Makestation

May 1, 1994, today 26 years ago

"It was Senna!" The outcry of an Italian colleague on May 1st, 1994 at 2.17 p.m. also shocked the media representatives in the press center of the race track in Imola. The Brazilian, who was considered invulnerable, had crashed into the Tamburello curve on the wall with his Williams, and Senna was, as it turned out later, killed by the right front tire.

Ratzenberger killed in an accident

Rubens Barrichello's horror accident, which miraculously escaped with a broken nose, already frightened everyone on Friday. And less than 24 hours later, the premier class mourned another fatality twelve years after Riccardo Paletti (Montreal). The Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, after the front wing of his Simtek was broken, raced unscrupulously into the guardrails at over 300 km/h.

Senna the best ever, R.I.P

I was reading about this yesterday after chasing a Wikipedia trail. Very tragic. I hadn't realized there was an incident where multiple drivers died before.

Wiki trail -> Lorenzo de Medici -> Imola -> Senna Crash

Back then I saw it live on TV

R.I.P. Ayrton Senna :'( . His death came a few years before I started watching Formula One; however, it was a tragic loss to the sport as a whole. His untimely passing left so may unanswered questions: how many more championships would he have won, and how would the inevitable battles with Michael Schumacher have gone?

If there's one silver lining, it's that his passing (and that of Roland Ratzenberger the previous day) led to a renewed drive for improved safety in the sport. As a result, the sport went for a straight 20 years afterwards without another driver fatality (and F1's clean track record since 1994 has been interrupted only by tragic freak accident for Jules Bianchi at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, which took his life in hospital nine months later).

Formula 1 wants 100% safety, but it does not exist and if it does, the sport becomes as boring as it is now. Motogp is simply the more exciting sport. Formula 1 drivers earn millions and again a lot, but want security like behind the Playstation4, but an accident cannot happen, then they have to do without their billions of dollars even if there is no longer any risk in the race