48 replies to this topic

[Tadpole]

CHANNEL 4 UK
GOING CRITICAL
THE DEATH OF AYRTON SENNA

21:30 25 September

"Ayrton Senna was probably the greatest motor racing driver of all time. Yet in 1994 millions of television viewers saw him die in the middle of a grand prix as his car - for no apparent reason - slammed into a wall."

"The racing world was stunned. The Williams team has now given access to secret telemetry recordings from Senna's car and, in The Death of Ayrton Senna, the real story of the racing legend's death is revealed for the first time. Today's computer technology enables experts to take a split second, slow it down, look at it frame by frame and see what caused the catastrophic event..."

"This is a technique now widely used in accident analysis, using virtual reality to place virtual cameras inside an engine when a vital component snaps"

(taken from www.channel4.co.uk, program lasts 30 minutes)

[614david]

Thank you Tadpole.

P.S - haven't seen anything form you before- welcome to the BB:)

[Sammyed]

Hi Tad,

You know...I think your url is not good...I can´t open it:confused:

[nigel red5]

Thanks tadpole,
The tapemaster will be on it.

[fifi]

try channel 4

[PEW]

Thanks Tadpole- keep up the good work. You will be a very welcome addition to the BB

[The Swerve]

Thanks for the headsup - might be worth a watch. I can't imagine anything new coming out but still...

[AD]

I really hope it's good but that probably would be expecting way too much since it's Channel 4. That station is full of rubbish, but let's hope this will be good.

[tim]

I saw the tail-end of a trailer for the show (missed the first bit ).

Anyway, there were a few shots of Senna and then a computer-generated FW16 driving around on a computer-generated Imola circuit. The car went round the corner, and went across the gravel on its fateful course... Then it cut away to the graphic announcing the time and date of the show...

I too doubt whether the show will reveal much new, no doubt to the fury of the conspiracy theorists ;) - after all, Williams wouldn't release the telemetry data if it would work against them. Still, it should be interesting to see...

[pRy]

Should be interesting.. no doubt i'll forget its on.

[FredF1]

I'm not expecting much from this show.
This is the same Channel 4 which brought us that hatchet job on James Hunt.
Plus the programme is only 30 minutes in length. They won't get much into that time span.


Fred

[Ricardo F1]

Bloke walks on from stage left, and clears throat :

"His steering column broke thus he was not able to turn into the corner at the correct time. Mr Senna then hit the brakes before hitting said wall."

Exit stage right. 29mins 30 seconds of commercials.

[madmac]

Tadpole,

1) Welcome to the board.

2) Thanks for the TV guide, I'll watch it with an open mind CH4 do some good stuff.

[black magic]

sounds very similar to show screened in nz called something like seconds that shook the world. if it is they claim that bottoming out of senna's car caused him to lose control. they say that telemetry coming from the car proves the steering column did not break. some interesting data and comments about the steering wheel. left me less convinced still.

the great senna simply lost control - at tamburello - nah didn't think so.

[Ricardo F1]

bm - you're quite right, how someone of Senna's ability can have the foresight to slam on the brakes but not turn the steering wheel is beyond me . . .

[614david]

I'd hate to get into this, as i would rather leave well alone the memory of Formula One's King.
He was, quite simply, amazing.
No amount of speculation will lead me to believe that Ayrton lost control at the Tamburello that day, i will only believe it when they prove it, and i doubt they ever will.
I'm afraid that the true cause of Ayrton Senna's death seems destined to remain a mystery.
That somehow seems quite fitting for a man of such intrigue in his life.

I find it hard to believe that it is now approaching eight years since we lost him, and, of course, Roland.

I find it harder still to write it off as another chapter in the Formula One History books- but i can't fugure out why.

Many drivers have lost their lives in this dangerous sport.
I don't know why Ayrton Senna's death sticks with me.

Maybe this show will turn up nothing new, i don't expect it to.
But i'll probably watch it anyway.

[Toast]

Hi all,

From the Radio Times: Going Critical - The death of Ayrton Senna.

The first in a new six-part series tells the real story behind the 1994 death of three-times F1 World Champion Aryton Senna during the San Marino Grand Prix. Using computer simulation and telemetry recordings released by the Williams team the film documents the moments before the crash.

I agree with Fredf1 that 30 minutes is too short but 3 hours on the one accident ! They might be spreading the facts a little thinly over 6 weeks.

Toast

[baddog]

It seems likely that the other 5 parts are about other incidents.. if it IS the siesmic seconds program one of the others was about the bhupal (sp) union carbide mass poisoning incident... etc

Shaun

[pRy]

Yes, I just checked next Tuesdays listing, the next one is not about Senna. *sets his alarm*

[Tadpole]

Here's another trailer

Ayrton Senna's final moments

The final fateful moments in the life of Formula One champion Ayrton Senna have been recreated.

In Going Critical on Channel 4 this evening, the reasons why Senna died in his Williams car at the San Marino Grand Prix are revealed.

The programme uses previously unseen data taken from the car, as it hurtled into a race circuit wall at about 190mph.

The world's greatest driver was the victim of a combination of factors, including the track itself.

Producer David Darlow achieved a coup when the Williams F1 team agreed to show him the computer data taken from the doomed car.

"The cause of the crash has never really been understood. The telemetry shows us why it happened," he said.

"A disaster is seldom a single event but a chain of them. At the heart of a disaster is when all those elements join together and click into place.

"Modern computer technology allows us to recreate those moments."

When Senna's car crashed at the Imola race track it had been stuck to the track by 3.6 times the force of gravity.

It should not have left the long bend where he died. But it did.
The programme shows that Senna's tyres were crucially too cold and had lost their gripping power.

His car was also too close to the ground and touched the track with deadly consequences, as the flow of air beneath the car ceased.

It meant the car behaved as if it were on skis. Senna went into a deathslide. He was killed by the battered wheel on his car as it hit the track wall at Imola.

[BRG]

Originally posted by black magic
the great senna simply lost control - at tamburello - nah didn't think so.

The great Senna drove into the barriers at Monaco all on his own, so why not at Imola? I know it is blasphemy to say it, but he was only a human being....

[tim]

Senna may have been one of the greats, but he was by no means a 100% perfect driver. He made mistakes. At one of the races before Imola, he spun off all on his own in his pursuit of Michael.

You can't say Senna would never have made a mistake like that - he was only human, after all. Even Michael Schumacher makes mistakes.

[614david]

That race you are talking about was Brazil.
He spun in front of his home crowd, hunting down Michael.

However, you may only have seen Ayrton's response in public to the incident.

The problem was, both Williams drivers were having a horrible time with the steering/handling of the FW16 and FW16B.
The car was crap, even for Senna, who usually liked a car with attitude.
It went off line at the slightest turn of the wheel, and it was unbalanced entering and exiting corners.

Ayrton tried to take the blame for that incident publicly, but their were serious words exchanged behind closed doors, that Williams needed to work damn hard to sort that cars handling out if they were to stand a chance of the championship.

While Senna may have contributed to the spin by pushing the car beyond its limits, the car shouldn't have reacted as badly, so easily.

I don't know if you have read the book, 'The Death of Ayrton Senna' by a guy, coincidentally named Williams, but if you haven't, you should- it's really interesting, as it doesn't just say the usual nice things about him- it really analyses him as a person and a driver- his good points and his bad points, and apportions blame accordingly- in this case, that spin in Brazil was not entirely Ayrton's fault.


AS for it maybe being his fault at Tamburello- only Ayrton knew for sure, and he's not here to set us straight.
I can only say that I sincerely doubt it- even if he lost it there, he should have been able to alter the angle at which the car hit, it wasn't on gravel, the steering should have been responsive. It seemed, however, simply to continue in a straight line.


However, this argument has unfolded time and again, and as I say, Ayrton isn't here to tell us what really happened.
Maybe it is better to remember his wins, and his epic battles, his unique style, and unquestionable talent.
He lived his life on the limit and as he once said, 'I wasn't designed to come second or less, I was designed to win.' At least, then, he was leading in his final race, and his final moments.

[Irvine`s Love Child]

I agree that 30 mins for a documentary seems like a tabloid job but I`ll watch it anyway.

IIRC his family sanctioned the program so it would be difficult to see how they thought Senna was at fault in the accident.

[pRy]

It's about to start

"Newly released data" , interesting.

[pRy]

Well for anyone who didn't watch, the website covers pretty much all of it at :

http://www.channel4....enna/index.html

As I suspected, the data they talked about was the data given to the trial by Williams, and the program covered the theory put forward by the team that the car bottomed and snapped to the right, nothing new really. They also showed some video of Coulthard flexing the steering wheel to show that observations Senna's wheel moved more than normal, where actually a normal observation, and not a sign of a snapped wheel.

They suggest the car bottomed, the car stepped out, senna reacted very quickly (possibly too quickly), the car then gripped, snapped to the right, simular to Cart oval crashes.

[Jdcasas]

Did anyone see the Channel 4 program on the Senna crash. I never followed the investigations too carefully, but have they really shed new light on the crash? (For those of you who didn't see the program they claim the crash had nothing to do with the steering column but rather with the steel part at the back of the car sliding "like skis" for only an instant. This, in turn, was caused by the very low ride height after the contraction of the cold tires following the safety car at low speeds).

Those of you with more technical knowledge of the matter - what did you think of all this?

[AD]

Now I was only 10 at the time, but if my memory serves me right I noticed that Senna was the only top car anyways that wasn't weaving in the laps behind the safety car. Would his tyre temperature have dropped more than anyone elses? But then again Martin Brundle once said that weaving wasn't any good?

[leegle]

The back let go and the car went straight ahead? They are clutching at straws ;) to drink their Bacardis!

[BuzzingHornet]

Not a lot, considering they couldn't even spell his bloody name right on the title page ARYTON Senna indeed..! Not a bad programme, the Frank Dernie stuff was interesting but the rest was nothing new.

[Sammyed]

This bizarre theory is totally BS.

Jdcasas I recomend you to visit www.ayrton-senna.com and search for everything, specially on the CINECA video, you´ll find a lot of information there.

[madmac]

I was realy waiting this topic but my video stopped taping half way thru the program. Any uk members got it on tape? I'll pay the postage etc! This is one prog I want to watch. and I don't think will get a repeat anytime soon and I want to see it.

[HP]

Jdcasas,

The problem with this theory is simple. If it happened that way, they would have found marks on the track, ASFAIK there was never mention of that.

Also according to Michael Schumacher, he did see Senna bottoming out on the lap before, and there nothing happened (or maybe the steering column did weeken there)

If you want to see a few close up pics of parts in question, follow the link below.

http://www.ayrton-se...s/evidence.html

[PAD]

What surprised me was the "new evidence". I am not sure if it was the video of the designed-in movement of the steering wheel or the extra telemetry data showing the steering force being applied, but why wasn't this all available at the trial in Italy as it seemed to prove that it was the aerodynamic stall rather than the steering failure being the cause of the accident and thus would have vindicated the Williams F1 team immediately.

Overall I thought the programme was a bit weak, but then it was designed as a television programme rather than video evidence for a court case.

[Gwynston]

I watched the programme. As others have mentioned, not particularly eye-opening. It was short and pretty dumbed-down for the average TV audience.

The theory was that Williams were running the car right on the ride-height limit and that the slow safety car period lowered Senna's tyre tempuratures so that the ride-height reduced by a few more mm leading to the car bottoming out round Tamburello.

They said that this caused Senna to lose the back end, he corrected, then steering the bit, and he speared off the track.

So they summarised it all by saying it was the fault of the low ride height of the cars that year, plus the low tyre temperatures making the car ground out at that flat-out corner. What mystifies me is why none of the other cars in the same race in the same situation seemed to have any problems.....???

[pRy]

Originally posted by HP
Jdcasas,

The problem with this theory is simple. If it happened that way, they would have found marks on the track, ASFAIK there was never mention of that.

Also according to Michael Schumacher, he did see Senna bottoming out on the lap before, and there nothing happened (or maybe the steering column did weeken there)

A few points regarding what you said :

1. They (the investigators) found a mark going from the track to the wall on the path Senna took, which looked simular to as if something had been dragged along the ground.
Also, the corner itself was bumpy, so the surface of the track would have had lots of marks from all the occasions a car did bottom out there, so looking for marks to prove or disprove anything would have been usless.

2. Michael Schumacher did see bottoming on both the lap before, and the lap Senna went off. Infact, the onboard video recorded from Schumachers can visibly shows a massive ammount of sparks flying up from Sennas car just before it goes to the right. Also, the onboard video from Senna shows serious disturbance in quality at this moment, suggesting the car had suffered a serious vibration, or shock, again presumed to be from it bottoming.

[pRy]

Originally posted by PAD
What surprised me was the "new evidence". I am not sure if it was the video of the designed-in movement of the steering wheel or the extra telemetry data showing the steering force being applied, but why wasn't this all available at the trial in Italy as it seemed to prove that it was the aerodynamic stall rather than the steering failure being the cause of the accident and thus would have vindicated the Williams F1 team immediately.

Overall I thought the programme was a bit weak, but then it was designed as a television programme rather than video evidence for a court case.

This video was actually part of the court trial. The driver pulling and pushing the wheel was David Coulthard. The video was presented to the court audience, and was made by Williams.

The "new evidence"... was I believe just the first showing of that video on television as you suggest, the rest of the evidence has been known for years since the trial.

[pRy]

Originally posted by Gwynston

So they summarised it all by saying it was the fault of the low ride height of the cars that year, plus the low tyre temperatures making the car ground out at that flat-out corner. What mystifies me is why none of the other cars in the same race in the same situation seemed to have any problems.....???

The problem was Senna was fighting a battle against his car. The Williams had some serious issues, and Senna.. being the driver he was, may have wanted to go beyond the normal "limits" of setup to try and squeeze out as much speed as he could. He wanted to keep Michael Schumacher behind him at all costs. During the weekend, Senna warned Damon Hill that the Williams was not taking Tamburello very well atall, and warned Hill to "avoid the bumps". Senna, in an attempt to win at all costs, may have taken the risk of running over that area. Or, he may have simply asked for a lower than normal setup.

The other teams may have simply ran their cars a little higher, Benetton for example had a good car so they may not have had to take such a decision.

[Richard Jenkins]

The thing I'll remember from the show was that was possibly Michele Alboreto's last TV appearance...

[AD]

Yeah that's right. I didn't know what to feel when I saw Michele. Should he still have been used on this program when C4 knew that he died? I don't know.

About the program. It was too short. Did anyone see the program that the BBC did on the Kursk (Russian Submarine)? It was around 50 or so minutes long and was excellent. It did 2 theories on what could've happened and gave evidence to support both and then evidence to dispel one. It was very factual. It would be great if a BBC team did a documentary on this. The C4 one was lacking F1 coverage and interviews with Frank William, Patrick Head, Adrian Newey, Damon Hill, David Coulthard, Max Mosley, Sid Watkins, Michael Schumacher, Berger or some other veteran still driving at that timem, and some of Senna's family. It would be great if a really excellent program was done on this but it's too late now and we will never get any more evidence IMO.

[Mr Melvin]

I would have thought that after a few fast laps, the tyres would have been up to pressure. I don't see how the car bottomed out that lap, when it didn't the lap before, when the pressures were lower.

[Gary C]

I thought it was a dreadful programme. New evidence? They're joking! Evidence from Williams? If so, why weren't they given a credit at the end of the programme then? Frank Dernie telling us that Ayrton was killed by the front right coming back & hitting him on the head? I think not. And lastly, they couldn't even spell his name correctly in the opening title sequence - words fail me!
No one has mentioned here that they tried to pass off recent footage of a couple of BOSS Formula races (Brands Hatch and Donington Park) as F1 coverage!
Badly researched and cheaply made! THey shouldn't have bothered.

[pRy]

Originally posted by Gary C
I thought it was a dreadful programme. New evidence? They're joking! Evidence from Williams? If so, why weren't they given a credit at the end of the programme then? Frank Dernie telling us that Ayrton was killed by the front right coming back & hitting him on the head? I think not. And lastly, they couldn't even spell his name correctly in the opening title sequence - words fail me!
No one has mentioned here that they tried to pass off recent footage of a couple of BOSS Formula races (Brands Hatch and Donington Park) as F1 coverage!
Badly researched and cheaply made! THey shouldn't have bothered.

Sure.. the programme could have been put together a little better, but, what it contain was valid.

To address the points you made. The evidence from Williams was the telemetry. As far as I understood it, the producers where given access to the telemetry data. You took issue with the right front bit.. why so? The right front wheel did hit the side of the cockpit, the photos of the car and the helmet showed that. The name issue, yep that was terrible, and prehaps this part of the programme wasn't fully checked. The BOSS stuff was I guess because the programme didn't have permission from the FIA/FOCA to show real F1 footage, but it was hardly a vital issue, seeing as F1 has changed so much since 1994, the BOSS cars are actually closer to what F1 was like back then, than now.

Badly researched.. well the programme showed evidence and research that appeared at the manslaughter trial in Italy. Shouldn't have bothered.. well I disagree there, for anyone who didn't follow the trial it was very informative.

[Gary C]

I thought they didn't use any REAL F1 footage was because they didn't want to pay Bernie's rates.........

[jetsetjim]

The Tyrrell used in that programme was the actual car used in the '94 season, hence it's inclusion in a lot of the report..

I think you will find that they weren't using a BOSS race to demonstrate "recent" footage, it was just more appropriate than using current footage.

[Gary C]

Surely if you're making a TV documentary telling a story from F1 in 1994, then you use contemporary footage? Why did they also use footage from the BOSS race of F3000 cars then?

[Slyder]

I haven't watched the program, due to the fact I live in th US.

Though that theory about Senna loosing it in the bumps, besides the Williams being an off handling car is interesting. I wonder, could the bumps have caused the steering column to fail, or did the steering column just broke at the moment of impact

Lets not forget that the camera at the exit of tamburello, shows Sennas shade of the left front wheel, darker than the other, and that the in car camera, of what little they took, also proved (i;m not sure on this part of the evidence) that the steering column failed and as a result, Senna went towards his death.

Can somebody clarify me, and give me a clearer picture posting of what they think about the program's theory, and the Italian Law's theory?

[Williams]

Lets not forget that the camera at the exit of tamburello, shows Sennas shade of the left front wheel, darker than the otheralso proved (i;m not sure on this part of the evidence) that the steering column failed and as a result

The "darker wheel" thing is something I hadn't heard anything about, and could be an indication of front steering or suspension failure, by showing a sudden misalignment of one of the wheels. However, it would not be an indication of steering column failure, since the steering column has no role in keepin the two front wheels aligned.

[pRy]

That particular photograph/video footage was passed off as an illusion.