Today, 12 years ago, the biggest and best racingdriver for ever died. Ayrton Senna da Silva was 34 years old and had 3 world championships-titles. But 12 year ago, the sun fell from sky…
>>Imola, May 1st 1994. Josef Leberer was, like always, at the track before the start with Senna, who already sat with his helmet in the car. The start positions were told. There was applaud at “Senna”, applaud at “Schumacher”, and then a special applaud at “Berger”. Josef told me, that this special applaud really amused Senna- Josef saw, that he smiled all over the face.
In the sixth lap there suddelny was a shaddow behind of me, and there was a hit at the car. I couldn’t feel something special, just drove on, and before I was able to think about it, there were the red flags outside: race canceled.
I told my mechanics to check the front- there was a bad damage and you could see that the stuff was sticking there just a bit on the car. The mechanics started to change these things before the re-start. I heard in all the chaos, that the accident I recognized in the Tamburello corner, an accident of Ayrton Senna meant. They had to put away the car from there. And the parts who hit my car where from a front wing of Senna’s car.
How bad was the accident?
Nobody was able to say this. The monitores in the boxes where in the intern network of the racing course, so every single normal TV- watcher outside had a better view over the situation than me, and was able to recognize, that it wasn’t a normal dozen- accident, but a real serious thing. I had no problems to forget this for a while, an accident, like many others. I was concentrating on the new start.
Before the start I asked again about Senna. Yes, he already was awake, he just stood up- and i thought, “stood up and went away… he really knowes, how to make a show”. Then Bernie came to me and said ‘shit weekend’ and i asked, what’s up, he had the radio with him and tried to reach Sid Watkins [racing doctor at this time] but he was working at this time, and I tried again to concentrate.
New start, zero thoughts on Senna or anything terrible. After a few laps I overtook Schumacher and was in the lead with this. Suddenly, in the Aqua Minerale, the car broke out. Schumacher went past me, but I didn’t defend much, first I wanted to recognize, what was up there at the behind part of the car. On the straight line I recognized sparks in the back-mirror and I thought, that there weren’t sparks before, I was angry about myself: are you dreaming now, or what? Anywhere in the last corner of a driver’s brain, you are recognizing minimal changes of your car: Hopefully I do not have a slowi puncture. I thought, maybe I whould get my new tyres immidiately, even they boxing stop should have been three, four laps later, and then I did it like this.
When I went out again I got understeering, which wasn’t there before, and what made me unsure, if it maybe because of the new tyres, or because of the fuel they put in, the car was heavier now, and i needed to change the braking points. In the fast chicane, where Barichello had his crazy accident, the car broke out again, and i had to drive over the lawn, and I wasn’t sure at this time, if there was something wrong with the car, or if I just had been too fast. Anything told me: now the fast straight line comes- you really don’t need it, if something will happen.
So I went to the box and the mechanics looked. The guys said, there is everything allright, but I said, when I think, there is something wrong, then there can’t be everything allright. In this moment Jean Todt came and said: go out of the car.
Later he told me: “I saw it, that you wanted to get out”, and I really wanted this.
Then I sat in the boy, and i suddenly got the feeling, that everything was so silent, even outside was the loudly race, and then i noticed in a way, which i can’t explain, that Ayrton Senna was dying.
Now the first news over the seriousity of the accident were coming till to the boxes. I heard, that Senna still ws fighting to survive, but it was nearly already lost. In this moment I had just one feeling: I wanted to see him a last time. I don’t know, what i expected from this, but I just wanted it. Braga and my dad orgnized the Malboro- Helicopter, who flight us to the hospital in Bologna.
What I understood in the hospital was, that the fight of the doctors was hopless, but not over. I had to wait for a time, which seemed eternal, then Josef Leberer and me were allowed to go to him. Ayrton was covered with a green blanket, and just a part over the brow was free. The hand and the foot I saw, where the one of a dead person, on my feeling. Two or three doctors were working on the injures of the brow, and we were not sure, if Ayrton was still living. [...]
Josef Leberer stayed in the hospital, and from this moment on, he stayed with Ayrton Senna, it was the wish of the family, he went with the coffin to the plane, sat next to it in the plane and was till the funeral with Ayrton. It was an endless, deeply good bye.
My mother sometimes said senteces, which i recognized, because I absolutely didn’t know, what they should mean, and i just said them maybe too, but without a sense, and i thought: maybe i will recognize once, what it means. One of these expressions was ‘I am shocked’. When I woke up on the day after Senna’s death, I recognized for the first time, what this could be.
It was like, not be able to hear anything in an scary emptyness, and when I looked around and tried to hear, also everything was just empty.
It was an incredibly horrible weekend: On Friday Barichello crashed with 240 km/h into a tyres wall- the video is an only nightmare. On Saturday Roland Ratzenberger died, on Sunday a start crash, where a tyre flought into the audience and injured a man heavily on his head, then Senna’s accident, and during I was sitting in the box, three mechanics where flying round, because of a sloppy fixed tyre of Alboretto’s car.
This mass of drama showed the huge negative power, which suddenly came free, when something goes into the wrong way. The good years of the formula 1 were like wiped away.
Thinking was the only thing i could do.
Did I expect, at the moment, when I saw my dead friend, a hint for this, how it should go on with me? When I would recognize in the next days, that it would be the right time to stop, then I would fight with myself, and then this image would make the decision- the better one, the right one- easier… maybe on that way, like you have a child, and you are terribly afraid because of the danger with drugs, then you take this child and go with it to the places, where you see drugs- addicted- for deterrent. But I didn’t get a hint during the situation in the hospital, I just was happy, that I had been able to see Ayrton a last time. The injures of the head where never in me, when I thought on him- he stayed uninjured- forever.
The image of Ayrton Senna.
I think he was happy. Yes, for sure. He had the same, wonderful life like me, and over this also three World-Champions titles. I don’t know, maybe he wanted to become world Champion for six times- to beat Fangio. But I think this was also everything, what could have been missing.
He had something mysterial. An appearance, like he would come from another planet, and because of the he had more view over the things, more brain, more power, more energy. Also when he never had the aura of being warm- hearted, and sure not of being the nice guy from next door, but there was so much charism in his appearance, in his eyes, in his smile, that the people not just adored him, they also loved him.
He brought a new line into Formula 1, a big step higher. He leaded the techniqual work of a Lauda or a Prost in till now unreached high.
For us he was really untouchable, what also means something like not injureable, but I don’t think so, that he saw himself like this. He didn’t have this amazingly, crazy frightless behaviour of a Gilles Villeneuve. He sometimes came to me with a printed paper from the computer, where i was driving full in any corner, and he said ‘you are crazy. When you come off the course there, you are dead’… no, he wasn’t absolutely frightless, this was not his forte. He wasn’t the wild dog, but the most perfect and most concentrated racer, with an unbelievebal view over the things, without comparison.
His death was for the formula 1, like if the sun is falling down from sky.
[...]
The funeral in São Paulo, was no normal funeral, it was so overtop, like the whole Senna. From every red carpet, every plane which flight over it, till to the white dress of the mother, everything was Senna- like, as if he would be here and watch over it, to tell what everybody has to do. During the days after his death, the tears where always in my eyes, but sure not at his funeral. It was more like a honour parade, like if a folk would say thanks to their king, who guided them through a successful fight. Also not his father cried at the funeral, i think it also shouldn’t have been something sad, but something really different, something higher, something mystic. But everything was right on it, it had got style, and Senna’s myth, which he also had had got as living person, just grew bigger.<<
(Gerhard Berger- “Zielgerade”)
(from left to right: Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna, Gerhard Berger)
Ayrton Senna is maybe dead, but his myth will last for ever.
By the way: the golden series of Formula 1 accidents with no death lasts today exactly for 12 years… the danger is not over… there always will be accidents… and it is just a question of time… because of that, we shall not think, that everything is save there… it never can be 100% sure… but we can make it, that there will be 99,9% safety… I pray for a save motorsport…. with no death… may it, that Roland and Ayrton haven’t died for nothing… you all: learn out of this tragedy, and make it better…
- who doesn’t wants to have such a dad?
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