Senna to blame for fatal crash

[tanelvali]

Myself i cannot see this wheelturning detail myself but one official (?) report claimed that this was the case. I do believe that mighty Senna could have made some mistakes and regarding to Tiff Needell's "crashes that changed racing" - the car was leaning (touching) the racetrack with it's bottom , thus resulting in less grip and the car just sliding off the track. Tell you the truth, I do believ that there will never be any theory that I would take as ultimate truth, just this steering wheel error seems quite reasonable explanation..

[levensnevel]

Damon Hill's 'one liner' is the gist of the headline in one of his contributions to a continueing serie of articles covering that weekend in 1994 in TimesOnline. The serie started on the 17th of April and now consists of 21 articles, including three contributions from Damon Hill.
Like I wrote in another thread: This serie is really a must read for everyone who is interested in the chain of events which lead to this horrible weekend.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...081925,00.html
If you click on the links at the bottom of the article
> ALSO IN THIS SECTION
you'll find the other articles, one by one. I wouldn't be surprised if TimesOnline will add other articles tomorrow morning

Post Script 22/04

I was right: today a last set of 4 articles with an interview with Sir Frank Williams as the concluding part
So :idea: extra, extra. Read all about it :idea:

[takata]

u have assume alot of things which are rather unfair.
even the court didnt receive sufficient evidence:

last few seconds pior to the crash, the data from the logger was mysteriously missing WHY some kinda cover up?!?!

there is no way to ascertain whether the steering broke b4 or after the impact ... so lets not assume.

Originally Posted by stradale It was not the steering column, which everyone thought at the time of the crash. It broke off on impact. What happened was that the car was too close to the ground because of the saeftycar situation the laps prior to the accident. The tyre temperature had dropped causing the car to be a fraction lower than usual. To get maximum downforce the space underneath the car needs to be as small as possible. That accelerates the air underneath the car to the maximum, causing downforce. The drop in ride height caused Senna to hit the roadsurface with the floorpan of the car for a longer time than the usual scathe at the bumps in Tamburello. That dirupted the airflow underneath the car and momentarily meant there was practically no downforce. Senna had to give opposite lock, but the car found grip again very fast after the bumps and the car went straight on into the wall. It all happened so fast Senna didn't even lift off. Remember, he was doing about 300 km/h there. The onboard computer logged every detail. The myth about the disconnected steering wheel was caused by Senna suddenly going straight on and the fact that there's a ot of room for the steering wheel to move around. The forces were so high that the beam (not sure this is the right word) bent during these fast corners without breaking off. It's pretty normal in an F1 car for it to be a bit flexible, just so that it doesn't break when put under a lot of strain. That's why it looks as if it broke off in the onboard video shots. Hill's statement is better quoted in the other link TT posted. Hill is talking about Senna flooring the throttle after the restart and steering the car right over those bumps on cold tyres. Because that is what caused the accident eventually. Senna should have been more careful, but maybe felt too much pressure to score some points that race and went for it full on. Whatever you're looking at it though, without the piece of suspension hitting his helmet he wouldn't have died, so Senna basically wasn't taking too many chances IMO. The thing that killed him was bad luck. But he did make a mistake which led to this chain of events. Although I'm not exactly a fan of Hill I feel this is not doing justice to the things he really said.

[kteo2003]

i think that we will never learn the truth about senna's "accident"..we are talking about formula 1 and frank williams..i mean if it was truth that senna died because it was a fault of the car that would damage a lot frank williams todays williams team and of course the sponsors.......

[levensnevel]

Auntie Beeb has used the computerdata from Senna's car to reconstruct the last few seconds in a serie of 8 pictures
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/moto...ne/3605323.stm

> RH column
> 3rd from above - "Crash secrets revealed"