Or if the server is too slow like it is on mine and takes an age to upload the page and then says "page not found" here is the full article, i hope the Mods on this board dont mind me copying this up but i thought I'd share this with the rest of the people on the board
The hardest thing I ever had to deal with was the most publicized and visible accident in the history of motor sport – the death of Ayrton Senna, which happened live on television in the homes of countless viewers all over the world. The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix meeting at Imola had already had grim happenings and at the start of the race on Sunday there was a collision that sent a wheel into the crowd and brought the safety car out to lead the drivers round at greatly reduced speed until the debris could be cleared. On lap seven the race resumed, with Senna’s Williams just ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Benetton, but as Ayrton took the Tamburello curve flat out he lost control. Even though a lot of speed was scrubbed off he slammed into the concrete wall at some 135mph. In previous years I had seen Michele Alboreto, Nelson Piquet and Gerhard Berger do the same thing at the same place and come to little harm – in Berger’s case, despite his being unconscious while his car caught fire – so my immediate reaction to Senna’s crash was one of excitement rather than horror. Wow, that’s a big one! was my first thought but it was immediately obvious that it was a lot more than that. The race was stopped as the medical staff, under the direction of Professor Sid Watkins, tried to save the stricken Senna’s life. The cameras of RAI, the Italian host broadcaster, stayed with the scene and I was getting some very disturbing pictures on my monitor but fortunately, for the very first time at a foreign Grand Prix, the BBC had its own camera unit and direction, so producer Mark Wilkin was able to show the British viewers something else. As the coverage continued I saw his pictures but was also still getting those from RAI. The greatest racing driver in the world was lying immobile and gravely injured beside the track. I had no way of knowing how serious his condition was although I was by now fearing the worst. What to do? I obviously had no justification for making reassuring statements like, ‘Don’t worry, I know it looks bad but I’ve seen things like this before at this very place where the drivers were OK – today’s cars are very strong and I’m sure Senna will be alright’; nor could I say ‘This is terrible. I fear from the body language of the medics around Senna that this is a potentially fatal accident’ because I didn’t know that it was and, anyway, it would have been unacceptably alarmist to say so.
For what seemed like hours the horrible scenes continued until a helicopter took the mortally wounded Brazilian to the hospital, where he died. A truly great man had met his maker and I honestly do not know how I found the right words to cope with it. It is not an experience I would like to repeat.
When I reported to the BBC at Silverstone for my first broadcast in 1949, Formula 1 did not yet exist and Grand Prix racing was still struggling to recover fully after an exhausting war. Alfa-Romeo and Maserati ruled the circuits, Ferrari had yet to win, there were only five major races and British cars and drivers were of no consequence. The cars had their engines in the front and the drivers wore thin cotton trousers, short-sleeved T-shirts and linen helmets. They had no safety belts and their cars were flimsy death traps; there were no barriers between them and the thousands of spectators lining the track and no gravel traps to slow them if they went off. The medical facilities were minimal
In those days, so soon after a World War that had taken literally millions of lives in appalling circumstances, attitudes towards death were very different. ‘Motor racing is dangerous. If they don’t like it they don’t have to do it. The throttle works both ways and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen.’ was the general view in the sport and several drivers were killed each season, with no great reaction except regret. In the mid-1960s, however, Jackie Stewart courageously championed a much-vilified crusade for greater safety which, together with changing public attitudes, gradually led to major improvements. Thanks mainly to the untiring efforts of Bernie Ecclestone, FIA President Max Mosley and FIA Chief Medical Officer Professor Sid Watkins, it’s all very different now, with safer circuits, safer cars, infinitely better medical facilities, fireproof clothing and greatly improved marshalling.
Ayrton Senna’s tragic death was the catalyst for even greater efforts to make Formula One safer with major changes to car construction and the regulations. I am sure they would have come anyway but the worldwide impact of the great Brazilian’s untimely demise undoubtedly hastened their introduction in a vigorous effort to avoid anti-motor racing legislation. Ironically Senna was a close personal friend of Sid Watkins who, as an individual, has undoubtedly done more than anyone else to make Formula 1 safer. The drivers do not dwell on the fact that their job could take their life. ‘It may happen to others but it won’t happen to me’ is the usual, if unrealistic, attitude. They never talk about it and, to be honest, I never raised the subject during interviews. It was just something one did not do. Everyone knew it could happen; everyone hoped it wouldn’t. Of course none of them would race if they thought they were going to be killed but the fact is that they could be and retirement from racing is often caused by the belief that the risks are no longer acceptable. That was certainly the case with James Hunt and I believe it was with Damon Hill too.
No one was more conscious of the hazards of the sport than Senna but he adopted a fatalistic attitude and just got on with it. Nevertheless, his concern for his fellow drivers in what is an extremely selfish and self-centred profession was unusual. During that fateful weekend at Imola, Ayrton visited his countryman Rubens Barrichello in hospital after his high-speed crash on the Friday and the following day, very much against the rules, commandeered a course car to get to the scene of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger’s fatal crash. He then unsuccessfully tried to get into the trackside Medical Centre at Imola – something he had succeeded in doing at Jerez in Spain in 1990 where Lotus driver Martin Donnelly had an appalling accident from which he miraculously recovered. Senna may have appreciated the dangers of racing but at Imola on the Saturday he, like most of the people who were there, received a forceful reminder that its consequences could be fatal. There had not been a death at a Grand Prix since 12 years earlier when Osella driver Riccardo Paletti was killed at the start of the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix, and Ratzenberger’s death was a wake-up call for everyone. Sid Watkins seriously suggested to the badly shaken Senna that he should withdraw from the next day’s race but Ayrton felt it was his destiny to continue and did so – with tragic results.
Motor racing can never be entirely safe and nor do I think it should be. Of course it should always be the objective to have safer cars and circuits, better medical facilities and protective clothing, and highly trained marshals with efficient warning systems, but not to the extent that it encourages dangerous driving. Knowing how safe today’s racing conditions are, the modern Grand Prix driver already takes risks that would have been regarded as suicidal in the 1950s. Would Stirling Moss have taken the 150mph risk to pass Fangio that Senna, enraged by what he felt to be an injustice, took in attempting to overtake Prost in Japan in 1990? Definitely not. Neither Senna nor Prost was even scratched by their collision that took them both out, but in the flimsy cars of Stirling’s time death would almost certainly have been the penalty. And if motor racing was sanitized to the extent that it posed no risks, where would the line be drawn in other hazardous sports? No more mountain climbing? No more parachuting? No more fishing? (You’d be amazed at how many deaths that causes.)
Senna was right. I strongly believe that the individual should be left to make his own mind up about whether the risks are acceptable, provided spectators are given the maximum protection. In the old days no one gave a second thought to their safety but now there are most demanding requirements to protect them. And rightly so.
Bloody long but its a good read
Cheers Murray Walker 
Good reading... thanks Murray (whoever he is)
