The death of Ayrton Senna and the last legionnaires of F-1

the season of 1994 It must have been the consecration of Ayrton Senna as the best pilot of the end of the 20th century. Alain Prosthis archrival, had retired in late 1993 after tying their three titles and gave him the steering wheel of the dominator Williams RenaultAlthough not the number 1. With the French retired, no one would wear the number that designated the champion. The team decided that Magic, as the Brazilian was known, would run with the 2 and assigned Damon Hill the 0. Everything was prepared for a triumphant ride from Senna, except that nobody had a young man named Michael Schumacher and his revolutionary Benetton Ford.

The campaign began in Interlagos, Ayrton’s home, and the pole position achieved by the local idol – who was unrivaled on Saturdays – was not rewarded with victory due to an engine failure. Schumacher won. Two weeks later, at the slow Japanese circuit of Okayama, a reckless maneuver took Senna out of the race again and the German driver added his second win. The third grand prize of the course was that of San Marino in Imola, the house of Ferrari, where the Brazilian was more than an idol after passing through the “Scuderia”. The pole was once again a procedure for him, but the pressure to win became unbearable on that Sunday, May 1.

The weekend had been dramatic. In free practice on Friday, Rubens Barrichello ate a chicane at 230 kilometers per hour, swallowed his tongue and saved his life thanks to the rapid intervention of doctors. Less lucky was the Austrian Roland Ratzenbergerwhose Simtek collided with a concrete wall at 314 kilometers per hour after going off at the Villeneuve Curve, and died as a result of the impact. The tremendous speeds and poor safety measures had turned the hot rods into rolling coffins and Senna, advised by neurosurgeon Sid Watkins, the championship’s chief medical officer and close friend of his, considered not running the next day..

Finally, Ayrton Senna appeared on the grid in a test that started off rough, as a collision between Pedro Lamy and Jyrki Lehto at the start forced the safety car to come out, which withdrew at the beginning of the sixth lap. On the seventh lap, with the cars already launched at race speed, Magic drew almost without turning the dizzying Tamburello Curve at 309 kilometers per hour and, sensing that he was crashing, had time to brake to crash at 211with such bad luck that one of the wheels of his vehicle was thrown off and hit his head right after bouncing off the protective wall. He was evacuated by helicopter to the Ospedale Maggiore in Bologna, where only his death could be certified… and the race ended with victory for Schumacherwho that year won the first of his seven World Cups.

With the deaths of Senna and Ratzenberger, there have been more than 40 in Formula One since 1953, an exact average of one a year that was already unpalatable for a society that was moving away from the adventurous ideal of the middle of the century, when pilots put their lives at risk. I play happily. Two days after the accident, the International Automobile Federation revolutionized the safety regulations in single-seaters and circuits with the express objective of drastically reducing accidents, even at the cost of the speed of the cars, which is nothing less than the essence of sport. The objective was achieved, since for twenty years there was no regret for a single death of a pilot in the premier class. The series, and there it remains to warn of the danger that continues to lurk, was broken by the French Jules Bianchi in it 2014 Japanese Grand Prixheld in Suzuka, who crashed his Marussia into the crane that was removing a crashed car from the track and died after nine months of hospitalization.