0:02

The Athletic. Hello

0:10

and welcome to another episode

0:12

of And Colossally, That's History,

0:15

the podcast where we reappraise

0:18

motor racing history. I'm Matt Bishop and

0:20

I'm joined as ever by Richard Williams for what

0:22

is, excitingly, the first

0:25

episode of a multi-part

0:27

miniseries. Yes, that's

0:29

right, Matt, because as many of you may know,

0:33

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of

0:35

one of motor racing's blackest weekends,

0:38

the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix,

0:40

when both Ett and Sema and

0:42

Roland Ratzenberger were killed in action.

0:45

We believe this topic is just far too

0:47

big and far too important to tackle

0:49

in one podcast, so we're going to

0:52

try to do it justice over three.

0:54

That's right. Not one, not two, but

0:56

three. So, on the

0:58

next episode, we're going to dive into

1:00

events of the Imola weekend itself, in

1:03

detail, but on this, the

1:05

first of our three episodes, we're going to look

1:07

at events leading up to the 1994 San Marino

1:10

Grand Prix. And

1:13

I don't just

1:15

mean immediately preceding that weekend, I

1:17

also mean how Formula One evolved

1:19

to get to the point where

1:22

something like this could even happen.

1:24

Now, Richard, you wrote an

1:27

excellent book, which I'm sure many of

1:29

our listeners own, and by the way,

1:31

if they don't, they should, and

1:34

it's called The Death of Ett and Senna. So,

1:36

I'm assuming that your knowledge on the topic is

1:38

second to none, and I'll just

1:40

be able to sit quiet for the next hour. Well,

1:42

not exactly. Nobody

1:45

has ownership of a definitive

1:47

account of these things. I

1:50

did spend and have spent a great deal

1:52

of time thinking about it and writing about

1:54

it. I wrote about Senna quite a lot

1:57

during his Lifetime and his

1:59

career because of... He was an

2:01

exceptionally interesting racing driver and particularly

2:03

from code for journalists like meets

2:06

the then when he died it

2:08

was such a big thing and

2:10

the know it was the first.

2:14

And that weekend who is

2:16

Ratzenberger and Center was the

2:18

first really big shock that

2:20

Formula One it had for

2:22

long time and to lose

2:24

such a champion boys and

2:26

was horrifying. Ah, and I

2:28

began thinking about. Writing a

2:30

book based on that and

2:32

immediately after I went to

2:35

need it out to the the

2:37

race I went to some

2:39

pilots for the funeral which

2:41

was an extraordinary event. ah talk

2:43

about later and then and

2:45

three years later I went

2:47

to the Because they have the

2:50

inquiry into this. Terrible.

2:52

Accident lasted a very long time

2:54

and it was three years later

2:56

that I went to the inquest

2:58

in a mullet to hear some

3:00

people including Damon Hill who is

3:02

send his team mate and give

3:04

evidence in the attempt to discover

3:07

what had caused the the tragedy

3:09

so that those are some of

3:11

the seems that we will be

3:13

covering in the next to our

3:15

but let's now are beginning to

3:17

set the scene for the Nineteen

3:19

Ninety Four Summary: No Grand Prix.

3:22

By looking at the lay of

3:24

the land if I can call

3:26

it that of former one itself

3:29

in the early nineteen nineties starting

3:31

with a cast. So looking back

3:33

now we may think that the

3:35

cause of the early nineteen nineties

3:38

look horribly unsafe by today's standards.

3:40

in the driver's head and shoulders

3:42

even are exposed and so on,

3:45

but it's easy to forget that

3:47

at the time. They

3:50

really were the safest former one cause

3:52

to we'd ever seen that it ever

3:54

raced and they were regarded as Paragon

3:56

the safety when they they were and

3:59

I as. Talk about later.

4:01

People did get at that

4:03

time get out of horrifying

4:05

chance relatively unscathed. They did

4:07

am and. That. Will reasons

4:09

why For for example, every car

4:12

on the grid in Nineteen Ninety

4:14

Four would have had a carbon

4:16

fiber Mana Cook And that was

4:19

a truly remarkable development when it

4:21

was first introduced by Mclaren in

4:23

Nineteen Eighty One. Her we probably

4:26

all remember a John Watson's enormous

4:28

shunting that Mccloughan at the Second

4:30

Less Mo at Missouri Nineteen Eighty

4:33

One And that was important. Seminal

4:35

really am because his Mccloughan had

4:37

a carbon fiber. Ceci and as

4:40

a result he hopped out of

4:42

a son that know a huge

4:44

shunt. a son that might well

4:46

have killed him had his car

4:48

had an old type pre carbon

4:50

fiber Ceci. but it didn't Thankfully

4:53

I had a carbon fiber one.

4:55

Are not want to say something

4:57

about John Watson, hear from. John

4:59

Watson survived that huge months as

5:02

jumped in Nineteen Eighty One. Then

5:04

the next year he and Derek

5:07

Warrick. A pool jill

5:09

ville of them as he

5:11

breathed his last out of

5:13

the cats fencing where his

5:15

dying body had been hurled

5:17

out of his rick for

5:19

our it's older I'm despite

5:21

this important point despite what

5:23

some not being of illness

5:25

fan by his own admission

5:27

and in d despite. Watson.

5:30

Having been pretty outspoken

5:32

in his criticisms of

5:34

Villeneuve and Rennie on

5:37

new after their famous

5:39

and brilliant but in

5:41

disciplined we'll banging dice

5:43

at third only nineteen

5:45

seventy Nine and then.

5:48

What? Happened next. John. Watson won

5:50

the race as old of the day

5:52

after. Jill. Have been killed

5:54

there. and what

5:57

he won brilliantly so

5:59

underrated Formula One star is

6:01

our what he and my point in my

6:03

opinion. I once asked him about that race

6:06

sold 1982 and he

6:08

just shrugged and said Someone had to

6:10

win the damn thing anyway, I

6:12

think that says a lot about

6:14

the attitude and the grim courage

6:16

of Drivers who had grown

6:19

up with the danger of death as

6:21

an ever-present specter as indeed

6:23

John Watson Who of course made his former

6:25

one debut in in the early 70s or

6:27

the mid 70s and then raced through that

6:29

period? To the 80s

6:32

as John Watson had yes drivers

6:34

grew up wanting to do this thing wanting to

6:36

drive an f1 car Knowing

6:39

the dangers that came with it and

6:41

knowing the historical Precedence and

6:43

in the 50s you were driving basically with a

6:45

fuel tank around you and not much in the

6:48

way of a chassis to protect you Then

6:51

aluminium space frames came along and if

6:53

you shunted one of those it just

6:55

kind of crumpled around you like matchsticks

6:57

Yeah, then we had aluminium monocoque switch

7:00

had a certain amount of greater

7:02

integrity And then carbon fiber

7:04

monocoque had a lot more they were

7:06

a lot stronger in every direction a

7:09

big change Yeah, yeah as well as

7:11

being stiffer and yes performance as well

7:15

But by the early 90s while you

7:17

have a grid full of carbon

7:19

fiber chassis you also have cars

7:21

that have lots of sophisticated electronic

7:23

controls and driver aids such as

7:25

traction control and active suspension All

7:28

of which allowed the cars to go faster than ever

7:30

before so on the one

7:33

hand you've got much stronger cars that can withstand

7:35

more force and Protect the

7:37

driver better, but on the other

7:39

hand you've got drivers cornering and

7:41

crashing at higher speed Yeah, and

7:44

really it's the cornering speeds that are crucial here

7:46

Grand Prix cars were doing 200 miles

7:49

an hour before the Second World War in

7:51

a straight line But they weren't going around

7:53

corners very fast That's where speed

7:55

evolution has come in and where the

7:57

danger has resided as the cars have

7:59

got safer? Well you say safer

8:01

and I know why you say

8:04

that but in road

8:06

cars we talk about active safety

8:08

and passive safety. Passive

8:10

safety meaning seat belts,

8:13

airbags, crumple zones, all those

8:15

things. In other words the

8:17

things that help you survive in

8:20

the event of an accident, in other words after

8:22

an accident has happened, but active

8:24

safety is the stuff that stops you having an

8:26

accident in the first place. Better

8:28

grip, better steering, better brakes

8:32

etc. And as you rightly say Richard, as the

8:34

1970s rolled into the 1980s you begin to

8:36

have cars that are perhaps

8:42

safer in the passive sense but

8:45

they're also faster especially in

8:47

the corners as you say and at

8:50

the same time while circuits in the early 1990s

8:52

were also probably

8:54

a bit safer than they'd ever been or

8:56

been in the past. They weren't anything like

8:59

as safe as they are now and

9:02

again we might look back now and

9:04

think that some elements of the circuits

9:07

were then horribly unsafe but

9:09

massive steps had actually been made

9:11

to make them safer if not

9:13

safe than

9:16

they were in the 80s or before.

9:18

I mean we weren't racing at the

9:21

old spa, the old Nürburgring or

9:23

Clermont-Ferrand or Rouen, places like that were

9:26

we? No, you wouldn't go off into

9:28

a cornfield anymore. Exactly. Or his a

9:30

row of pine trees or a telegraph

9:32

pole. You wouldn't end up upside down

9:34

in a ditch as people sometimes did.

9:38

That changed as a result of

9:40

safety campaign largely led by Jackie

9:42

Stewart at the end of the

9:44

1960s and the beginning of the

9:46

70s when he basically got fed

9:48

up of seeing his friends, his

9:50

really close personal friends like

9:52

Jim Clark and Jochen Rint

9:54

and Francois Saver being killed.

9:57

He and his wife Helen had sick

10:00

of going to those funerals and wanted to

10:02

do something about it. But it didn't make

10:04

him popular with purists, did it, Richard? No,

10:06

it didn't. A lot of people, well,

10:09

a lot of people, some people

10:11

with loud voices, felt

10:14

that it was damaging

10:16

the sport, damaging its traditions. As

10:19

these various changes were made in response

10:21

to what Jackie was saying, Armco

10:23

barriers were made standard. They got rid

10:26

of straw bales after Lorenzo Bandini had

10:28

been burnt to death at Monaco in

10:30

1967. And

10:34

corners, some of them very famous corners, were

10:36

eased to make them less dangerous and so

10:38

on. But among the people who

10:40

were against all that was Dennis Jenkinson, the

10:43

famous continental correspondent of motorsport who went to

10:45

all the Grand Prix in the 1950s and

10:47

1960s and was read avidly

10:50

by many of us, you know,

10:53

who took his word as gospel.

10:55

And he was pretty scornful about what Jackie

10:58

was doing. And

11:00

of course, to anyone who said, oh, he's just

11:02

a journalist, what's he done that's dangerous? He

11:05

was the passenger in the motorcycle sidecar

11:07

world championship combination with Eric Oliver in

11:09

1949. Amazing

11:11

those photographs

11:15

of Jenks, DSJ with Eric Oliver.

11:18

Yeah, hanging out hanging off a

11:20

sidecar going around the Spa. Amazing.

11:23

The vernacular that it

11:25

requires is big balls,

11:28

I think is the phrase, is it not? That

11:30

is what they say. I believe it is. I

11:32

believe it is. Jenks

11:35

was also let's not forget he was the

11:37

navigator for Sterling Moss in the Mille Miglia

11:40

in 55. Was he not? Yes,

11:42

that mad race

11:44

around the roads of Italy. I know

11:46

averaging 100 miles an hour. Averaging 100

11:48

miles an hour around the country. No

11:50

autostrada in those days. Just sort of

11:53

semi closed roads with people

11:56

at the roadside

11:58

And you know, you've got to be. Great

12:00

sit next to Molson in that

12:02

race for sure and but he

12:05

was. Very. Strong on the

12:07

fact that he believed that

12:09

in motor racing there should

12:11

always be the challenge of

12:13

mortal risk and so was

12:16

Sterling A selling a. You.

12:18

Know he die for years ago

12:20

but rarely up till quite recently

12:22

he was. Saying. Quite

12:24

a while I was gonna say brazenly

12:26

but quite openly saying that the fear

12:29

of something going wrong I don't mean

12:31

he. He didn't talk about the

12:33

up the appeal of the danger of

12:35

death or don't think we could accuse

12:37

him of saying that. But he did

12:39

say that the fear of something going

12:41

wrong was part of the motivation of

12:43

a top driver. A really

12:45

took drivers to show that he was

12:47

made of sterner stuff than his rivals.

12:50

Yes, I've seen a you could give

12:52

divides the drivers as those. Her.

12:54

Years into to between. Drivers

12:56

who loves road circuits love

12:59

the open road racing on

13:01

that with with natural hazards

13:04

and those who prefer to

13:06

race on airfields were which

13:08

were relatively safe controlled environments.

13:11

Am Antennas Jenkinson certainly thought

13:13

that what. Jackie. Stewart was

13:15

doing was a muscular eating the school

13:18

year and. Bird. Icing

13:20

in are probably a lot of people

13:22

who didn't die. And their

13:24

families and. Would have

13:26

thank checking for what he'd done. Undoubtedly.

13:29

And and there were other things to

13:31

the creation of the grumpy medical unit

13:34

which I think Louis Stanley the controversial

13:36

possibly are and a much maligned carrot

13:38

yes have a lot to do it.

13:40

He was may the first person to

13:43

realize that arrow to be special societies

13:45

rather than just relying on the St

13:47

John Ambulance service in some and and

13:50

slightly broken down old ambulance and that

13:52

should be bespoke facilities and then Bernie

13:54

Ecclestone brought in said Watkins the eminent

13:57

nearer surgeons to the F ones. Resident

13:59

Doctors. The to the very important

14:01

step very important And you will

14:03

you mention ambulance isn't a but

14:06

that was if an ambulance could

14:08

be found some tuck. Sometimes injured

14:10

drivers were taken by car just.

14:13

A car that happened to beams

14:15

him hanging around and a normal

14:17

driver not an ambulance driver or

14:19

taken by car to the local

14:21

hospital. and sometimes a person driving

14:23

didn't really know the way. It

14:26

was absent chaotic and they drop them in

14:28

a. Driver: Sometimes in racing driver

14:31

sometimes died in those car with a

14:33

normal passenger cars with a normal driver

14:35

trying to find his way to the

14:37

hospital terrible right and this they did

14:39

get the as they did get to

14:41

the hospital a hospital would not have

14:43

been prepared if they wouldn't have it

14:45

owned have had a trauma unit specially

14:47

waiting ready for such casualties as they

14:49

as they do now might not even

14:51

know that the racing driver was on

14:53

his way know and didn't honor and.

14:57

And test sessions were in a potentially

14:59

particularly lethal cause of a no facilities

15:01

at all and nobody bothered to arrange

15:03

anything. Says you had your big chunk

15:06

and testing is a A. The Angeles

15:08

did a poor Rick. I'm nineteen eighty

15:10

six. You are in. Big. Trouble.

15:14

But anyway, by the nineties, quite

15:16

a lot of acid been improved

15:18

out of all recognition from what

15:20

we think of as perfect periods

15:22

of Formula One racing their period

15:24

when people were killed virtually every

15:26

other weekend and but the second

15:28

still weren't exactly what you'd call

15:30

safe. There was still major dangers

15:32

and a lot of the circuits

15:34

short or almost non existent, run

15:36

off areas and concrete barriers, it

15:38

oblique angles and that sort of

15:40

thing and temporal lobe. the flat

15:42

out left. hander that open the

15:44

laugh at imola weathered san marino

15:46

grand prix took place in nineteen

15:48

ninety four that stood out as

15:51

a very unsafe corner you'd have

15:53

to say if you would indeed

15:55

that i sometimes think it's a

15:57

little bit like when people have

15:59

been compared say people have been

16:01

campaigning to put a zebra

16:03

crossing on a particularly unsafe bit of public

16:05

road and nothing really

16:08

happens and the campaigners carry on and

16:10

then it finally needs a tragedy to

16:12

take place before the zebra crossing finally

16:15

is put in. Exactly. And

16:17

I think perhaps Tamborello was like that

16:19

or a bit like that because it

16:21

was obviously dangerous. It

16:24

had become plain that it was

16:26

dangerous. It was a very fast

16:28

left-hander as you say Richard but

16:30

the runoff was visibly, perilously

16:33

too little and

16:35

obviously we now know with hindsight what

16:37

happened in 1994 and

16:40

we'll come to that in our next episode as

16:42

I say but it was already,

16:45

Tamborello was already, as the

16:47

saying goes, an accident waiting to happen.

16:50

Yeah and nothing could be done about it

16:52

without making a major change. It

16:54

wasn't a case of just putting in another barrier as

16:57

it might have been at

16:59

other corners, at other circuits. You

17:01

couldn't move the barrier back because

17:03

there's a river there. Exactly. The

17:05

Santerno. It's the river that flows

17:08

through Imola and it's a very nice river

17:10

and you wouldn't want to move it even

17:12

if you could which you can't. Yeah. One

17:14

of the reasons I always loved Imola

17:17

was that if you were staying in the

17:19

center you just walked across a bridge over

17:21

the Santerno and you were in the circuit.

17:24

It's local. It's really local and the

17:26

river is part of the beauty of

17:28

the circuit. I mean isn't it a

17:30

beautiful circuit and a beautiful place to

17:32

visit? Oh everything about it. You know

17:34

the ups and downs, the hills, the

17:36

trees, the houses on the infield, vineyards,

17:39

all kinds of things. I used to

17:41

stay in Riolo Terme. Yep. Beautiful

17:43

little place. Yep. Driving over

17:45

the hills early

17:47

in the morning to get to the

17:50

circuit. Misty. Yeah. Yeah. Through the vineyards.

17:52

Gorgeous. Yeah. Anyway

17:54

but then of course Tambarello.

17:58

The outside of the left hander was right on the right. against

18:00

the river. So no way you could even

18:02

make one of those nice runoff areas. You

18:04

have a place like poor Rickard now where

18:06

the drivers know they can go off as

18:08

far as they want to go off and

18:10

come back in one piece. Or Bahrain and

18:13

places like that. When

18:15

Bahrain, which was obviously the first of the

18:17

circuits, Formula One circuits in that

18:20

part of the world, I used

18:23

to say the runoff was basically a desert. You

18:26

know, you've got a desert to run off into. But

18:29

yes, Tambarello, very different from that.

18:32

And it did even then stand

18:34

out as dangerous, perhaps Formula One's

18:37

most dangerous corner at the time.

18:40

And we'll talk more about that in

18:42

part two. We

18:50

finished part one by talking about

18:53

Tambarello at Imola. And we'll come

18:55

back to that in a moment. But I'd like

18:57

to kick off part two, if I may, with

19:00

some stats. And I'm

19:02

afraid they're rather grim stats. But

19:05

I use them to illustrate a point. If

19:08

we look at driver deaths from

19:10

crashes in the Formula One World Championship Grand

19:12

Prix, not tests or

19:14

non-championship races, but Formula One

19:16

World Championship Grand Prix, we

19:19

had four in the 1950s. And

19:22

we moved up to eight in the 1960s. Interesting that the

19:24

1960s was

19:27

more dangerous in terms

19:29

of body count, if I

19:31

can call it. There were of course more races. The

19:34

number of races was going up all the time. They

19:37

were indeed. They were indeed. And

19:39

then eight again in the 1970s, the

19:41

number of races going up again as

19:44

well. But then, although the number of

19:47

races was still either

19:50

maintaining or increasing after

19:52

the 70s, only two in the 1980s.

19:54

So altogether we had four

19:56

in the 50s, eight in the 60s, eight again

19:58

in the 70s. And

20:00

to. In. The eighties, And

20:02

of course, both those deaths were

20:04

in the very early. eighties.

20:06

Both of them in Nineteen Eighty Two

20:09

in fact. So I'm gonna ask you

20:11

a question: Richard, Do you think there

20:13

was a sense that by the early

20:15

nineteen nineties which was you know, monday

20:18

night he was eight years after we'd

20:20

had a last had a death in

20:22

a Formula One grand Prix meeting? Do

20:24

think that former one have become complacent

20:27

about safety because of the lack of

20:29

deaths or were things simply as safe

20:31

as they could be? I think that

20:34

was a degree of complacency, and it

20:36

was. Understandable to reach the nineties

20:38

with eight years between fatal driver

20:40

accidents, his race meetings that's called

20:42

a long time and for me,

20:44

the one terms yeah, certainly compared

20:46

as he been saying to the

20:48

frequency in the deaths in the

20:50

decades before hand, and it sort

20:52

of understandable that people might have

20:54

been thinking oh well, things are

20:56

all right, rarely Now I'm those

20:59

two accidents and ninety two were

21:01

absolutely shrinking Of course, nothing more

21:03

shocking than losing a hero like

21:05

you Vilna in practice. Zelda. A

21:07

terrible, terrible accident which came on

21:09

the heels of a controversy virtual

21:11

race. It's mls where he and

21:14

his Ferrari teammates didier for only

21:16

a disagreed over who should win

21:18

the race and Vilna thought they

21:20

have an agreement that Peroni snatched

21:22

the when and Vilna felt betrayed.

21:24

He went into the next race

21:26

at Zola. Ceiling

21:29

Exactly that. And you know

21:31

those have a question of

21:33

whether the balance of his

21:35

mind it impacted. Him whether that

21:37

has something to do with accident,

21:39

but actually if you look at

21:41

it, it was just a accident,

21:43

albeit a particularly horrible, horrible, terrible

21:46

yes and one that your can

21:48

mass pull your can mass. Who

21:50

was trying to qualify the march

21:52

of the time had a handing

21:54

out undies ever really got over

21:56

it because he went one way.

21:58

And for gilles. would go the

22:01

other and vice versa it was just

22:03

a terrible misunderstanding the result was a

22:05

ghastly accident. And one which has a

22:07

certain parallel to Senna's crash in that

22:10

it robbed the sport of one of

22:12

its real romantic heroes. Totally agree. Vilnev

22:15

wasn't a world champion and he might

22:17

never have become a world champion but

22:19

he gave every race an element of

22:21

drama and people really really loved him

22:23

for that. Really hardcore fans adored him

22:27

for the drama he brought. He

22:29

gave the impression that he didn't care about

22:31

collecting points for a championship that's not what

22:33

he was doing. He just wanted to go

22:35

out and beat everybody else in whatever race

22:37

he was in that weekend. So

22:39

there was an incredible sense of loss probably

22:42

the greatest since Jim Clark's death in 1968.

22:46

I think that's a good parallel but before we

22:48

move on to the other death

22:50

that year which we also want to talk

22:52

about personally I

22:54

think Vilnev might well have won

22:56

the world championship in 1982. Had

22:59

he lived, don't you? It's possible.

23:02

It's possible up against his teammate

23:05

Peroni. Well yes I think then

23:08

if one accepts that Vilnev obviously had

23:10

died and therefore who would have won

23:13

it after that. Well

23:15

I think Peroni, his Ferrari teammate might

23:17

have won it too had he not

23:19

then had that horrendous crash at Hockenheim

23:22

which didn't kill him but

23:24

did injure him so badly that he

23:26

never raced in Formula One again. But

23:29

anyway that's by the by because there was

23:31

another death in 1982 and actually Peroni was

23:36

involved. Yes he was. A

23:38

few weeks after Vilnev's death poor

23:40

Ricardo Paletti, an Italian driver driving

23:42

for a cellar, crashed

23:44

into the back of Peroni's Ferrari at

23:47

the start in Montreal. Peroni

23:49

installed on the grid and there were no procedures

23:51

in place to account for that and

23:54

Paletti just ploughed into the back of the stationary

23:56

Ferrari at 110 miles an hour and

23:59

that was the end. for here. And

24:02

I suppose if Villeneuve's death was a

24:04

bit like Senna's, Pauletti's were a little

24:06

bit like Ratzenberger's in that it occurred

24:08

to a lesser-known driver to the public

24:11

at large, but it was no less

24:13

shocking or saddening to people inside the

24:15

sport. It's a rockable parallel in that

24:17

sense actually, isn't it? Yes, it is

24:20

very saddening. But as

24:22

we've said, those were the last two driver deaths

24:24

at World Championship Grand Prix heading into the 1990s,

24:26

and and

24:28

they were two very distinct accidents. They weren't the

24:30

fault of the circuits, that's for sure.

24:32

They weren't particularly the fault of the

24:35

available safety precautions either. One

24:37

was a driver misjudgment and the

24:39

other was just bad luck. So

24:41

I think Formula One felt at

24:43

that point that if it hadn't

24:46

rendered itself completely safe, then it

24:48

was very much less dangerous than

24:50

it had been. I think you're

24:52

right actually, Richard, yeah. They were

24:54

accidents, obviously. Freak accidents, if you

24:56

like, but then all

24:59

accidents are freak accidents. You know,

25:01

accidents happen because something has

25:03

happened by accident that

25:06

couldn't be planned for, or

25:08

is hard to plan for, which

25:10

by its nature is a bit of a freak.

25:13

Accidents are freaks. Hindsight,

25:17

of course, is a wonderful thing. Looking back

25:19

now, we might think

25:22

with hindsight that something like

25:24

Imola 1994 was always

25:26

likely to happen, and I've already

25:28

described Tamborello as an accident

25:31

waiting to happen, and I think today

25:33

that's probably still my view. I

25:36

think we'd been pretty lucky through

25:38

the mid and late 1980s and into

25:40

the early 1990s. We've

25:42

been lucky that nothing really bad

25:45

had happened. I know Elio

25:47

De Angelis was killed in testing. I'm talking about

25:50

Grand Prix meetings. But Richard,

25:52

did you feel that watching at the time,

25:55

I mean I didn't start in

25:57

Formula One going to Grand Prix as a journalist

25:59

until the very early 90s but you'd

26:01

been doing so for some time already.

26:03

Did you already have the sense that

26:05

disaster might be just around the corner?

26:07

Because my feeling was very

26:10

much that Formula One had been riding

26:12

its luck. You know the cars had

26:14

gradually been getting faster and some of

26:16

the circuits were not that much safer

26:19

and Grand Prix were therefore literally

26:21

as I say to keep using

26:24

this phrase accidents waiting to happen.

26:26

You know we'd already seen Martin

26:28

Donnelies huge horrible grim crash at

26:30

Herriff in 1990 and

26:32

poor Philippe Strife's accident in

26:34

Rio in 1989 that left him

26:37

in a wheelchair. But what's your view? Well

26:39

as with the Angelus I think one of the

26:41

reasons Strife came out of it so badly was

26:43

that it was a testing accident and there weren't

26:46

the facilities in place to treat him at the

26:48

time. So that was a bit of a wake-up

26:50

call. Yeah good point. But as

26:52

you said I've been following Formula One since

26:54

the late 50s when I was a kid

26:56

so I got used to the idea of

26:58

people dying which sounds horrible but it's

27:00

true as a fan you just did. You

27:03

knew it was a dangerous sport and the

27:06

drivers were putting themselves at risk every time

27:08

they went out and on a Monday morning

27:10

you know your dad might hand you the

27:12

Daily Telegraph and there'd be the news that

27:14

Peter Collins had been killed at Nürburgring. You

27:17

know it wasn't a giant headline but

27:19

there it was and you know you kind

27:22

of got used to that. So to me

27:24

the lack of fatal accidents in

27:26

the second half of the 80s was

27:28

almost an anomaly in a way although

27:30

of course it was fantastic to see

27:32

drivers walking away from things in earlier

27:34

areas would have been fatal. Yeah

27:37

I mean to be clear when I said I

27:39

started in Formula One in the early 90s I

27:41

mean I started as a journalist. I've

27:43

been following it you know for 20 years before

27:45

then in the early 70s but

27:49

before that you know even

27:51

minor offs led to deaths back in

27:53

the day. I mean let's take Luigi Musso

27:56

you know he was fatally injured at Reims in 1958.

28:00

when he ran just a little wide on

28:02

one of the turns was it the good

28:04

turn yeah it was just after the start

28:06

it was the right-hander yes yes soon after

28:09

so a very high speed it's called good

28:11

barely it's on the weight of the village

28:13

of Kirk yeah exactly anyway

28:15

he in his Ferrari and he

28:17

just dropped a wheel into a ditch but

28:21

what then happened is the car

28:23

somersaulted and that was that just

28:26

imagine if that could

28:29

happen today just imagine the different

28:32

I mean thank goodness it isn't the case but

28:34

it almost beggars belief to finish describing

28:36

it but just just imagine

28:38

if a driver could be killed today

28:40

simply because all on his own not

28:44

a collision all on his own he'd

28:46

run just a little bit wide on

28:48

one corner yeah exactly they

28:50

died even in incidents like mussels

28:53

that sometimes look really quite innocuous

28:55

exactly so just running a little

28:57

bit wide yeah anyway

28:59

as you say you started watching Formula One

29:02

in the late 50s I started following Formula

29:04

One in the early 70s which

29:06

if I may say so probably

29:08

matches our age difference if you don't

29:11

mind my saying so but

29:14

anyway in the early 1970s it

29:16

was no picnic there were lots of

29:19

deaths then even after Jackie Stewart's safety

29:21

campaign had the gun to get going

29:24

and just as you were saying

29:26

that your dad might have handed you the

29:28

Daily Telegraph and you learned about Peter Collins

29:30

death I have

29:32

a specific memory of buying motorsport

29:35

magazine the issue

29:37

that had the 1977 South

29:39

African Grand Prix report in

29:41

it written by Dennis Jenkinson

29:44

now not only did Tom Price

29:46

die in that race but also

29:49

the marshal who he collided with

29:52

ran over just 19 years

29:55

old Frederick Janssen van Vuren

29:57

who was marshaling his very first grand

30:00

prix terribly sad story this who'd

30:02

run across the track carrying a fire

30:05

extinguisher to attend

30:07

to Renzo Zortzi's car, which ironically

30:10

was the shadow, Price's

30:12

teammate therefore, Price's shadow teammate.

30:15

Just a tragic accident on every level. But

30:17

the point I'm going to make is

30:20

there was a three-page report in

30:22

Motorsport magazine, length copy, small

30:25

pictures, and Jenks

30:27

mentioned the death of Tom

30:29

Price on page three of

30:32

that report. Price wasn't

30:34

even mentioned in the headline

30:36

or stand first. Headline

30:38

and stand first was all about Nicky Lauda

30:40

bouncing back to form because he hadn't won

30:42

for a while. It

30:45

defies belief nowadays. God

30:47

forbid it should ever happen again,

30:49

but could you imagine someone dying

30:51

in a grand prix and it

30:53

not being mentioned until page

30:55

three of the race report? Yeah, I

30:58

don't think it would be right to

31:00

give the impression that Dennis Jenkinson was

31:02

a heartless man. No, I don't think

31:05

he was a heartless man at all. I think

31:07

he had a deep feeling. Well, you know, I've been

31:09

saying things about him too,

31:11

about his way of reporting. Yes. But

31:14

he was a man of his time. I think he

31:16

had a deep feeling for motor racing and for racing

31:18

drivers. But that's the way things

31:20

were then. I remember in 1958, I mentioned

31:22

Peter Collins dying. The

31:24

Jenks, his motorsport

31:26

report, mentioned

31:29

Collins, Collins accident and

31:31

death about

31:33

three quarters of the way down the

31:35

report. Again, not a headline. And he was

31:37

in the running for the world championship, you

31:40

know, unlike Price, you know, and a national

31:42

figure. So

31:44

that's extraordinary. But,

31:47

you know, remember, in the 50s, these were people

31:49

who'd come through a world war and their

31:51

parents had come through another one. And

31:55

they had memories of huge death

31:57

tolls. So I think.

31:59

Death kind of didn't mean the same thing

32:02

then to them that it would mean to

32:04

us now. That may seem facile, but I

32:06

think it's true. I don't think it's facile.

32:08

I think it's a good point. And

32:10

I think there's certainly the

32:13

case that that would have been the case with

32:15

Jenks. But also I think he

32:18

might have also had the feeling that, you know, it might

32:21

also have been somehow

32:23

kind of ladling it on to

32:25

harp on about the death, maybe.

32:27

I mean, he's not here to

32:30

comment. But anyway,

32:32

Sensationalist, what he didn't want

32:34

to do was sensationalize. Exactly.

32:37

Exactly. And so he kind of

32:39

under sensationalized it. Exactly. Exactly.

32:43

It was a different time, a different style of reporting and a

32:45

different generation and a different

32:47

attitude, as you rightly say. Nonetheless,

32:50

it's emblematic of

32:53

how things have changed and how they were

32:55

then and aren't now. And

32:57

so we're talking about this danger. This and

32:59

this danger wasn't removed

33:02

as the 80s turned into the 90s. Not

33:05

really. It was

33:07

more for all these reasons we've just alluded

33:09

to, some of which did include

33:11

luck, hadn't had any

33:14

deaths in that time. That's all

33:16

in my view. But Tamborello, the

33:18

scene of the terrible tragedy

33:20

that befell Athensena was a

33:22

very dangerous corner. And

33:25

as I mentioned earlier, perhaps Formula

33:27

One's most dangerous, particularly when

33:29

you look at some of the close

33:31

escapes, they've been there already.

33:33

Yeah. There have been a lot

33:35

of close calls. In the second half of the

33:37

80s and the start of the 90s, there was

33:40

a series of incredibly lurid crashes there from

33:42

which four drivers were lucky to emerge.

33:45

But in a way that might have added

33:47

to the complacency because there might have been

33:49

a sense of, well, they survived those gigantic

33:51

shunts, so the cars must be safe enough.

33:54

The first really big one was Nelson Pique

33:56

in 1987, which was

33:58

a very, very violent crash. that he

34:00

managed to step out of. And then

34:02

the second one, I remember particularly well,

34:05

Gerhard Berger in a Ferrari in 1989

34:08

and it was caught on TV. He

34:10

hit the wall hard and the car

34:12

ran along the wall at Pambarello, came

34:15

to a halt and caught fire. And

34:17

when I say caught fire, it just

34:19

exploded. The whole car was engulfed in

34:21

flames in an instant. And

34:23

you turned away and thought he can't possibly get

34:26

out of this. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't there.

34:28

I was watching it at home on

34:30

TV and Murray Walker and

34:32

James Hunt, who were doing the

34:34

commentary, I remember the tone

34:37

of their voices just changed instantly.

34:39

Not just Murray's voice, by the

34:41

way, but James's too. James's voice

34:43

was heavy with foreboding. I

34:45

think they both thought that they

34:47

were commentating on images of

34:51

Gerhard dying in the car. Yes. It looked like

34:53

it was going to be like Lorenzo Bandini, who

34:56

died in a burning car at Monaco in

34:58

1967 and everybody

35:00

saw it. And heard it. His

35:02

cries for help. My goodness. Look, I don't

35:04

want to be too morbid, but that is

35:07

the case. But with Berger, a Marshall's vehicle

35:09

turned up quite quickly with a couple of

35:11

guys with fire extinguishers and they managed to

35:13

put the fire out and Gerhard got out

35:15

with only burns to his hands and a

35:17

few broken ribs, unbelievably. So I think

35:19

that he missed just a single race

35:21

after that. And you couldn't believe it.

35:23

You thought, God, those flameproof overalls and

35:25

balaclavas, they must be really good. They're

35:28

really doing their job. It was an

35:30

amazing thing. Yeah. We've had a few

35:32

of these crashes over the years where

35:34

sometimes you're just staring in

35:37

amazement at the screen. And by the way,

35:39

even if you're at the race as

35:42

a journalist, some people don't realize this, you're

35:44

actually staring at the screen. You're not staring

35:46

out of the window at the racetrack. You're

35:48

in the press room, staring at the

35:50

screen and data screens and the

35:54

footage as well. But anyway, let's

35:57

move on because then there was Michaeli

35:59

Alberto. who crashed in a

36:01

footwork, I think it was in 1991, and

36:04

his car also caught fire, and

36:07

this was Tamborello, albeit

36:10

not quite as spectacularly as Burgers

36:12

had, and

36:14

Albreto had lost his front wing approaching

36:16

the corner, which I have

36:18

to say has eerie similarities to what

36:21

happened to Roland Ratzenberger, as we'll come

36:23

to, on our

36:25

next podcast. Yep, and

36:27

then there was Patrese's crash in 1992, which

36:31

I think was particularly nasty actually,

36:33

because Tamborello had this long curving

36:35

wall on the outside of the

36:37

turn following the curve of the

36:39

river, but at the start of it,

36:41

there was a little entrance, presumably for Marshall's vehicles

36:44

to get in and out, and so there was

36:46

an end to the wall, and Patrese, who was

36:48

going at 170 miles an hour, went

36:51

in and hit the end of that wall, and that could

36:53

have been the end of him, but

36:55

it wasn't, thank goodness. Yeah, thank goodness.

36:58

So there we mentioned four giant accidents,

37:00

because there was no such thing as

37:02

a small accident at Tamborello, thanks to

37:04

the very high entry speed, and the

37:07

very solid and unprotected wall, and

37:09

after what happened in 1994, some

37:12

of these were cited as missed opportunities

37:14

to do something about safety there. Yeah,

37:17

I mean, all four drivers we've just

37:19

mentioned in those four big crashes could

37:21

have been killed or seriously injured, and

37:24

yet all raced on, but

37:26

you know, violent accidents

37:29

and death have always been a part of

37:31

motor-racing history, always a

37:33

regrettable, horrible, terrible

37:36

part of it, but a part of it nonetheless, and

37:38

Richard, you know, I'm

37:40

curious to know, do you think by

37:43

this stage, with Formula One being broadcast

37:45

live around the world, was

37:48

our perception, or was

37:50

the world's perception of acceptable risk

37:53

changing? We're

37:56

here to re-appraise the past, that's

37:58

what, and colossally, that's history. aims

38:00

to do but if any of

38:02

those accidents we mentioned happen now would the reaction

38:04

be different I Think only

38:07

when there are fatalities involved is

38:09

the reaction Extreme I think

38:12

actually people like accidents You only have

38:14

to look at the trailers for drive

38:16

to survive people like to see crack

38:18

cars crashing into each other and flying

38:20

through the air and debris going

38:22

all over the place Now

38:25

nobody goes to a motor race to see

38:27

an accident or watches it on TV to

38:29

see an accident I really believe that's that's

38:32

true But if

38:34

they see one they say Wow particularly

38:36

if no one's hurt And

38:38

it's memorable and thrilling and an

38:41

indication of the challenge the drivers

38:43

are overcoming I

38:45

also think public attitudes to the loss

38:48

of life has changed And

38:50

this is the thing that's changed a lot since

38:52

the world wars when people were used to their

38:54

nearest and dearest Not coming back in

38:57

very large numbers. Yeah, I think

38:59

it's a time thing in that sense Wars

39:02

the wars the two world

39:04

wars normalized death to normal

39:07

people But it's also

39:09

a place thing as well as a time thing I'll

39:12

give you an example. I remember doing

39:14

a story about the Indian

39:16

motor industry in the early 1990s

39:19

and I went to Bombay Mumbai To

39:23

do it and I remember opening The

39:26

Times of India newspaper great newspaper

39:28

and I remember opening it one

39:31

morning and reading a headline 57

39:35

killed in railway mishap And

39:37

I remember just you know, even then this is

39:39

30 years ago Starring at

39:41

the headline thinking a mishap a

39:44

mishap is when I drop my Company

39:46

on the floor, you know not 57

39:50

dead can you imagine 57 dead in

39:52

a railway accident in the UK

39:54

being described as a mishap? Not

39:57

then and certainly not now, but yes then

40:00

in India But

40:02

there you are Attitudes to death are

40:04

different according to not only time but also

40:07

place that time time is a very big

40:09

thing I mean if you think back to

40:13

1961 when volk-fung trips was killed at Monza

40:15

in an accident that was live on television

40:17

He went off the track killed himself and

40:19

killed 15 spectate Yeah, and

40:22

the race carried on completely and it

40:24

was not worldwide Oh, no, it was

40:26

a horror thing, but it was not

40:28

worldwide headlines So I think the passage

40:30

of time is really the biggest factor.

40:32

I think it is a bigger factor I'm just

40:35

making a other point but but I

40:37

do agree with you. So anyway There

40:39

we were we're in the early 1990s.

40:42

We had extremely fast cars tracks that

40:44

were safer than before but still not

40:47

especially safe and Well,

40:49

we hadn't seen a driver death in some time

40:52

We'd seen some very very narrow

40:54

escapes for drivers after some very

40:56

very big crashes And

40:58

then then the FIA

41:00

moved the goalposts for

41:03

1994, which was a crucial change But we'll

41:05

tell you more about that At

41:16

the end of part 2 Matt mentioned that

41:18

the FIA moved the goalposts for 1994 And

41:21

what he was getting at is that the

41:24

governing body made some major technical changes ahead

41:26

of the season Banning all

41:28

of the so-called driver aids including

41:30

traction control ABS and active suspension

41:32

and at the same time introducing

41:35

refueling One

41:38

of these banning the driver aids was expected

41:40

as the FIA had wanted to return the

41:42

driver to being more in control But

41:45

the refueling was unusual wasn't it

41:47

Matt? It was I think

41:50

the unspoken reason for introducing

41:52

refueling Was to

41:54

add strategic variety to races

41:56

as a response really to

41:58

Williams domination It

42:01

wasn't a safety thing in other words But

42:03

it was unusual because it made the cars

42:06

lighter because they were carrying

42:08

lower fuel loads and

42:10

therefore faster because lighter cars are

42:12

faster And the FIA usually worked

42:15

and works to curb speed increases.

42:17

So that change actually increased

42:20

the speeds so banning driver

42:22

aids and Making the

42:24

cars lighter at the same time

42:26

had the effect of making the cars Skittish

42:30

and less controllable but

42:32

faster and that's not

42:34

really a great cocktail and Williams

42:37

who'd signed at and Senna from

42:39

McLaren for 1994 were suffering

42:41

more than most their

42:44

car was Trixie that 1994 was

42:46

tricky to drive and Also

42:49

in race refueling was in and

42:51

of itself dangerous, you know, we

42:54

all remember Jocef Estappan's famous

42:57

pit lane fire at Hockenheim in 1994

42:59

and extraordinary

43:02

images of the mechanic Paul Sebe

43:04

his name Paul Sebe

43:06

engulfed in flames Spectacularly

43:09

photographed by my friend Stephen T. Yeah

43:11

horrifying accident It was it by the

43:13

way not hurt not hurt by the

43:15

way. No, no, no badly injured I just

43:17

say that go ahead But when it

43:20

happened it looked like the nightmare of

43:22

nightmares Turned a car going up in

43:24

flames in the pits with all that

43:26

fuel around and all those people closely

43:28

packed But somehow it was put

43:30

out and Stephen T got his award-winning photograph.

43:33

He did indeed But

43:35

yes Williams have been almost luffably

43:37

dominant in 1992 and 93 with

43:39

the cars produced by

43:41

Patrick Head and Adrian Neuwe and Paddy

43:44

Lowe with all the gizmos as they

43:46

were known Maybe

43:48

you remember that Mansell won the first five races in 1992 and

43:50

eight of the first nine and

43:54

right fact Yeah,

43:57

and people say Max Estappan's boring But

44:00

obviously the FIA and other people were

44:02

getting pretty bored themselves with that, not

44:04

least Erton Senna. And

44:07

Senna had done what he hadn't done in

44:09

F1 to that point and joined Williams. Frank

44:12

Williams had been the first person to give the young

44:14

Senna a test in an F1 car, but

44:17

Frank had commitments to other drivers and Erton

44:19

signed with Tolman for 1984 to begin his

44:21

F1 career and

44:24

then moved on to Lotus and

44:26

then to McLaren. But by 1993

44:28

Williams was so superior and McLaren

44:30

didn't have a works engine deal,

44:32

so Senna began to do everything

44:35

he possibly could to get a

44:37

seat there for 1994. Matt,

44:40

do you remember at Donington in 1993 when Erton won in the

44:42

wet? Well, I do.

44:44

If you were there, you were wet.

44:46

You were. And I was there and

44:48

wet. And I'll never forget the post

44:50

race press conference when Erton had won

44:52

with that magic first lap where he

44:54

went from fifth to first. Unbelievable. The

44:57

most YouTube replayed lap

45:00

in F1 history, I'm sure. Fifth to first

45:02

in 70 seconds. Including

45:06

Alain Prost. And Prost had ended

45:08

up coming third and at the press conference

45:10

he was sitting there complaining that

45:12

he'd had to change tyres five times and

45:14

the car was doing this and the car

45:16

was doing that. I had some slow pit

45:18

stops and the brakes didn't work and the

45:21

ashtray was full. And Erton leaned

45:23

into the microphone, crossed to him and said,

45:25

I'll swap cars with you whenever

45:28

you like. Yeah, perfect repartee there.

45:30

And of course, he

45:32

absolutely coveted the

45:34

Renault V10 in Prost's Williams because he

45:37

had, you know, comparatively humdrum

45:39

Ford V8. He

45:41

did. But by the time he got

45:43

the engine he wanted, the Renault, the

45:45

sad thing was that the rules had

45:47

changed. And Williams, who'd built their great

45:49

championship cars around those amazing gizmos, not

45:51

very surprisingly, at the beginning there was

45:53

trouble. The 1994 car

45:55

without the gizmos didn't handle very well.

45:58

Although having said that. And took

46:00

that very unsatisfactory car and in the first

46:03

race of the 1994 season

46:05

he stuck it on pole He did and

46:08

you know, I tell you he only

46:10

entered three races in 1994

46:13

for obvious and tragic reasons But

46:16

he put it on the pole in all

46:18

three that was a lot more to do

46:20

with him than the car That's for sure.

46:22

Well, it was and you know, Damon Hill

46:24

was his teammate and you know, Damon Hill

46:26

no mean driver No mean qualifier But

46:29

Aton, you know, let's just record this

46:32

it's a fact Aton was more

46:34

than a second quicker than Damon

46:36

in qualifying at Interlagos and 6

46:39

tenths quicker than Damon in qualifying

46:41

for both the next two

46:43

races, you know at and center car

46:45

problems or not drove Absolutely

46:48

beautifully in that Williams until

46:51

the tragedy of Imola Of course he had

46:53

the confidence of being at and center and

46:55

having three championships and 41 wins

46:57

behind him Which Damon didn't have but

47:00

what he did to get those three poles was

47:02

quite extraordinary Because you know,

47:05

it was obvious that it was a very difficult

47:07

car And

47:09

I remember I was there at that first race

47:11

of the season in Interlagos and

47:13

in the race He spun off at a place

47:15

where you would never imagine He'd spin and

47:18

he had to retire and you thought

47:20

what why how yeah, it

47:23

was something Awkward in

47:25

the cars handling at that time a problem

47:27

that he'd been having to drive around And

47:30

so Michael Schumacher and his Benetton went

47:32

on to win that race indeed He

47:35

did and also while we're

47:37

talking about safety, which we are in that

47:39

Brazil race We saw another

47:41

very close escape and a reminder

47:43

of how exposed the drivers were

47:45

in those days when Martin

47:48

Brundle's head was struck during

47:50

you know in the middle of

47:52

a multi-car shunt And

47:54

that followed huge crashes in testing for

47:57

both Gianna Lacy and JJ

47:59

Leto who were both forced

48:01

to miss races because of damaged vertebrae.

48:05

And then we went on to Aida, the

48:07

Aida circuit in Japan, the Pacific Grand Prix

48:09

for round two. And

48:12

Senna, under pressure after his poor

48:14

start at home in Brazil, you

48:16

know, and still struggling massively with

48:18

the handling of his tricky, difficult

48:20

Williams, took pole position

48:22

again. Yeah, he does.

48:24

But then at the start, he's

48:26

taken out of the race in

48:28

a multi-car tangle triggered by McLaren's

48:31

Mika Hakkinen and also involving Nicola

48:33

Lareini, Alessi's replacement Ferrari. And

48:36

then we get this great TV

48:38

shot of Senna standing at the

48:40

trackside, watching and listening to the

48:43

two Benetons. Senna

48:45

was someone who did a lot of watching

48:47

and listening. He was a very reflective, analytical

48:49

character. And he wasn't

48:51

just waiting for the race to play out or for someone

48:53

to take him back to the pits. He

48:55

was standing there thinking. And

48:58

then what he was doing listening to the Benetons was

49:00

trying to work out why Schumacher was so quick. He

49:04

realized that Schumacher's car seemed to

49:06

have something that just happens his

49:08

teammates didn't. And the

49:10

conclusion he came to was that it was

49:12

using illegal traction control, the sort of device

49:15

that had been outlawed from the beginning of

49:17

the season. Yeah. And the

49:19

key word you use there, Richard, is

49:21

listening. Because from that point on,

49:25

and indeed over the next few years, there

49:27

was a lot of listening going on. Photographers

49:31

would come back from trackside after

49:34

a session and tell us in the paddock,

49:36

that Benetton or that Ferrari sounds like

49:39

it has traction control. They might have

49:41

been right. They might have

49:43

been wrong. But in 1994, there

49:45

were a lot of people who thought,

49:48

and certainly, certainly Senna was one of

49:50

them, that what they

49:52

were listening to was indeed

49:54

illegal traction control. He was convinced of it.

49:57

He was absolutely convinced of it. And

50:00

I'm not saying he was right, but

50:03

he was totally convinced of it. And you know,

50:06

as you say, he was a very

50:08

intelligent, very analytical, and

50:10

a very intense person. And

50:13

he was strategic and deliberate.

50:17

Nothing Atancena ever really did was

50:19

by mistake. And I think

50:21

he had a very firm moral and

50:23

indeed religious code on top of all that.

50:26

And I think all those things came together to

50:28

make him feel strongly that

50:30

he was being wronged. Personally

50:33

wronged. And the

50:36

sport was also being wronged. And

50:38

that he was being made to compete

50:40

in a legal car against

50:43

an illegal car. And

50:46

it became, I'm not going

50:48

to say a crusade. I'm not saying

50:50

that he was right, but it

50:52

was an obsession. Yeah. And

50:54

that sense of injustice was a

50:56

big characteristic of his throughout

50:59

his career. We saw it throughout his

51:01

career. If you remember in the 80s,

51:03

when he was having his battles with

51:05

Prost, he thought that Jean-Marie Balestre, the

51:07

president of the FIA and like Prost

51:10

a Frenchman, was taking Prost's

51:12

side. Well, he probably was. Yeah,

51:14

that may very well be true. It

51:17

might have been justified. But

51:20

he felt he was someone who'd come from Brazil

51:22

to Europe to a sport that was basically

51:24

European and that now the odds were

51:27

being stacked against him. And that's what

51:29

lay behind those famous collisions with Prost

51:31

at Suzuka. That sense of injustice and

51:34

feeling that he had to do something

51:36

about it. And whatever you think

51:38

about that, whether he was right or wrong. And

51:42

with Schumacher's Benetton in 1994, I think

51:44

he began to get the same kind

51:46

of feeling that something was going against

51:48

him in an unfair way. Totally.

51:51

Yeah. And we know now that the

51:54

traction control and launch control programs

51:56

were left in the Benetton car

51:58

if you knew how to act. them with the

52:01

right combination of buttons. Of

52:03

course the Benetton team said, well no we weren't

52:05

using them, we left them on because they were

52:07

too hard to take off, but we didn't use

52:09

them. Well Senna standing

52:11

there listening felt that something was

52:13

going on. Certainly he did

52:15

and I'm not about to libel

52:17

the Benetton team by saying it

52:20

was definitely illegal activity. I mean

52:22

I don't have the facts, we don't have the

52:24

facts. But a lot

52:26

of people felt, fans, journalists, other

52:29

teams, that the fact

52:31

that option 13 as it

52:33

was called was left in the system

52:35

and hadn't been wiped was

52:37

iffy. Let's just call

52:39

it iffy. But the Benetton team said they

52:42

never deployed it and probably if Pat Simmons

52:44

is listening to this he'll

52:46

be jumping up and down and raging,

52:48

perhaps not raging, but perhaps not jumping

52:50

up and down, but objecting quietly and

52:53

saying all this is completely untrue. Well we're

52:55

not saying that they

52:57

definitely did something illegal. What we're saying is

52:59

that the atmosphere at the time included

53:02

a lot of people who felt that they were and

53:05

it was left in the system, option 13, and

53:08

apparently never deployed. But

53:11

I think it's fair to say that a lot of people found

53:14

that rather hard to believe.

53:16

Yeah hard to believe and I did

53:18

talk to someone once after all this

53:20

who really knows about that stuff from

53:22

the inside. And he said that

53:24

honestly it would be the work of a moment or

53:26

not much more to take that software

53:28

out of the car so

53:30

that there'd be no question of using it. But

53:33

that wasn't done. It was still there. Indeed

53:36

so. And key to our narrative whether

53:39

or not it was ever deployed but key to

53:41

our narrative as we look towards

53:43

and forwards towards that

53:45

fateful Imola weekend is that Atten was

53:48

absolutely convinced it was being used. And

53:50

let's not forget Atten had

53:52

had one of his best ever seasons in 1993,

53:55

five victories in a McLaren MP48

54:00

powered by a Ford V8

54:02

and I've called it already

54:04

comparatively humdrum, shouldn't

54:07

really have been able to win five Grand

54:09

Prix's but it did. It wasn't

54:12

the equal of the Williams nowhere near. So

54:14

as we went into 1994 I think a lot of people

54:19

felt, me included, that

54:21

Williams had already been dominant but

54:23

Williams plus Senna was

54:26

going to be a combination unbeatable and that

54:28

it was going to sweep all before it

54:31

and yet the season started not

54:33

only with him not winning either of

54:35

the first two races but

54:37

also this feeling, this feeling

54:39

of it's all going against me and

54:42

this move to Williams is not working

54:45

out. Furrowed brows

54:47

all round at Williams and the

54:49

most furrowed of all at

54:51

Senna's. Yeah I remember very

54:54

clearly interviewing Michael Schumacher at the beginning

54:56

of that season when

54:59

it was obvious that he was the coming

55:01

man but he wasn't expected to beat Senna

55:03

or not yet or at least not regularly.

55:07

The interview happened, Benetton were testing

55:09

at Silverstone with Michael in Joost

55:11

Verstappen and I remember asking

55:13

Michael about his prospects for the season and

55:15

saying you know saying to him, Senna's at

55:17

Williams do you really think you stand a

55:19

chance and I remember his

55:21

words exactly. He said yep by

55:25

strategies and stuff I think we might

55:27

be in with a chance and

55:29

as the season went on I kept wondering

55:32

what was that and stuff what did he

55:34

mean by that I should have asked him

55:36

really. Well I think that phrase I mean

55:39

the words on stuff were doing a lot

55:42

of heavy lifting weren't they? They were indeed.

55:44

Well I remember I remember at that time

55:46

I was working for Car Magazine the Road

55:49

Car Magazine not necessarily the most imaginatively titled

55:51

magazine in the world since it was a

55:54

car magazine called Car Magazine but

55:56

we sent an Italian photographer

55:58

Dario Mitidio year in his

56:01

name to Imola in 94

56:03

by chance because of course

56:05

we didn't know that anything unusual was

56:07

going to happen but we sent him

56:09

to do some beautiful black and white

56:11

arty stills photography in the Williams

56:14

garage and as I say we

56:16

didn't know what was going to end up happening and

56:18

then we certainly didn't know that it was going to

56:20

end up being one of the most tragic and

56:22

dramatic weekends in

56:25

former history. Dario was just there

56:27

to do a fly-on-the-wall art shoot

56:30

but when we got the pictures back some

56:32

of the photographs when we looked at them

56:34

I mean well talk

56:36

about furrowed brows beautiful

56:39

photography Mitty Dieri was a

56:41

great photographer but looking at

56:43

Aton you could just see

56:46

that human frailty in the raw

56:48

you could see that he was

56:50

just unhappy

56:52

haunted bewitched

56:54

almost now and constantly in

56:57

very intense discussions with

56:59

the engineers at Williams in the garage

57:01

that was very noticeable and

57:05

there was another photographer John Nicholson who was

57:07

there he was there basically because he was

57:09

Damon Hill's mate and he was there as

57:11

well as a very good photographer indeed and

57:13

he was there in the pits taking photos

57:16

and he took similar shots to Dario Mitty

57:18

Dieri's and they both

57:20

showed that there was a kind of heavy

57:22

mood there that weekend something

57:24

that was building up in the Williams

57:26

garage. Yeah definitely there was a mood

57:29

you know an uncomfortable feeling certainly. Yeah

57:31

yeah indeed. So

57:34

there we are we have Senna

57:36

struggling to adapt to his new

57:38

environment struggling with a tricky car

57:41

struggling in the point standings too

57:45

and he'd become highly suspicious of what

57:47

Benetton who'd won the first two races

57:49

with Michael Schumacher were doing and

57:52

he was now desperate to score

57:54

that first win of the season

57:56

at Imola and that's where I

57:59

think we'll pick pick things up next time. Thank

58:02

you so much for joining us for

58:04

this episode. As Matt says on the

58:06

next one, we'll be chronologically dissecting all

58:08

the events of that terrible weekend at

58:11

Imola in 1994. Yeah,

58:13

so be sure to follow or subscribe

58:16

to the feed to

58:18

make sure you don't miss out on

58:20

that or any other of

58:22

our episodes. A big thank

58:24

you to all of you who sent us

58:26

such lovely feedback on the podcast or indeed

58:28

left us glowing reviews online. We read

58:31

all of your messages and we love

58:33

hearing from you. We do indeed. We're

58:35

very grateful for them and we

58:38

do our best to justify your very

58:40

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58:42

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58:44

make comments, kind or unkind, preferably kind, you

58:47

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58:49

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58:51

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58:54

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58:57

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58:59

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59:01

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59:05

until next time, it's goodbye from me

59:07

and it's goodbye from him.