the line of the circumference during lap 6, that would be a different behaviour from the one shown during lap 7 - and the broken steering column theory would be vindicated.

 

As it is, it looks like this will remain a mystery, but now I can understand why this comparation wasn't done in the first place. The Brazilian TV program finally showed the images of Senna going through Tamburello in lap 6... and, sadly, you can see almost nothing because of interference. It's almost painful to see it. Of course the conspiracy theory could be made of how they disturbed the image so nothing would show, but I won't enter into that territory.

 

Once you manage to see it, it's clear that the car veers slightly to the left at the middle of the corner, then it comes back to the right and keeps going straight into the wall. This is all we are likely to ever know.

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=tCFmYKkw6VE

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=w2f2i7tUN7k

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=RohiGS5Ac6U

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=YUpth2QSWmU

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=VBbLJvFW5Ck

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=lbZ7mz--7FI

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=XnxWZDzhRZY

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=6HOtPfscH-c

 

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=OpaMH96Bf8A

[Dmitriy_Guller]

 

Dmitry, do you mean that the (possible) man-slaughter pressed forward by the Italian magistrates prevented Head, Newey to give full disclosure? Or do you mean that the Italians made shabby work of the investigation? Because that would be not accurate, in my view.

 

I mean the legal implications.  I think that Williams team used all their resources and the data at their disposal to provide an explanation that would minimize their legal troubles, rather than an explanation that is most likely.  And you know what, given the circumstances of the legal BS that followed, I don't blame them at all if that's what they did.  

[Nemo1965]

I mean the legal implications.  I think that Williams team used all their resources and the data at their disposal to provide an explanation that would minimize their legal troubles, rather than an explanation that is most likely.  And you know what, given the circumstances of the legal BS that followed, I don't blame them at all if that's what they did.  

 

Me neither...

[as65p]

I mean the legal implications.  I think that Williams team used all their resources and the data at their disposal to provide an explanation that would minimize their legal troubles, rather than an explanation that is most likely.  And you know what, given the circumstances of the legal BS that followed, I don't blame them at all if that's what they did.  

 

This is exactly what I always felt too about the matter. Including the last sentence, it would have been a shame if anyone from Williams would been prosecuted due to a law unsuitable to judge the inherent dangers of motor racing.

[chunder27]

Not sure why anyone thinks the steering thing is done with.

 

Surely the car jinking slightly left is a marker for perhaps a steering issue?

 

Ayrton would have been pushing the car through Tamburello with his right hand mainly, maybe pulling a bit with the left, probably both as car was heavy with fuel and tyres new.

 

My only douby was watching the lap before and seeing the sparks from the low ride height. Schueys Benetton didnt seem to be grounding out quite as  much, and at Tamburello there are notable surface changes arent there?

 

My feeling is that there are two alternatives. The footage to me shows the car jink slightly left as if there was a failure, Ayrton was starting to release the car out of the bend so would ahve been relaxing grip on the wheel, yet still have some tension on it. The steering fails centrally, there is still a link to it though as the car turns quickly to the left then the thing breaks and centrifugal force makes it straighten up. He makes no effort whatsoever after that to steer away, the car wasnt airborne and he would know exactly the consequence of hitting the wall at that angle. We know he braked and shifted down gears and attempts were made to steer, but when you watch him leave the track it is as if he is trygin to steer it but there is no response.  There wwas room to make a save, but he simply wasnt able to, and I cant think that was because he wasnt quick enough!

 

Or the car hits the ground, the rear pitches up slightly and Ayrton can do nothing.

 

I still feel though that this is a bend that was easy flat out in any F1 car. He doesn't seem to correct, he is looking down, why is he looking down? He is releasing the car into the straight, there would be no need for him to turn, even if there was a bump. He would be starting to open the steering, instead it jumps left briefly then he makes no effort to catch it.

 

But I guess we will never know truly.

 

Actually quite a fascinating debate.

Edited by chunder27, 30 April 2014 - 13:02.

[Siddley]

Time? I work for a company making high-tech widgets and we've got various departments who'll do electrical wiring, metal work and machining, printed circuits and such like but if you're less than a week from having to get some kit out for a field trial and the relevant department has a six-week backlog of work, then sometimes you have to indulge in some DIY bodgery - knock up a circuit on Veroboard or smuggle your own drill into work to put four holes in a metal plate.

Pretty good explanation. I suppose it's yet another thing we'll never really know all the facts about though.

 

[Twin Window]

Thread closed as the video linked-to by the OP is no longer available and the discourse is doing little more that going round in circles.