Official Senna telemetry Imola 94?

[Webber2011]

I don't know the exact cause of Senna's crash, but I do have an amateur video taken several months before the race at a practise session.
It shows his car coming through the Tamburello and bottoming out quite badly several laps in a row.
Some time later the course car turns up,Ayrton gets out and is seen discussing the corner with several officials.
While it can't be heard what they are saying it appears obvious from his hand gestures he is complaining about the bumpy surface.
Once Senna returns to the track he is visibly slower through that section.

In the race he didn't have the option to take the corner slower, and probably wouldn't have done anyway.
I believe the surface, combined with a full tank and low pressures to be the major cause.

That sounds like some very interesting footage - any chance of you sharing this with us?

Yeah mate, hopefully not too far in the future.
It's an old vhs tape but I don't have vhs to digital capabilities at home, so a friend of mine is copying it for me.
Only goes for a couple of minutes out of a 2 hour vid, but as soon as he gets it done I will put it on youtube or something and share with you guys.

[MOWOG]

That will be a great service to the racing fraternity! =D>

[MadMatt]

What do you mean? The FIA imposed several modifications on cars, and changed the layout of few tracks as well.

Pre mid-'94? Surely there were some changes, but they were minor. The cockpit safety compared to Indycar was grossly inadequate until 1996!

Well, I think the reduced power and the changes that bdr529 shown were enough. It is true that we saw a bad accident at Monaco but this is due to the particular nature of the track. I must remind you that the teams at that time did not have as much personal as now, less machining and engineering capacities, so what do you expect? A new car in 2 weeks? Let's be realistic.

[GitanesBlondes]

If you want to know what happened to Senna, the most telling rule change the FIA made was in establishing a minimum ride height for cars.

The steering column crap was all a smokescreen to the fact that the car was running too low for Imola.

Also regarding electronics, it was announced at the Canadian Grand Prix in 1993 they would all be banned for the 1994 season.

[MadMatt]

Yes, I always thought that the crash was the result of the steering column breaking because of the bumps. If you carefully look at the replay, the column breaks right on a big bump (the camera "blitz"). It is just my 2 cents analysis but that's what I always thought what happened.

[tpe]

For the Senna's accident, I have a series of questions:
a. What happen to the on-board camera? OK, the director decided to change camera at the most critical moment, but what about videos?
b. What happen to the recorder? Wasn't Williams recording data from the car to their computers?
c. Why the car was returned to Williams?
etc, etc, etc...

To me, it's clear that some kind of cover-up happen.

[GitanesBlondes]

Yes, I always thought that the crash was the result of the steering column breaking because of the bumps. If you carefully look at the replay, the column breaks right on a big bump (the camera "blitz"). It is just my 2 cents analysis but that's what I always thought what happened.

Honestly, try welding two pieces of metal together, and then attempt to snap it with your own two hands.

The amount of force required to do so is so immense, that you won't be able to do it.

You would then have to believe in spite of your being unable to do so, that through normal driving motions, that one could actually perform such an incredible feat of strength in a sitting position.

The bumps are what causes the bottom of the car to bottom out, thus sending the car straight towards the wall. If Senna had been running the car at the height Damon Hill had his FW-16 at, nothing would have happened, and he would have finished the race barring any mechanical failures.

[tpe]

The bumps are what causes the bottom of the car to bottom out, thus sending the car straight towards the wall. If Senna had been running the car at the height Damon Hill had his FW-16 at, nothing would have happened, and he would have finished the race barring any mechanical failures.

That is a very possible reason. It doesn't explain why the wheels are not shown to be turned towards the tarmac as soon as the car was on the gravel. Senna was a 3 times WDC not some rookie. That is the main argument for the broken steering column.
Check that video @ 1:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkqrtNKknHs

[timbo]

Honestly, try welding two pieces of metal together, and then attempt to snap it with your own two hands.

The amount of force required to do so is so immense, that you won't be able to do it.

You would then have to believe in spite of your being unable to do so, that through normal driving motions, that one could actually perform such an incredible feat of strength in a sitting position.

Now expose that welded column (which is thinwalled as everything in F1 is right on the limit of minimum possible weight) to vibrations and forces on an F1 car. Can you predict the onset of metal fatigue?

The bumps are what causes the bottom of the car to bottom out, thus sending the car straight towards the wall. If Senna had been running the car at the height Damon Hill had his FW-16 at, nothing would have happened, and he would have finished the race barring any mechanical failures.

The problem is that when the car bottoms out it would likely to skip to the side and exhibit oversteer.
Senna crash was an understeer moment.

[GitanesBlondes]

The bumps are what causes the bottom of the car to bottom out, thus sending the car straight towards the wall. If Senna had been running the car at the height Damon Hill had his FW-16 at, nothing would have happened, and he would have finished the race barring any mechanical failures.

That is a very possible reason. It doesn't explain why the wheels are not shown to be turned towards the tarmac as soon as the car was on the gravel. Senna was a 3 times WDC not some rookie. That is the main argument for the broken steering column.
Check that video @ 1:09 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkqrtNKknHs

The wheel movement was minimal as Tamburello was a sweeping left corner that did not require full lock on the steering wheel. Don't believe me? Watch Nelson Piquet driving the circuit in 1991, and then notice how much the wheels move when going through the corner.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3KUA_NwhE[/youtube]

Other reason for wheels not showing to be turned as when one goes off the circuit is very much for the same reason you mention him being a 3 time world champion. There was a point at which he knew he was going off the circuit as he was able to hit the brakes cutting the speed from 190MPH down to 130MPH. One of the things any experienced driver would do if they know they are going to hit a wall is to take their hands right off of the steering wheels because of the hand injuries that can occur when holding on to it as can observed in this crash that Mark Blundell had in CART...

http://youtu.be/v5XWsTb6cFs?t=3m8s

[TzeiTzei]

For the Senna's accident, I have a series of questions:
a. What happen to the on-board camera? OK, the director decided to change camera at the most critical moment, but what about videos?

Not sure, but i've always thought that they had more onboard cameras than tape recorders. So they had to choose which cameras were actually recording. Those days the world feed was produced by local tv companies, but the onboard cameras were operated by FOCA (Bernie).

b. What happen to the recorder? Wasn't Williams recording data from the car to their computers?

It was damaged. There are all sorts of rumours about the condition of the onboard computer after the crash and whether or not it was deliberately destroyed afterwards. And as has been mentioned in this thread, there was a second onboard computer for the engine, which had some data left in it after the crash. Telemetry isnt perfect (trees etc.), so the data from the car probably didnt reach the pits before the crash. Also, i'm not quite sure whether Williams had real time telemetry or was the data sent only once a lap when the car passed the pits.

c. Why the car was returned to Williams?

Either they didnt think it would be a murder investigation or they thought exactly that.

[GitanesBlondes]

Honestly, try welding two pieces of metal together, and then attempt to snap it with your own two hands.

The amount of force required to do so is so immense, that you won't be able to do it.

You would then have to believe in spite of your being unable to do so, that through normal driving motions, that one could actually perform such an incredible feat of strength in a sitting position.

Now expose that welded column (which is thinwalled as everything in F1 is right on the limit of minimum possible weight) to vibrations and forces on an F1 car. Can you predict the onset of metal fatigue?

The problem is that when the car bottoms out it would likely to skip to the side and exhibit oversteer.
Senna crash was an understeer moment.

Let's consider this logically speaking.

The steering column just happens to break in a corner that requires very little driver force?

Meanwhile on lap 6 as Senna headed down towards the Tamburello, you could see the Williams bottoming out already. As he turned in towards the apex, a huge shower of sparks came from the undertray. Schumacher said that Senna almost lost the car passing through the corner on lap 6. Senna reported no issue back to the pits of anything being wrong with the steering of the car.

He comes around for lap 7, and again the car is still bottoming out on the run down to the Tamburello. When he hits the undulations in the corner, the car sent out a huge spray of sparks, and then went straight off the circuit into the wall.

There is a fairly high chance those two events are connected; bottoms out, then veers off the track.

It's sort of like if you are riding a motorcycle, and the foot peg hits the ground, you will go straight off the track as the bike will not respond to steering. Same thing with the Williams...it created a surfboard effect that drove the car in the direction it's nose was pointing in.

The steering column explanation is as bogus as it comes, and anyone should know that the Italian court HAD to find something and someone to blame the entire incident on. Colin Chapman had to steer clear of Italy after Jochen Rindt was killed at Monza 1970 because they were out to blame someone for that too.

There is zero evidence that the column broke beforehand.

[sennafan24]

That will be a great service to the racing fraternity! =D>

I second this

Webber2011, I would be very grateful

[timbo]

The steering column just happens to break in a corner that requires very little driver force?

You are not correct. The higher the speed, the more the DF, the more the grip = more force required for steering.

[GitanesBlondes]

The steering column just happens to break in a corner that requires very little driver force?

You are not correct. The higher the speed, the more the DF, the more the grip = more force required for steering.

Still didn't break the steering column.