Newey on Imola 1994

[andrew]

Why all this talk about wether he over-steered or under-steered, if he got a puncture etc?
The crash itself wasn´t the reason he died.
If the suspension wouldn´t have penetrated his helmet he would still be alive today no matter what fault the car was involved in.

Part of the suspension penetrated his helmet. Whatever happened that caused him to go off isn´t really relevant because he would have survived the acident ifit weren´t for the suspension part penetrating the helmet and ultimately the skull.

So even if he didn't crash the suspension would have still penetrated his helmet? By your logic, if someone shoots you dead, it should be the gun that goes to prison, not the person who killed you to death.

Really don't follow your resoning there.

[TzeiTzei]

I really can't see the point in this manhunt for finding someone guilty of causing Senna's death. What good does it to anyone? Ofcourse i'd like to know what exactly caused the accident, but if the telemetry didn't reveal any specific reason then i guess it will remain as a mystery.

IMO it was a result of mechanical failure (or puncture), bad track design and very bad luck. Something can be (and has been) done to the safety of tracks, but mechanical failures will always be part of motor racing, and unfortunately in this accident the consequences were horrible. While it might have been a difficult car to drive, no one can say that the FW16 was a dangerous car. The steering column fix is a much more controversial case, but if the telemetry didn't clearly show that it caused the accident, then there isn't much blaming the Williams team, Newey or Patrick Head.

A much more significant factor was the track layout. We had seen many high speed accidents in Tamburello (Piquet 1987, Berger 1989, Alboreto 1991), and yet nothing was really done to make it safer. The sport itself was in a false sense of security as result of many big accidents from where the drivers had escaped relatively unharmed. Unfortunately it needed the lives of Ratzenberger and Senna to make the FIA and everybody else around the sport realise that something had to be done to the tracks and cars aswell.

[darrensmells]

I have a book on Williams from 8-9 years ago where Newey and Head are reflecting on Imola 1994 and one of them is quoted as saying the Goodyear tyres had been experiencing cracking on their sidewalls during the weekend and they figured this is why the right rear tyre never came back up to full pressure, causing the accident.

This surprised me as I had never heard this before.

Also, Senna had 3 fatal injuries. In addition to the penetration from the fractured suspension by his eye, the impact from the tyre itself had crushed his forehead and he also had a fatal basal neck fracture. So he might not have been bruised, but the poor fella hit the wall at 130 mph and physics is no respector of human frailty...

[Reventon]

....

[Richard]

How about this page? You can download the videos

http://www.cineca.it/page/gli-ultimi-16 ... na-inglese

Composite overlay http://www.cineca.it/en/page/ayrton-sennas-crash-video

Key to the on-screen data - http://www.cineca.it/page/telemetrie

This page shows before and after stills showing how they cleaned up the images. http://www.cineca.it/page/camera-car-di ... camera-rai

[ringo]

I believe the puncture theory more than the column failure.
A column failure would have Sennar braking right away. He wouldn't be steering pointlessly if he realized the car was not responding to inputs.
Fatigue crack is also different from a rupture. Cracks could suggest it may fail the next race, or the next 5 or 6 races. One cannot infer the column was going to fail in that race.

In the case of the tyre, it's more believable that it caused the oversteer. Most rear tyre failures we see cause loss of control and oversteer in F1. It's not uncommon and it also reduced braking ability as the aero is compromised and the braking capacity.
It also makes the car not react to steering input correctly.
The puncture theory sounds more feasible.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Thanks for going to the trouble Reventon, and cheers for the links Richard.

[HampusA]

Why all this talk about wether he over-steered or under-steered, if he got a puncture etc?
The crash itself wasn´t the reason he died.
If the suspension wouldn´t have penetrated his helmet he would still be alive today no matter what fault the car was involved in.

Part of the suspension penetrated his helmet. Whatever happened that caused him to go off isn´t really relevant because he would have survived the acident ifit weren´t for the suspension part penetrating the helmet and ultimately the skull.

So even if he didn't crash the suspension would have still penetrated his helmet? By your logic, if someone shoots you dead, it should be the gun that goes to prison, not the person who killed you to death.

Really don't follow your resoning there.

No all im saying is that it wasn´t the the puncture, the steering or whatever that killed him.
He would have survived the crash if the part of suspension did not penetrate his helmet.

Thus it was really a freak accident where something from the suspension snapped and was on a collision course with his head.

[andrew]

And what caused the suspension to break? The impact. What casued the impact? Loosing control of the car. What caused him to loose control of the car? I'll let you answer that one.

[HampusA]

Doesn´t really matter what caused him to go off. Driver´s are involved in crashes even today.

If Kubica would have had the same thing happened to him where some part of the car killed him it would start all kinds of conversations yet it´s doesn´t because he survived.

Freak accident, that´s all i´m saying. Nobody could have prevented Senna´s death. He was going to crash sometime because they all have. He just had heaps of bad luck.

[marcush.]

Massa survived a hit by a spring at speed ..just .so even with todays much improved safety ,be it helmet side protection tethers etc there is still an element of high risk when something fails in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I read that both Newey and Head considered quitting the sport back then when they realised what happened.
They officially stated they cannot surely isolate what happened in which sequence ,but it just tells us the story ....if you feel you could be guilty you are maybe not really the person to investigate and draw conclusions on what happened.
So when Newey says it most probaly was a tyre this might help his state of mind a bit but it is of no importance .
Failure mode analysis is simple and you just don´t stop persistant questioning of what happened inevitably you will arrive at the answer.

will a low pressure outside tyre cause a bit of oversteer just enough to let the car spear of the track in a tangential line? to me this looks more as if there was no front end sideways bite .Even the hefty steering input of senna did not change direction.A car with a puncture would inevitably spin off when you put in strong steering inputs.


the element of luck is involved in Massas accident.he was absolutely not doing anything wrong ,it was a genuine fault of a third party affecting him and he or his team had no chance whatsovever to prevent it happening

[Just_a_fan]

What caused him to loose control of the car? I'll let you answer that one.

Oooh, that's an easy one to answer: "We don't know nor will we ever know".

The rest is all just either engineering theory or conspiracy theory - you take your pick depending on your view.

[Just_a_fan]

the element of luck is involved in Massas accident.he was absolutely not doing anything wrong ,it was a genuine fault of a third party affecting him and he or his team had no chance whatsovever to prevent it happening

The subtle difference here is that there seems, these days, to be a need to always have to find a "culprit". "Someone must be guilty somewhere for X happening to Y".

With Senna's accident one might just as easily claim that the fault lay with a third party remote from Senna and the team e.g. a materials supplier - maybe the tube used to make the column (if that was the cause of the accident) was faulty at the manufacturing stage. Who knows?

Senna died and there is no way to safely lay the blame 100% at any one party's door. That's all there is to it. Let's all move on...

[andrew]

The rest is all just either engineering theory or conspiracy theory - you take your pick depending on your view.

I think given Adrian Newey's experience and proven track record I'll go with his assessment.

Something I find strange that Senna didn't weave behind the safety car so surely his tyres would not have been up to temperature or pressure. Just seems a bit strange to me.

[HampusA]

He did however wave to the safety car to speed up due to the tires getting cold and thus pressure in tires getting lower.

but still, if it weren´t for the suspension accident he would still be here no matter how he got the accident.