“Yes, the cause of Senna’s accident is known, but it remains closely watched”

Last May 1 marked 30 years since the fatal accident he suffered Ayrton Senna and Imolawhich ended the life of what many consider the greatest F1 driver of all time. Since then, three decades later, doubt has remained about what exactly caused Brazil’s Williams to unexpectedly leave the track and hit the wall.

After years of trials, the final verdict came 13 years later. In 2007, the Italian Court of Appeal ruled in favor of those who claimed the steering column was at fault, caused by poor design and modifications made to said bar instead of installing a new part. However, Adrian Newey, designer of that car, continues to keep doubt open to his words a few years ago in ‘The Guardian’.

Today, Jo Ramírez, someone very close to Ayrton Senna, who worked with the Brazilian at McLaren as coordinator of the Woking team in F1 and had to help Adrian Newey, who later signed for McLaren, with the translations of Italian English of the judicial process. The Mexican was emphatic about this in an interview with Mundo Deportivo.

“It’s broken because they changed something in the steering wheel”

“Yes, the cause of Senna’s accident is known, but it remains closely watched. If the accident happened in another country, perhaps less emphasis is placed on finding out what caused it. In Italy there has to be a reason and you have to scratch and scratch until you see why he died, like a mountain climber fell and you have to find the reason: if the rope broke and why. The trial process took 10 years and they finally let him go. But whatever is discovered will not bring him back to earth. So… why so many? The reason doesn’t matter,” commented Jo Ramírez.

“The cause of the accident? It broke because they changed something in the steering wheel. It was very difficult for him to drive that car. It was a very difficult car. For Prost, the same. When Prost came to Williams in 1993 he asked for a little change and they told him they couldn’t change it, that it was the car and when Senna came, a man with more character, he told him he couldn’t drive a car like that. Patrick Head (Williams technical director) told him: “well, that’s what we have, that’s the car.” So Senna replied: “You drive this whistle!” (pilot that fun thing!) “Those were his words.”revealed.

“So, they had to change it. And that change didn’t work. It was something that was terribly broken”explained Jo Ramírez, who knows a lot about what happened because Jo was in charge of helping Newey translate everything that was said in the judicial process.

“Then Adrian Newey went to McLaren and I had to help him with all the translations of the Ayrton Senna accident test, because he didn’t speak Italian. It was very painful for me to do it… because I was so close to Ayrton, nothing that he is, and every time I have to translate it reminds me of him,” he concluded in the quoted and relaxed interview with MD.

What happened and what did Newey say?

After winning titles in 1990 and 1991, Senna signed for Williams, a team that had developed superior technology over the years that gave its cars enormous stability. But in 1994, that technology was banned when the Brazilian came to the Grove team. The change in regulations affected Williams more than others because it prohibited electronic aids, and in this way Williams had to do without the new active suspension systems, traction control or ABS, among others more help So, Senna started 1994 with many problems, driving without pleasure and with many complications. Senna needed changes to the car and that agrees with what Jo Ramírez explained.

In the third race of that year, Senna suffered a very serious accident, crashing the car at a speed of around 320 km/hour on the Tamburello curve, on the Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit at Imola. After the impact, his body remained motionless, with his head resting on one of the sides of the cabin. The worst sign that the worst has happened. It was a disaster.

Later, upon reviewing photos of the accident, it was clear that what happened could not be the fault of piloting error because of the massive change in direction that occurred in the middle of the curve. And even less, with Senna at the wheel.

One of the theories about this accident is the possible loss of ground effect of the vehicle or the puncture of the tire.while he was defending Newey. Perhaps everything includes a possible failure of the steering column, which can prevent the car from turning. This is how Adrian Newey, designer of that car, explained it in remarks to ‘The Guardian’ a few years ago.

“No one will ever know what exactly happened. There is no doubt that the steering column failed, but the evidence suggests that the car did not leave the track as a result of the steering wheel breaking. Why did the rear axle slip? The car hit the asphalt several times during that second lap, which seemed unusual, as the tire pressure should have been correct at that time. But a puncture in the right rear tire is probably due to plastics left behind by the accident.”Newey commented, reopening the doubt.

And more recently, in his autobiography, Newey added more doubts about what happened: “I will always feel responsible for Ayrton’s death, but I am not guilty. “My biggest regret is not that the possible failure of the steering column was the cause of the accident, because that was not the case, but because I failed the aerodynamics of the car.”he explained, again denying that the steering bar was at fault.

This may be due to a ‘bubble’

The Italian Prosecutor’s Office relied on the theory of the steering bar and accused manslaughter at the trial of Frank Williams, Grove’s team manager at the time, as well as Patrick Head, technical director, and Adrian Newey, the designer.

According to the Italian prosecutor Maurizio Passarini, Senna, who did not score points in the previous two races with a car in which he suffered many problems, was not comfortable with the steering wheel position and asked the team to change it. Finally, the team has to listen to its driver but, always according to Passarini, Instead of putting in a new piece, he welded another piece of smaller diameter to extend that bar. The bar might break.

The prosecution presented a report in which it highlighted that there were cracks in 60% of the steering column until it broke. For his part, Frank Williams defended himself by making sure that these cracks were 20 or 40% and that the bar would not break. Perhaps his on-board camera would dispel doubts, but strangely, those images disappeared at that moment.

13 years for a final verdict

The three accused from the Williams team have since been acquitted The team’s culpability in that accident could not be proven, nor could the fact that a broken steering bar prevented Senna from turning. However, eventually, In 2007, the Italian Court of Appeal ruled in favor of those who claimed the steering column was at fault.that failed due to a bad design and the change of parts mentioned above conducted by the team after the driver requested to change his steering wheel.

It was blamed Patrick Head because that part was not subjected to the necessary tests before it was put on the caralthough 13 years have passed. The statute of limitations for a homicide in Italy is 7 years and 6 months.