Chronicle of a Death Foretold

By Michael S. Serrill

A million people, many weeping, lined the streets of Sao Paulo. Outside the gates of the local legislature, a chant went up: "O-le, o-le, o-le, o-la! Sen-na, Sen-na!" It was a rhythmic requiem for the hero who lay within, one of Brazil's greatest heroes and among the fastest men on wheels on earth -- Ayrton Senna da Silva, dead at 34, killed in a Formula One crash at the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy. In his 10 years of Grand Prix competition, the Brazilian had won 41 races and three world championships. Senna would be mourned officially for three days, declared President Itamar Franco. On the flight home from Europe, Senna's coffin, curtained off in the business-class section, had already become a shrine as passengers came up and knelt beside it in prayer. Later, as he was being laid to rest in Morumbi cemetery, planes of the Brazilian air force twisted overhead, drawing a giant S and a heart in the sky.

Amid the grief there was also anger. Though Senna himself was famously fatalistic about his participation in a sport in which speeds of more than 180 m.p.h. are not uncommon, there were those who thought he had died needlessly. No one had been killed in a Formula One race for 12 years, yet at San Marino alone there were five accidents and two deaths. The day before Senna missed a turn and drove his Williams-Renault into a concrete wall, Austrian rookie Roland Ratzenberger had perished in a similar accident during qualifying trials.

Many of the drivers on the Grand Prix circuit blamed a spate of crashes this season on an effort by the International Federation of Automobiles (FIA), Formula One's Paris-based governing body, to sharpen competition by banning the use of high-tech devices thought to give the richer racing teams an unfair advantage. In doing so, the drivers charged, the federation had made the sport far more dangerous. Senna himself had expressed misgivings even before the start of the season. "It's a great error to remove the electronics from the cars," he said. "The cars are very fast and difficult to drive. It is going to be a season of accidents." After Ratzenberger's death, an article Senna wrote for the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag appeared. It said his concerns had been "borne out in tragic fashion." Little did Senna know that his would be the next tragedy.

Federation officials insisted that the rule changes had nothing to do with the deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger -- a view supported by some Formula One engineers. But in Brazil the fans were not listening to explanations. Some of those who filed past Senna's coffin carried placards calling the federation ASSASSINOS. Senna's younger brother Leonardo blamed the FIA as well as Formula One team owners, insinuating that they cut back on safety measures to make races more exciting and thus attract more spectators. "In Formula One it seems people only think about money," he said.

In the San Marino qualifying runs, Senna had posted the fastest time and won the advantage of the inside starting position, something he had achieved 64 times before, far more than any other competitor. As he prepared for the actual race, however, the possibility of disaster was clearly on his mind. During a practice run April 29, fellow Brazilian Rubens Barrichello had taken a bend called Variante Bassa too fast, barrel-rolled his Jordan Hart and been lucky to come out of it with no more than a broken nose and a concussion. Then came Ratzenberger's death April 30, which so upset Senna that afterward, he walked out onto the course and stood, teary-eyed, in the Villeneuve turn where the Austrian had crashed.

A few hours later, Senna was approached by an old friend, Austrian Niki Lauda, a former world champion who was permanently disfigured in a fiery 1976 crash. A strong advocate for driver safety ever since, Lauda discussed with Senna the possibility of reviving a Formula One drivers' association that Lauda had headed until his retirement in 1985 and that had since fallen dormant. "Ayrton fully agreed that drivers need to be more involved on safety issues," the Austrian said later. "He was going to do it, to get the drivers together in Monte Carlo," the site of the May 15 Monaco Grand Prix.

On May 1, the San Marino race got off to an ominous beginning when Finnish driver J.J. Lehto's Benetton-Ford stalled on the starting grid. The cars behind swerved to avoid it, but Pedro Lamy's Lotus caught the Benetton on the left side, ripping off the wheels and sending debris spinning across the track and into the crowd, injuring four people.

While the track was being cleared under the caution flag, the competitors followed a pace car for five laps. As soon as the contest resumed, Senna and Michael Schumacher, driving another Benetton-Ford, roared ahead, renewing their battle for the lead. Then, speeding into a turn called Tamburello, Senna lost control and, at 180 m.p.h., crashed nearly head on into the wall. The car spun back onto the track and then slued to the side. As paramedics rushed to remove Senna from the wreck, his head moved briefly -- the last sign of life spectators saw. He was helicoptered to a hospital in nearby Bologna where, four hours later, he was pronounced dead of massive head injuries.

Could the electronic and other driver aids that had been stripped from the cars at the federation's request have prevented the accident? Perhaps. Because only the three biggest and richest teams could afford such technology as well as the engineering expertise to design and install it, the federation felt they had an unfair advantage.

The leading drivers protested that the most powerful of the Formula One cars risked running out of control without the banned equipment. Senna had argued that his car was in particular need of the active suspension system. He complained in the Welt am Sonntag article that his car was "react((ing)) nervously" to the uneven surface of the Imola course and that he was having "difficulty with the suspension." Schumacher, who would eventually win San Marino, told reporters that the rear of Senna's car had touched the track, on the sixth lap and again on the seventh, just before the Brazilian lost control.

Others were not so certain that the FIA alone was to blame. The owner of Ratzenberger's Simtek Ford said his driver's fatal accident was caused by a malfunction in the front end of the car. Might Senna's crash have been a case of driver error? "Ayrton Senna made a mistake," Carweek magazine quoted Williams-Renault technical director Patrick Head as saying. "We have checked the telemetry. He slightly lifted his foot just at that dip in the place where the tarmac changes. That caused a loss of grip from the car." A Williams spokesman later denied that Head said Senna had made a mistake.

After the disastrous weekend, the FIA board of directors met in emergency session, but the only decision it made was one designed to improve safety in the pits -- a reaction to a relatively minor mishap in which a wheel flew off a car and hurtled into the Ferrari pit, injuring three mechanics. The federation also announced that it would study the possibility of installing speed controls on Formula One cars, and that it would consider requiring the installation of air bags to prevent the kind of head injuries that apparently killed Ratzenberger and Senna. After the race, Italian officials launched an investigation to see whether the sponsors of the Imola race should be held criminally responsible for failing to maintain the circuit properly.

Lauda gives the FIA the benefit of the doubt. Drivers, he explains, "see accidents happen but nobody getting hurt, and they stop thinking about what is really at risk. If we start believing that motor racing is not dangerous, then we are all stupid. It's almost as though God has held his hand over Formula One. At Imola, he took it away. And we saw again the brutal reality of what Formula One racing is all about."

With reporting by Ian McCluskey/Brasilia and Kate Noble/London