Remembering Roland

FOR the families of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger, it doesn’t matter how long it has been since their tragic deaths.  It could have been one, ten or seventeen years.  However, as the 17^th anniversary approaches on their deaths – I felt I would take the opportunity to remember the forgotten man of that ghastly weekend at Imola.

     The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix will go down as the most horrific weekend in the 61-year history of Formula One racing.  Two drivers and a race spectator were killed, four pitlane mechanics were injured by a loose wheel, other fans were struck by flying debris from a startline accident and Rubens Barrichello was lucky to cheat death in a spectacular crash during Friday’s official qualifying session.  Whilst everyone understandably remembers the accident of Ayrton Senna and his legacy on the sport, it is difficult not to forget the impact Ratzenberger had on the sport – even though it was a very brief Grand Prix career.

     Roland Ratzenberger was born in Salzburg, Austria on July 4, 1960.  Although the official records show this was his date of birth, Roland claimed that he was born in 1962 – in an attempt to help further his opportunities into motorsport.  He began racing in 1983 in the German Formula Ford series and finished second in the 1985 Formula Ford festival at Brands Hatch.  A year later, his presence on the car racing scene first came to serious attention as he returned to Brands Hatch, to win the prestigious festival.  It was clear that although he never looked like one of those racing drivers who would take your breath away, Ratzenberger had some quality and it is no accident for anyone to win these kinds of junior events.  

STALLED: Roland's British F3 career halted his momentum

    Two campaigns in the British Formula 3 Championship followed, but they bought little reward.  12^th placed finishes in both championship years meant the Austrian’s career had suddenly got bogged down.  He spent time racing for BMW in the World Touring Car Championship and the British Touring Car Championship – but as the 90s dawned, Roland Ratzenberger’s dream of reaching his ultimate goal – Formula One, were all but over.

     Although it wasn’t quite what he was hoping for, Roland was still determined to continue on his quest to join the Grand Prix paddock.  He was a very popular guy in any championship he contested and was friendly with most drivers, developing close friendships with JJ Lehto and Heinz-Harald Frentzen in his junior days.  Ratzenberger seemed to have settled on a successful career in sportscar racing.  He had five cracks at the famous Le Mans 24 Hours race, finishing fifth for Toyota in 1993.  Toyota had also resigned him for the 1994 assault on the event, but sadly, he would never make that destination.  Ratzenberger also worked out a successful career in Japanese F3000, racing against the likes of Eddie Irvine and former Indy 500 winner Jacques Villeneuve.  Again, Roland’s results were mixed, but that also was down to some of the equipment he had, rather than lack of driver skill.  A victory in the Suzuka round of the series in 1992 certainly caught the eye of some on the European circuit, especially as he still insisted that Austrian journalists should cover events that didn’t appeal to them.

BIG BREAK: Roland's pursuit of his F1 dream came true in 1994

     In 1994, Roland Ratzenberger’s dream of racing in Formula One finally came to fruition.  He held off competition from the experienced veteran Andrea de Cesaris to become the second driver at Nick Wirth’s newly set-up Simtek Racing Team.  Ratzenberger was initially signed on a five-race deal, as the team were always going to be looking for sources of financing, despite a powerful sponsorship with MTV.  He would join the Australian David Brabham, who had one season of F1 experience and was son of three-time world champion in the 50s and 60s, Sir Jack Brabham.

     It didn’t get off to a rosy start, as perhaps struggling through nerves and an old-spec Ford engine; he failed to qualify for the season opener in Brazil.  Three weeks later, he went to the TI Aida circuit in Japan, which would stage the Pacific Grand Prix.  Ratzenberger was the only driver to have raced on the circuit before, a real help with his Formula Nippon experience.  Although he qualified slowest, he made it onto the grid and also finished the race, albeit in 11^th place and five laps adrift of the race winner, Michael Schumacher.

     At Imola, the third race of the season, he looked set to qualify again, especially as Barrichello was out of the event after his crash and Paul Belmondo being absolutely inadequate in a Pacific Ilmor.  It even actually looked like he might be edging closer to his team-mate Brabham on genuine pace.  On Saturday 30 April 1994, Roland Ratzenberger went off the road at the Acque Minerali chicane.  Rather than choose the safer option of pitting to get the front wings checked, Ratzenberger went immediately for another qualifying attempt.  As he flew through the flat-out Tamburello kink, the aerodynamic forces weakened the front wing and it broke on the approach to the flat-out Villeneuve curve.  With no brakes and no front downforce, he had no chance.  Ratzenberger ploughed into the concrete wall flat-out at nearly 200mph.  The wreck of his Simtek Ford halted in the middle of the Tosa hairpin and from the lack of flailing movement in the cockpit; Ratzenberger was clearly in big trouble.  The Italian marshals crowded around his car instantly, which highlighted the general, concern, especially when the wreckage was surveyed.  Roland was taken to the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna, but was pronounced deal on arrival at the hospital.  His death was the first fatality in the sport since Elio de Angelis was killed in testing at Paul Ricard in 1986 and the first demise at the meeting for twelve years; Riccardo Paletti the last unlucky man in Canada 1982. 

     Formula One was sent into shock.  Ratzenberger’s death bought about the reformation of the GDPA (Grand Prix Drivers Association).  Brabham and the Simtek team bravely decided to continue.  Ratzenberger’s good friend Irvine took his place in the Toyota squad at Le Mans that summer, and finished in second place.    

ROLAND RATZENBERGER (July 4 1960 - April 30 1994)

     For many, it will be the death of Ayrton Senna that is remembered and rightly so, for his impact and genius on the sport.  However, Roland Ratzenberger is the forgotten man on F1’s nightmare weekend of all-time.  He was full of determination, humour and desire to achieve his dream.  At least he got the chance to make the grid and race before his tragic accident.  His death was a grave loss to Formula One, Austria and of course, his loving family. 

Seventeen years on, he will never be forgotten!  RIP Roland.

ROLAND RATZENBERGER (July 4 1960 – April 30 1994)

Ayrton Senna - A Genius Remembered

This year, the legendary Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna would have celebrated his 50^th birthday.  Sadly, he isn’t around to cherish this amazing anniversary – sixteen years after he tragically perished at the wheel of the Williams FW16 in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.  However, this opportunity gives me the chance to produce my memories of Ayrton Senna: The Man, and Ayrton Senna: The Genius behind the Wheel of a Racing Car.  Forget Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher: In my opinion, Senna was the greatest ever human being to drive in Formula One.

Senna was very successful in the junior formulae in Brazil and in England.  He had begun karting at the tender age of four.  For him, racing was in his blood and so to, was his will and desire to win.  To him, second place wasn’t acceptable; he felt it was first of the losers.  He underlined that ruthless streak early on in his career, in the tense and exciting duel with Britain’s Martin Brundle for the 1983 British Formula 3 Championship.  Senna dominated the first half of the season, Brundle the second half and it left Ayrton to pull off some crazy overtaking attempts that often ended in accidents.  Eventually, he overcame Brundle in the season finale at Thurxton, and Formula One beckoned.

Despite testing for McLaren and Williams in the winter of 1983, Senna opted to sign on for the Toleman team, an unfamiliar name to many in the sport.  Immediately, Senna made an impression, despite his inferior equipment.  He came so close to winning his maiden race that season too.  In Monaco, Senna made full advantage of the awful weather conditions, to charge through from 12^th on the grid.  He pulled off some stupendous overtaking moves, with the confidence that suggested he would be a champion in future waiting.  Only the insistence of race leader Alain Prost got the race red-flagged, though the half points would eventually cost him the 1984 championship.  Senna insisted that he would have won if the race had run just one more lap.  The determination to succeed was firmly there.  Podiums at Brands Hatch and Estoril followed, but Senna knew that Toleman was not a long-term stay.  He went to Lotus for the next three seasons, convinced that this might be the team that could deliver him the world championship.

In only his second race for the famous British marquee, Senna won in Portugal – in very similar conditions to those of Monaco 1984.  Second placed Michele Alboreto was the only driver not to be lapped, in a clinical and masterful performance in the wet.  Not only did Senna edge himself into a great wet weather runner, he developed a close association with the Japanese manufacturer Honda in his time at Lotus, and also the amazing skill he had to pull off a flying lap when the chips were down.  Eight pole positions went his way in 1985, and this skill remained in Senna’s book all the way through to his untimely death.  Although Schumacher has beaten this statistic now, it took him twelve years to do it after Ayrton’s death.  Sixty-five pole positions in 161 races, over 33% is one of the most impressive ratios I’ve ever seen.  In his three years with Lotus, Senna achieved 3^rd place in the 1987 championship and six wins, including a maiden triumph on the streets of Monte Carlo.  However, the British team was on a steady rate of decline and Ayrton elected to jump ship, taking Honda with him to McLaren.

Frustrated by seeing the more superior Williams of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell often get the better of him, despite his undoubted talent, Senna was convinced the switch to McLaren would finally give him the success it craved.  There, he was partnered with the Frenchman, Alain Prost, the golden boy of McLaren at the time.  Fireworks would explode between the pair, though not initially.  The 1988 McLaren Honda was the most dominant car in Grand Prix history, winning 15 of the season’s 16 races.  If Jean-Louis Schelesser hadn’t rammed Senna in the closing stages at Monza, it could well have been a clean sweep.  Senna won eight races, to Prost’s seven – though the ‘Professor’s’ consistency meant he went on to score more championship points.  However, on a countback system, which the sport used at the time, Senna knew that victory in the 1988 Japanese Grand Prix would be enough for his first championship.

The start was a disaster, Senna squandering pole position, and dropping to 14^th by Turn 1, giving Prost a colossal advantage.  Very quickly, Senna showed the superiority of his McLaren, and charged through the pack.  By Lap 16, he was fourth and eleven laps later, was challenging for the lead.  When Prost was trapped in backmarkers, Senna seized his opportunity and squeezed past his team-mate on the start-finish straight.  It was a clinical piece of overtaking, and a drive that thoroughly deserved to win the championship.  Prost was very gracious in defeat, admitting that Senna had been the better driver during the campaign.  Apart from a moment in Portugal, when Ayrton had nearly put Alain into the pit wall, their battle had been clean and a joy to watch in 1988.  Sadly, the next two years bought politics and accusations to the heartfelt of the game.

Race two of 1989 was the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola.  Prost and Senna had entered a gentlemanly agreement, that the man who approached the breaking point for the Tosa hairpin first, would go onto win the race.  Senna took pole position and led on the first lap.  However, when his good friend Gerhard Berger crashed at Tamburello and his Ferrari burst into flames, the race required a restart.  Prost made the better start, and led approaching Tosa.  Senna, presuming that the agreement only meant on one attempt, stole the lead into the hairpin and drove into the distance.  Perhaps a gentle misunderstanding, but Prost, who finished over a minute adrift, refused to talk to Senna again.  

1989 was not a lucky year for the Brazilian, losing certain victories in USA, Canada and Italy due to mechanical problems, whilst he was taken out in Portugal by the already disqualified Mansell.  Once again, Suzuka would be the deciding factor in the championship battle, this time with Prost the overwhelming favourite.  Senna had to win, to stand any chance of taking the fight to Adelaide.  He lost the lead with a poor start, and harassed Prost all afternoon, with little chance of getting ahead.  On Lap 47, he closed up and made his move into the final chicane.  Prost, knowing that Senna had to win turned into the corner and the accident was inevitable.  The two McLaren’s interlocked wheels and slid to a halt.  Prost unbuckled his belts and walked away, but Senna kept his engine running and restarted.  However, he needed outside assistance from the marshals to get going again.  Despite needing to pit for a new nosecone, catching and overtaking the Benetton of Alessandro Nannini, Senna won and was promptly disqualified, for the outside assistance offence.  Prost was champion.  Ayrton was furious, almost refusing to race in Australia, threatening to walkaway from the sport he loved, believing that a conspiracy had been set-up against him, by Prost and the unpopular FISA president, Jean-Marie Balestre.  More allegations and accusations followed, and Senna’s super license was revoked.  Had he driven Formula One for the last time?

The following March, he was back, having apologised for his actions and won the season opener in Phoenix.  Once more, the fight for supremacy was between Senna’s McLaren Honda and Prost, who had swapped seats with Berger and moved to McLaren’s arch-enemies, Ferrari.  For the third successive year, Japan was the deciding point for the championship saga.  This time, it was Prost who needed to win to keep his title dream alive.  Senna took his customary pole position, but bitterly complained all weekend that pole position was on the dirtier side of the grid.  He campaigned for it to be changed, and Prost actually agreed.  The officials granted Senna’s request, but Balestre refused to back down.  Consequently, Senna vowed that if Prost turned into Turn One first, he would regret it.

Twenty-four hours later and Senna sprinted away, but Prost got the better start and took the immediate advantage.  Senna looked for a gap on the inside of the first corner that was simply always going to disappear.  The result was catastrophic.  The McLaren and Ferrari disappeared into a cloud dust, the pair clambered out of their battered motorcars, neither talking to the other but the outcome of the 1990 FIA Formula One World Championship had been decided in a matter of seconds.  Replays clearly put the blame fair and square at the Brazilian’s door, though he defended his actions long after the event.  It was a second title for Senna, but bittersweet and distasteful in the circumstances.  Only at the same event a year later, with Balestre gone and replaced by Max Mosley did Senna admit that he deliberately ran Prost off the road in 1990.  He will and desire to win couldn’t be faulted, but in attempting to knock another car out on purpose was a hideous crime, which on a normal UK road would land you with at least a driving ban, and possibly a jail sentence.

In 1991, Senna won his third and last drivers title, for the umpteenth time at Suzuka, the deciding point of most title battles.  Prost fell away and was fired by Ferrari before the season’s end, so it left for a renewed rivalry to remerge between Senna and ‘Il Leone,’ Nigel Mansell.  Senna won the first four races in 1991, but as the Williams Renault became the stronger package during the campaign, Senna grew frustrated, realising that McLaren were being out developed by a rival for the first time in his stint with the Woking team.  Eventually, reliability and a terrible pitstop in Portugal shot Mansell’s 1991 title dream, but not for the worth of trying.  He went wheel-to-wheel with Senna, sparks flying at some 200mph down the backstraight of Spain’s Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, one of the sport’s most iconic images.

As the Williams team mastered the active suspension and traction control systems, McLaren drifted further behind the game and Senna had to work especially hard for any of his later victories in his career.  1992 was a major disappointment, as Ayrton finished 4^th in the final standings, with just three wins, compared to the nine of the dominant Mansell.  Honda pulled out of F1 at the end of the season, and Senna questioned whether he should remain in the sport, especially when Prost ‘vetoed’ him not to drive alongside him at Williams in 1993.  Senna was incensed with this, but pot, kettle, black spring to mind when he did the same thing in 1986, to deprive Derek Warwick of a Lotus drive.  One of his greatest victories came in Monaco 1992, when he managed to hold off a hard-charging Mansell, who clambered all over the back of his McLaren in the last five laps. 

However, he had saved the best for last on a damp, dull Easter weekend in 1993.  The venue was Donington Park for the European Grand Prix.  Senna, now in a McLaren Ford had qualified 4^th and made a bad start, squeezed out by the uncompromising Michael Schumacher on the rundown to Redgate.  Undeterred, he out-accelerated the young German on the exit, and then swept past the fast-starting Karl Wendlinger in his Sauber around the outside of the Craner Curves.  Next target were the dominant Williams and just three corners later, he went inside Damon Hill to move into second.  He tore into Prost’s early advantage and finally, outbraked his chief rival into the Melbourne Loop.  He had gone from 5^th to 1^st by the end of the first lap, definitely the greatest lap in Grand Prix history.  Senna won the race from Hill by nearly a full lap.

For 1994, Senna got his dream move to the almost unbeatable Williams Renault squad.  With Prost having retired, and Mansell conquering the IndyCars scene in America, this was Senna’s chance to add to his forty-one victories.  Sadly, the partnership that promised so much never came to fruition.  Senna didn’t like the handling of the FW16, and had a miserable first two races.  He spun off and stalled his engine in Brazil, chasing down Schumacher’s Benetton, then was tipped off by an over-ambitious Mika Hakkinen into the first corner of the Pacific Grand Prix.  Arriving at Imola, Senna had no points, Schumacher twenty.  Autosport magazine claimed he was a man under pressure.  He didn’t show it though, focused on his goal to bring Williams back to the top, after an unconvincing start.  He blitzed the entire field in San Marino, setting the quickest times in every single session.  However, accidents to his countryman Rubens Barrichello and the death of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger in qualifying deeply affected Senna.  Deep down, he didn’t have the passion to race.  Some say he was not on the best of terms with his family, due to his burdening relationship with Adriane Galisteu.  Others suggest he believed that Schumacher and Benetton were cheating their way to success, by using the now banned electronic aids.  Either way, he put those issues aside, dropped his crash helmet and went out to race.  A startline accident put the race under caution behind the Safety Car.  On the restart, Senna charged away, determined to pull away from the pest that was Schumacher.  On Lap 7, he entered the flat-out Tamburello bend when his Williams refused to turn into the corner.  The rest they say is history….

Ayrton Senna may have not endeared himself to everyone.  However, his skill behind the wheel of a racing car cannot be questioned, nor could his charitable work he put in for many local Brazilian and worldwide charities.  His speed, desire and commitment to win were immense, even if some of his tactics had to be questioned.  A devote Christian, Senna believed that God would save him on the racetrack.  His death brought shock to the whole world – and the funeral that followed brought Brazil to a complete standstill.  Chillingly, he had predicted that the new regulations for the 1994 season would bring serious accidents, possibly even bring the horrible fatality that he feared could happen.  On May 1^st 1994, the world lost a famous icon, and although Williams found replacement drivers easy to come by, Formula 1 will never see the likes of him.

Ayrton Senna is a legend who leaves an endearing legacy to many, and is a sporting legend that will never be forgotten.

21st March 1960 - 1st May 1994

Imola 1994 - The Darkest Weekend In Formula 1 History

This weekend marks the 16^th anniversary of that shocking April/May weekend at Imola in 1994.  The San Marino Grand Prix will be remembered for one of the most hideous times in Grand Prix history, with a catalogue of spectacular and deadly crashes, which may have helped the safety of today’s modern-day cars, but caused its destruction in the process, taking away the life of the greatest Grand Prix driver of his generation, Ayrton Senna.

The horror of the weekend began on Friday 29^th April 1994, when in the first official qualifying session, the young Brazilian Rubens Barrichello lost control of his Jordan Hart car approaching the quick Variante Bassa chicane.  His car launched off a kerb and smashed into the tyre wall at colossal speed, narrowly avoiding going over some catch fencing, which separated the track from local spectators.  Only the quick reactions of Professor Sid Watkins prevented the talented Barrichello from swallowing his tongue.  Remarkably, he walked away with just a cut lip, minor bruising and a broken nose.  His weekend was over, but his life had remained intact.  It reminded Grand Prix fans and drivers of the real dangers that the sport possesses.  Just 24 hours later, the luck ran out.

31-year old Austrian Roland Ratzenberger was qualifying for only his second Grand Prix, having finished his first race in Aida, Japan just a fortnight earlier.  Eighteen minutes into Saturday’s second qualifying session, Ratzenberger’s front wing broke off exiting the flat-out Tamburello bend.  It is thought that the wing may have been weakened by an earlier off-track excursion.  With no steering capability, the Simtek Ford car ploughed straight into the concrete wall at Villeneuve, on the approach to the Tosa hairpin.  The impact was thought to be close to 200mph, Roland powerless to control any impact with this crash.  With his car smashed to pieces, it came clear from a very early evident stage that Roland wasn’t going to be as lucky as Barrichello was.  Once again, the session was stopped and the medics did what they could to save the rookie’s life.  However, it was a battle in vain, with Ratzenberger being pronounced dead on arrival at Bologna Maggiore Hospital.  He became the first driver to be killed at a race meeting for twelve years, since Ricardo Paletti’s demise at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix.  The last driver to suffer a fatal crash in an F1 car was the Italian Elio de Angelis at the wheel of a Brabham, during a test session at Paul Ricard, France in 1986.  The next tragedy to hit the sport was less than 24 hours away.

Having taken his 65^th pole position, the Williams FW16 of Brazilian, Ayrton Senna raced into an instant lead, from German wunderkind Michael Schumacher (winner of the first two races) and Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari.  However, the race was put under caution, when JJ Lehto’s Benetton stalled on row three of the grid, and was collected immediately by the unsighted Pedro Lamy in the Lotus.  Lamy escaped unhurt and Lehto suffered a light arm injury, but it was spectators hurt; eight of them hit by flying debris from the crumbled Lotus Mugen Honda.  After five laps under Safety Car, Senna charged away, needing the points badly to keep up with Schumacher at the top of the drivers’ standings.  On lap seven, Senna’s car refused to turn into the flat-out Tamburello corner, pitching straight-on into a concrete wall at some 140mph, possibly even greater speed.  The destroyed Williams returned to the edge of the circuit, throwing debris in all directions.  The race was red-flagged.

Once again, it was clear that Senna was in a grave condition from the outset, with very little sign of movement from the cockpit of his car.  As Watkins and the marshals got to work again, the severity of the crash, especially from the pictures being beamed around the world on Eurosport made the scene even worse.  Senna was airlifted to hospital from the track, and very quickly, medical bulletins filtered through that any hope of a recovery was being realistically lost.  The race continued, with Schumacher claiming another win under a deep black cloud.  After the race, Senna was announced as clinically brain dead and his life machine was switched off.  Brazil went into a state of national mourning, the world of sport stunned into silence.  Where would Formula 1 go now, after the loss of its most influential and iconic figure?  Another crash involving Michele Alboreto’s Minardi in the pit lane in the restarted race, which injured mechanics from Lotus and Ferrari just added to the doom and gloom around the Autodromo Enzo E Dino Ferrari.

Fortunately, the steps taken to improve safety in Formula One have been of massive leaps and boundaries.  Many drivers since then, including Robert Kubica, Heikki Kovalainen, Takuma Sato and more recently in Hungary last year, Felipe Massa have had serious, shocking accidents, but have been able to live the tail and go racing again.  The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix will go down as the darkest weekend in motorsport history and sixteen years on, its legacy will remain, but its pain will never heal.

   

R.I.P Roland Ratzenberger & Ayrton Senna: Gone, but never forgotten!