25 replies to this topic

[bill moffat]

Philosophical question as we approach the 10th anniversary of Senna's death.

What if....

Ratzengerger's death on Saturday had been confirmed as instant and (as Italian law would dictate) the rest of the weekend's meeting cancelled.

The steering column had not been modified/ the tyres had not lost pressure during the few laps behind a hopelessly slow pace car (also avoidable).

Adriane or others close to Senna had persuaded him that he was not emotionally fit to race.

Brundle had blown the doors off him in British F3 and he had been consigned to Brazilian Touring Cars or similar.

Hundreds of years ago the Santerno river may have carved out a different course allowing for a longer run off at Tamburello.

Schumacher and Benetton had made a weaker start to the season so as to diminish the red rag/bull effect.

etc etc.


But then again Jimmy Clark could have been driving an F3L in Kent rather than driving F2 at Hockenheim. Jochen Mass could have been a couple of seconds up the road rather than acting as a launch pad for Gilles' Ferrari. Zorzi could have broken down on a different section of Kyalami and a more experienced marshal have taken one look and said "no way". Hawthorn could have declined Rob Walker's challenge and gently driven the Jag home over the Hog's Back..the list is endless.

So what is it ? Fate (your times up)? Scientific combination of events ? Wrong place, wrong time?

[Nanni Dietrich]

Utopia, I say.
Better: ucronia.

[ensign14]

Things happen. It works the other way as well. E.g. hat if that little stone had not jammed in Stirling Moss' gearbox at Argentina 1958 thus allowing him to continue? Musso would have won...

What if there had been no tyre barrier at Silverstone in 1999? Scratch one Schumacher. Ralf would have gone to Maranello on a tide of emotion and swept to 3 WCs...no, don't think so.

'If' spelt backwards is F1. (copyright Murray Walker)

[Felix]

All these hypotheticals would be unnecessary IF Senna had asked for the wall to be changed or a chicane to be inserted.

I am previewing Tom Rubython's (supremely comprehensive) book THE LIFE OF SENNA, and in it he quotes a telephone discussion between Senna and Gerhard Berger on the day after the Austrian's fireball at Tamburello in 1989. The extract:

"The next day (after the crash) Ayrton phoned me to see how I was and I said, 'Ayrton, we have to change that ****ing wall, it's too dangerous.'

Berger's burns meant that he missed the Monacoi Grand Prix but recovered in time for the Mexican race a month later on 28 May.

When they returned to to test at Imola the following year, Senna and Berger walked out to the Tamburello corner. As Berger remembers: "Ayrton and I walked to the Tamburello to see what could be done. Ayrton looked behind the wall and saw there was a river there and said to me, "Gerhard, we can't change it because there is a river behind it.' We looked at each other and agreed there was nothing we could do to change it. I said to Ayrton: 'I know we can't do anything but somebody is going to die at this corner.' Sure enough he died at exactly the place we where we were standing and talking."

The fact is that something could have been done (was done after his death), and Berger and Senna did not do it. No IFS or BUTS.

[ian senior]

Almost everything in life is "what if". What if Senna had never had any interest in cars and had decided to become an accountant? What if Switzerland's motor racing ban post-1955 had spread to the rest of the world? What if the motor car had never been invented?

In other words, we'll never know. And saying that Senna would not have died in a racing accident if he had asked for the wall to be changed or a chicane to be inserted is,with all due respect, male bovine excrement. Something could have happened to him in the next race, or one five years down the line. Or he could have retired from the sport and lived to a ripe old age.

Motor racing is dangerous - we all know that. Trying to keep the risks to the minimum while retaining the spectacle is sensible. But agonising too much will never solve anything. Accidents can result from one or a combination of the factors that Bill mentioned. But try telling that to the Italian legal system, which seems unwilling to accept that, in motor sport, these things do happen.

[prettyface]

Originally posted by bill moffat
Hawthorn could have declined Rob Walker's challenge and gently driven the Jag home over the Hog's Back..the list is endless.

Wasn't Hawthorn afflicted with an incurable disease? I only heard it mentioned one time; but maybe I'm mixing things up.

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by prettyface


Wasn't Hawthorn afflicted with an incurable disease? I only heard it mentioned one time; but maybe I'm mixing things up.

Yes, according to his consultant he had about a year to live from Mon Ami Mate; he had suffered from a painful kidney disease for years - some may think that this accounts for his erratic performances although I doubt that his Herculean drinking helped much; he was very fast when on form and, I have to say as a lifelong "fan" generally under-rated these days.

And of course, no transplants in those days.

PdeRL

[Vicuna]

Originally posted by bill moffat
Philosophical question as we approach the 10th anniversary of Senna's death.

What if....

Schumacher and Benetton had made a weaker start to the season so as to diminish the red rag/bull effect.

The Ben Elton had been legal? M$ would have never won those first two races...

[D-Type]

Hmmmm,
Interesting thoughts!
Here's a very un-Italian proverb from an Italian colleague 'Sh*t happens'





[Lest I be accused of anti-Italian bias, the point I am trying to make is that something as fatalistic as this is at odds with the popular perception of the Italian character]

[D-Type]

Then there's the Finnish attitude to 'IF'

'If my uncle was female he'd be my auntie!'

[attributed to Kiki Rosberg]

[conjohn]

The way I heard it:

'If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle' (Keke Rosberg)

Either way, as already has been pointed out, 'sh*t happens'.

Another way to see this is one of Murphy's laws (paraphrased) :
'If 5 things, and only ever 5 things, can go wrong, and you have eliminated all possibilities of them happening - a 6th thing will go wrong...'

[D-Type]

conjohn, you are right,

I'll claim that I was being polite. As we all know, the truth is fading memory!

I agree with the Murphy's law example (and the 99 corrolaries!). After all, isn't May 1st 1994 really a classic case of Murphy's Law!

[Lotus23]

Someone better-educated than I can address this in more detail, but aren't we talking about Chaos Theory here? (The beating of a butterfly's wings at a particular place/time can ultimately result in a hurricane somewhere else later...)

I can look at my own life and see that if I hadn't gone to a particular party on a certain night, I wouldn't have met my wife.

And that if, five years earlier, I'd slept one second longer at the wheel that night, the tractor/trailer would've flattened me permanently. And I wouldn't be here to write this!

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by bill moffat
What if....

Ratzengerger's death on Saturday had been confirmed as instant and (as Italian law would dictate) the rest of the weekend's meeting cancelled.

I'm not expert on our laws, but I don't think that GP would have been canceled. Don't forget Roland Ratzenberger died on Saturday, so it was already dead when GP (and all Sunday events) started.

As regards all other if... I can add another proverb:
Se mia nonna avesse le rotelle, sarebbe un tramvai (If my grandma had wheels, she'd be a tram)
(By the way, it's funny to notice that tramvai (or tranvai) is simply an Italian deformation of the original English tramway)

Ciao,
Guido

[bill moffat]

Originally posted by gdecarli
I'm not expert on our laws, but I don't think that GP would have been canceled. Don't forget Roland Ratzenberger died on Saturday, so it was already dead when GP (and all Sunday events) started.

Ciao,
Guido

Guido..it was my understanding that if there was a fatality at the venue of any Italian sporting event immediate cancellation of this event would follow.

The key words are at the venue . It is "acceptable" for the driver to later succumb to his injuries at Maggiore Hospital or even in the helicopter...this applies to both Ratzenberger and Senna.

Politics and PR are such that the death of a high profile driver at any circuit is to be avoided..even if he dies a minute after the medical chopper takes to the skies...

[Vicuna]

Originally posted by conjohn
The way I heard it:

'If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle' (Keke Rosberg)

Ain't it funny how history can get mixed up?

You see, I would have munny on Ari Vatenen uttering those very words, not Keijo...

[Felix]

Certainly Rosberg said them; maybe Vatanen did, too... Two Finns, world champions a year apart in adjacent sports, why not?

[Ray Bell]

And if the ovum had been a little late settling in the uterus?

Senna's father's hopes for a child might have had to wait... and it would have been a different person.

Mind you, if it had been late, it would probably have been a girl...

[Felix]

Nope, Ray B: Senna's father had a child already - a daughter Viviane who was two when Ayrton was born...

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by bill moffat
Guido..it was my understanding that if there was a fatality at the venue of any Italian sporting event immediate cancellation of this event would follow.

OK, I understand your point of view, but I confirm that I don't think Ratzenberger immediate death would have stopped GP.

If there a car kills some spectators in a dangerous forbidden area (like Gilles Villeneuve did at Fuji 1977), race for sure is stopped until spectators go away and there are no possibility for anybody to go back in that area.
If the track is in a so bad condition that can cause dangerous accident in any moment, for sure race is stopped. Race is stopped if safety conditions change: i.e. ambulance go to hospital and don't came back or so on.

Nothing like this happened at Imola 1994: there were no links between Senna's or Roland's death and other drivers safety (of course I'm talking about decision to stop GP, not about rule changes made on following months), so for this reason I think GP would have go on.

Of course I'm not a lawyer, so I could be wrong, but I'm Italian and I think I know a little our way of thinking...

Ciao,
Guido

[PLAYLIFE]

Senna had said he'd be surprised if there weren't some serious accidents in the 1994 season, during pre-season.

However, only one driver ever contacted the FIA in the 6 months leading up to 1st May regarding the safety of F1 at the time, asking for imrpoved safety, and that was Gerhard Berger.

Prost in the previous season had also wanted to discuss safety with the FIA but never followed up on his requests.

[joachimvanwing]

the problem with Tamburello is/was that the forest to the left of start/finish and Tamburello couldn't be touched. Roland Bruynseraede looked into this opportinity, making the straight that led to Tamburello shorter, and therefor would create a larger escape area for cars going off at Taburello. Sadly, the forest could not be touched.

[bob gilberg]

As I watched the Senna accident on live TV early that morning at my home in San Diego I kept thinking; was it mechanical failure or some unthinkable mistake on Senna's part? As the next few days came and went and no solid explanations were found, I remembered something that always bothered me about FI cars in those days. That something was watching those cars bottom out on the skid plates used under the chassis to prevent grinding the car bottoms away when heavily loaded with fuel on high speed course sections as the areo effects heavily loaded the suspensions. Remember the showers of sparks? All the cars in all the early laps looked like fireworks screaming down the straights---and some high speed corners---in those days.

The thing that bothered me about that then and still does now is the question of how much load was lifted off the tires and moved to the skid plates under those conditions. In other words, how much cornering force was lost as the weight transfered from the tires to the skid plates? Many corners, due to aero effects were/are effectivley straightaways where full throttle could be maintained. But, an instantaneous loss of cornering force due to skid plate contact could suddenly mean the car was running tens of miles an hour too fast for the remaining contact patch based cornering force. Bad things are going to happen very fast under those conditions. Add a few bumps on the road surface and...............?
I always thougt the skid plates were a dumb and dangerous solution to a problem that needed a much more imaginative and fundamental solution. But they used those plates!
So, to my question: does anyone know if skid plates were ever considered as a contributing factor in the Senna accident, or for that matter, any accident?

Thanks for any thoughts on this question which has been in the back of my mind all these years since the accident.

Bob

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Felix
Nope, Ray, Senna's father had a child already - a daughter Viviane who was two when Ayrton was born...

Okay... substitute 'hopes for a second child'...

[catfigs]

what if ayrton's father had given him a guitar as a small child and turned him onto rock n roll and jobim, and ayrton played it and played it and got better and better and became the new caetano veloso and travelled the world and became very popular in europe and lived in monaco and became friendly with gerhard berger the famous magician and illusionist specialising in frogs and suitcases? i'd buy the albums!

[Ed Kooij]

Originally posted by bob gilberg
So, to my question: does anyone know if skid plates were ever considered as a contributing factor in the Senna accident, or for that matter, any accident?

Thanks for any thoughts on this question which has been in the back of my mind all these years since the accident.

Bob

You may want to watch the TV documentary "Seconds from Death: the Death of Ayrton Senna." Good chances a rerun will be aired on or around May 1st.

This particular documentary claims bottoming-out was the main cause for Senna to go straight into the wall. According to the makers the car was even closer to the road than usual because the tires cooled down during the safety-car period and became under-pressured. They present a solid case, though the lack of attention for other theories is disturbing.