Ayrton Senna

[onebadm5]

Originally posted by THX1138
Yes, Senna died in the race itself, but it was a really bad weekend for F1 even before his crash. Rubens Barrichello crashed during Friday practice and swallowed his tongue; if he hadn't gone off near the pit entrance, so close to the medical team, he very well could have died. During Saturday qualifying Roland Ratzenberger ran over a curb and damaged the front wing on his Simtek, but didn't know it until the wing collapsed as he was braking for the Villeneuve corner. He did not survive the wreck.

There has never been anything conclusively proved to be the cause of Senna's wreck. Theories include broken steering column (tests inconclusive on whether it broke before or during the impact), tire cut on debris from startline pile-up, and bottoming caused by low tire pressures from running several laps under yellow. When he left the track, he was doing about 190, hit the wall around 160ish. When the right front corner hit the wall the suspension broke off, some of it still attached to the wheel. I don't know if the wheel/tire itself hit Senna, but the fatal injury was caused when a tie rod went through his helmet visor and punctured his skull just above his right eyebrow.

That was a crappy birthday.

actually, there was a very informative documentary about Senna's death on the learning channel a few weeks ago. They mentioned the steering wheel theory (williams actually designed the steering column to have up to 18 cm of adjustment since senna complained of its position), but another one they presented seems the most plausible and the most interesting.

The SMGP started off with a huge crash that involved most of the field around lap 3? or so. anyway, the safety car came out and paced the cars for 3 laps. During this time, senna's tires, which are normally designed for peak grip during hot laps, has lost a lot of temp due to the fact that they were running so slow. This caused the tire pressures to drop pretty low. Since the tires had less air, the car was a fraction of an inch lower than it should have been. When they restarted, the cars got back up to race speed, and as senna reached tamburello, his car was running dangerously low, which severely affected the effectiveness of the undertray and limiting the amount of downforce supplied to the car. (There is also room for speculation from amateur video taken that day that the car was so low that it actually bottomed out entering the turn.) Without the much needed downforce, senna's car couldnt make the easy turn, and he plowed into the wall at 190mph.

From The Senna Files

The findings of the autopsy on Senna's death were read out in court. The report confirmed Senna's injuries were compatible with a massive blow above the right eyebrow. Pathologist Carrado Cipolla, said that Senna died not from the impact itself, but from a "blow to the head from a blunt object," indicating a photograph apparently showing a section of the front suspension.



The following picture shows Ayrton Senna's visor was pierced by something, certain experts believing he was killed almost immediately. The round aperture shown in the top of Senna's helmet is a vent hole, the plug assumedly knocked out during the crash.



The blow was said to have crushed the front part of Senna's brain killing him instantly, although his heart and lungs continued to work assisted by a life-support machine, which was eventually turned off. The official time of Senna's death was therefore given as 14.17, although 'cardiac death' came at 18.40.

It was reported that most likely part of the suspension, with the wheel still attached, speared through Senna's visor entering his skull. The picture below shows the helmet was certainly subject to forcible impact, but did this occur at the same time as the damage to the visor?