'When they bring out the red flags you tend to fear the worst . . . now we knew things were bad'
THE San Marino Grand Prix started as normal and was immediately brought under the control of the new Alfa safety car, because yet another drama had exploded behind us. J. J. Lehto’s car had stalled and been hit by Pedro Lamy’s Lotus. Wheels and carbon-fibre shards were all over the place.
We backed off and settled in to five laps of dawdling behind the safety car while marshals cleared the track, the engines overheated and the tyres cooled down. With hindsight, the race should have been stopped, but what would have been the point of having a safety car then? The reasoning was that it was as unsafe to go through the risk of another standing start and there is some logic in that.
However, with the broken bits of car all over the track (which we had no option but to run through) there was an added danger from punctures. This was by far the greatest risk to the drivers on such a fast track. Nevertheless, I do not believe that Ayrton had a tyre failure. The TV cameras would have easily recorded this. Remember Nigel Mansell, Adelaide, 1986? Five laps we completed over the debris of the start-line shunt before the safety car pulled in and we were on our way again. Even by normal standards, this had already been a dramatic and stressful meeting, but race drivers have the ability to cut themselves off completely from whatever they are going through or have been through.
They simply would not be thinking of anything else but driving flat-out and staying in control at the start of this, or any other race. That having been said, Ayrton knew he had to start winning again. He had even more inner reasons for pushing himself to the very edge of his being as a racing driver. He was, in my mind, committed to the idea of overcoming all that had gone before: that is to say, everything in his life and everything in this awful grand p rix.
For him, winning was the only panacea, as it always had been. If he won today, he would overcome himself, his fears, his frailty. He would be Ayrton Senna once more.
The concentration level at the start of a race is probably at its peak, but so is the adrenalin. When you see a car, your team-mate’s car, charging across the grass kicking up dust and turf, you have time for few thoughts that we would recognise as “considered”. You tend to think one word only . . . beginning with f. Then you inject a quick simple prayer for him, like “I hope he’s all right”, before trying not to get too indecently excited about having moved up a place. That’s about it.
But when they bring out the red flags, you tend to fear the worst. We saw the red flags and backed off. No safety car this time. Now we knew things were bad. Again! What could possibly have happened now? In the weeks to come, I would be able to see exactly what had happened in those critical split-seconds for Senna.
There were two bumps on the apex of Tamburello corner. If you go straight over them, you travel a slightly shorter distance, but the car touches the ground. I found I could go in the middle of the track, costing a few feet, but avoid them. On cold tyres and heavy fuel, I had made sure I did just that. On the in-car footage from Michael Schumacher’s car, it is possible clearly to see Ayrton’s car slide twice over both these bumps, which he made no attempt to avoid. On the second one, the car recovers grip suddenly as he has corrective lock on the wheel. You can see this from his onboard camera by the appearance and disappearance of a yellow button on the steering wheel indicating that it is being turned. You can also perceive the yaw on the car by watching the tree line.
This confirms that the car is responding to his inputs. However, the corrective lock causes the car to “slap” back violently as the aerodynamics recover the grip lost through grounding out, so much so in fact, that Ayrton’s head is catapulted almost out of the car. In my opinion, this is when Ayrton lost control.
At 200mph, he was unable to recover the right trajectory to make the corner. He hit the brakes hard, but nothing would stop a car at that speed before leaving the track. He was killed by a stray piece of suspension striking his head, which could kill at 20mph if it hit you at the right angle.
The cars were kept in a parc ferme, just before the pits. All the drivers climbed out of their cars and were trying to find out what was happening. Nobody knew. Some pit groupie-type had made her way on to the track (God knows how) and was frantically asking any driver she could find about Ayrton. I went into a shell, trying to keep concentration, but observing the confusion with a gut-burning sense of dread rising as every minute passed. If Ayrton was all right, they would clear the track in ten minutes and the show would, literally, be on the road again. But time ticked by and there was much running around and uncertainty. Not good.
By the time they had arranged us on the grid for the “new race”, it was pretty clear that there was serious concern for Ayrton. Anne Bradshaw, the stalwart Williams PR who had handled every crisis previously generated by the team (and there had been many), gave me the straight answer. He was “serious” with a look in the eye that said “about as serious as it gets”. So now I knew, but I prayed for him, that he would live. I had no idea that there was not really any hope of that.
We all kept our superb professionalism on the grid where we were held for the re-restart. I don’t think anyone knew the truth then. I did not know he was dead. I knew he was “serious”, but in Formula One euphemisms that meant they did not want to distract me by telling me the truth, which I suspected. Behind the scenes, all hell was going on. Engineers were frantically trying to get data. Organisers were racking their brains to work out if the race had to be stopped for good. Doctors were trying to keep Ayrton technically alive for as long as necessary to prevent the police from closing down the track.
Georgie, my wife, was terrified but together, keeping a watching brief over my engineers, watching their expressions for any betrayal of doubt or fear, and finding plenty.
In the shameful race, I drove for all I was worth, for the team, for Ayrton, but really they should have pulled my car. Patrick Head, the technical director, admitted as much three weeks later. There was not really a plan for this kind of thing, and everyone was stunned. The last person to die in Formula One was Elio de Angelis eight years previously, and that was in testing.
I saw Frank Williams before leaving the track; he confirmed that Ayrton was, after all, dead. I drove with Georgie to the airport. I will never forget the room where the Williams team were sheltering. Not a man spoke. No one could speak. I wanted to say something to lift their spirits. I said I trusted them with my life and they must not take anything on themselves.
It was all too much to take in, but at last the weekend from hell was over. Formula One would never be the same again. For many, our entire lives would be changed too. The Indian god, Shiva, the destroyer, was much in evidence at Imola, but the corollary of his destruction is that life changes, evolves and so prevails. For me, this meant a new path was opened up, one I curiously found myself pursuing with the same spirit of devotion that seemed to possess Ayrton.
© Damon Hill 2004.