Senna was born in São Paulo. As the son of a wealthy Brazilian
landowner, he quickly developed an interest in motor racing.
Encouraged by his father, a racing enthusiast, Senna got behind the
wheel of his first kart at the age of four. He entered karting
competition at the legal age of 13. Ayrton Senna himself describes
his first ever kart race in a documentary that was made in the early
90s. He described how the circuits were made on regular streets and
car parking lots. Starting positions were written on pieces of paper,
mixed in a helmet and were drawn. The number he drew for his first
race was the number 1. He therefore started his first ever race from
pole position. The competitors were far more experienced but could
not keep up with him on the straights as he was much lighter due to
being much younger than they were. He states that they were much
better in the corners of course, and eventually someone hit him from
behind and he spun off. In 1977, he won the South American Kart
Championship, and was runner up several times in the World
Championship but never won.
Heading for Europe in 1981, he entered the British Formula Ford 1600
competition, which he won. He also adopted his mother's maiden name,
Senna, as da Silva is a very common name in Brazil. In 1982 Senna
combined the British and European Formula Ford 2000 Championships,
winning both. In addition to winning the prestigious and
high-profile Macau Grand Prix, Ayrton saw off the challenges of
Martin Brundle in the 1983 British F3 championship, and after
testing with Williams, McLaren, Brabham and Toleman, he managed to
secure a seat with the latter in time for the 1984 Formula One
season.
The Toleman team was small in comparison to larger teams of that
time like Williams, McLaren, or Brabham. Despite this, the team
built a decent car powered by Hart Turbo engines and it was to be in
this car where Senna's talents soon started to attract notice. He
scored his first World Championship point on April 7, 1984 at the
South African Grand Prix at Kyalami. Three races and two points
later came the high watermark of Senna's debut season when he really
impressed at the Monaco GP. Rain had plagued the event come Sunday
where he started 13th on the grid, but after the start of the race,
he soon was picking his way through the field in the wet on a
circuit not known for overtaking in the dry. By Lap 19, he passed
second place man (a double, and later triple World Champion) Niki
Lauda and soon chased after race leader Alain Prost. However, the
rain started lashing harder and on Lap 31 the race was stopped. (This
would have unfortunate consequences for Prost. Half points for a win
was less than full points for the second place he would have earned
if the event had continued to two-thirds distance, enough to be
counted full race. Few doubt Senna would have got by him.) It was an
impressive first podium for the Brazilian. Two more podium finishes
(thirds) would follow at the British GP at Brands Hatch and at the
season-ending Portuguese GP at Estoril, ultimately placing Senna
ninth in the standings, tied with Nigel Mansell on 13 points.
The next year, Senna joined the Lotus team powered with Renault
engines (albeit in a bit of controversy as he had to buy out the
remaining year in his Toleman contract) and it was expected that
Senna would finally be able to deliver on his promising talent. He
partnered Elio De Angelis and drove one of the best Lotus designs
for several seasons, the 97T. He scored his first of a record
setting 65 pole positions at the season opener in Brazil at the
Jacarepagua Circuit in Rio de Janeiro, only to retire with an
electrical problem. However, at the second round raced at the
Autódromo do Estoril in Estoril, Portugal on April 21, 1985, he
finally scored his first Grand Prix victory, winning from pole
position thanks to an impressive display of wet-weather driving in
treacherous conditions which even saw second-place man (and later
World Champion) Alain Prost spin off into the wall. However, the
remainder of his 1985 season was plagued with mechanical failures
despite his outright speed and his ability to score pole position
after pole position during qualifying. He only managed another win
at the Belgian GP at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit (once
again in wet conditions). At the end of 1985, he finished a
respectable 4th in the World Championship with 38 points and six
podiums (two wins, two seconds and two thirds), as well as snatching
seven pole positions. It was during these years that he also
established a relationship with Bernie Ecclestone. A famous account
is at Spa, where Bernie was standing very close to the guardrail at
a very fast corner. Lap after lap Senna would edge his car closer
and closer to the barrier to "test" the courage of Ecclestone.
Ecclestone later described how incredible he had found Senna's car
control as he ended up tapping the barrier with the tires at 320km/h
(198 mph) lap after lap.
His second season with Lotus however was even better, as the Lotus
car was developed and proved to be a more reliable, if not
consistent package. He started the season on a high finishing second
to his fellow countryman Nelson Piquet at their home event, the
Brazilian GP at Jacarepagua in Rio de Janeiro. He then took the
World Championship lead for the first time in his career after
winning an exciting Spanish GP at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit
in which he managed to hold off the menacing Nigel Mansell in his
Williams-Honda for the victory by just .014 of a second. He would
not last there for long however as the Championship would ultimately
become a straight fight between Alain Prost's McLaren-TAG-Porsche
and the Williams-Honda duo of Piquet and Mansell; key retirements
due to mechanical failures once again befell his chase for the title.
Despite this though, Senna still went on a strong charge, taking his
second victory of the year at the United States GP at Detroit, and
finishing the season fourth (again) with 55 points, 8 pole positions
and six podium finishes (four seconds and two thirds).
1987 came with as much promise for better things as it had before.
Lotus now had the powerful Honda engines after Renault decided to
step out of the sport. After a slow start, Senna won two races in a
row: The prestigious Monaco GP (the first of a record breaking six
victories at the Principality) and the United States GP at Detroit
for the second year in a row, once again taking the World
Championship lead. This time, the Lotus-Honda seemed to be more or
less on par with the all-conquering Williams-Honda cars once again
driven by fellow countryman Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. But
Piquet had an amazing run of consistency throughout the year that
Senna was not able to match, and after a spin due to a faulty clutch
in the third to last round in Mexico, he was out of the championship
hunt, leaving Piquet and teammate Mansell to fight it out for the
last two races. Alas, Mansell badly bruised his back in an accident
while practicing for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka, which
effectively handed the World Championship to Piquet since he would
be out of the season-ending race at Australia in Adelaide as well.
However, this meant that Senna still had a fighting chance to snatch
the runner-up position in the standings if he managed to finish at
least third in both remaining races, and he did more than that by
finishing second in both Japan and Australia. Unfortunately at
Australia, scrutineering found the brake ducts of his Lotus-Honda to
be wider than they should legally have been and he was disqualified,
bringing his last and ultimately best season with Lotus to a sour
end. After the disqualification, he ended third in the Final
Standings, with 57 points, 1 pole position, and 6 podium finishes
(four seconds, not counting the one in which he was disqualified,
and two thirds). However, this season would mark the turning point
of his career as throughout the year, Senna began to build a deep
relationship with Honda, a relationship which would pay off in big
dividends once his contract with Lotus expired at the end of the
season and once the McLaren team soon started calling.
In 1988, thanks to the relationship he had built up with Honda
throughout the 1987 season with Lotus, and with the approval of
McLaren's #1 driver, Alain Prost, Senna joined the McLaren team with
then-two-time World Champion Alain Prost as his team mate. The
foundation for a fierce competition between Senna and Prost was
laid, culminating in a number of dramatic race incidents between the
two. The pair won 15 of 16 races in the dominant McLaren MP4/4 in
1988 (The Italian GP was won by Ferrari) with Senna coming out on
top, achieving his first World Drivers Championship. The following
year their rivalry intensified into battles on the track and a
psychological war off it. This searing rivalry was typified by their
mesmerising race-long battle for victory in the 1989 German Grand
Prix, which Ayrton won. Prost took the championship after the
infamous Suzuka chicane incident, where their two cars tangled Prost
as Senna attempted to overtake. If neither McLaren finished, Prost
was world champion. In 1993 Prost admitted that he had knowingly not
moved aside as he had seen Senna approach. Prost supporters may say
that Prost had the inside line, while Senna supporters may say that
Senna's car was ahead and that Prost appeared to actually turn
slightly towards Senna causing the cars to lock together and go off
the circuit, across the chicane. Senna managed to get back to the
pits for a new nose cone, rejoined the race, retook the lead and won
the race, only to be disqualified for illegally cutting the chicane.
At the Suzuka circuit in 1990, the pole position was located on the
right, 'dirty' side of the track. Senna maintained that, before
qualifying fastest, he had sought and received assurances from
officials that pole position would be on the left, clean side of the
track, only to find this decision reversed after he had taken pole.
At the start of the race Prost pulled ahead but when attempting to
take the first right-handed corner he was hit by Senna. Telemetry
showed Senna made no attempt to decelerate as the corner approached.
Both drivers were removed from the race, meaning that Senna won the
championship. Senna later admitted that it was payback for Prost
taking them both out the year before in the 1989 Suzuka chicane
incident. For critics, it was an act of breathtaking cynicism and
one for which Senna received much criticism. He was accused by some
of introducing a "video game" mentality of "win at all costs" into
the sport, an accusation later repeated against his successor
Michael Schumacher. On the track Senna could be ruthless, showing at
times extreme determination and precision.
Senna was most renowned for his qualifying skill, a discipline he
mastered like none before to produce a record 65 pole positions out
of 161 races. This record stood for 12 years after his death, before
it was surpassed by Michael Schumacher while qualifying for the 2006
San Marino Grand Prix, his 236th race.
"Magic" Senna, as he was known to his fans, also won the Monaco GP
six times, a record which stands today and a tribute to his skills
which earned him the title "Master of Monaco".
Ayrton described in detail an odd feeling that he got during his
qualifying laps. His experience when qualifying for the 1988 Monaco
GP for example he described as being in a tunnel or dream like
state:
"..the last qualifying session. I was already on pole, then by half
a second and then one second and I just kept going. Suddenly I was
nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate
with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer
driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct,
only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel.
Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a
tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more.
I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.
"Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and
realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are.
My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down. I drove slowly
back to the pits and I didn't want to go out any more that day. It
frightened me because I was well beyond my conscious understanding.
It happens rarely but I keep these experiences very much alive
inside me because it is something that is important for
self-preservation."
In that session, lap after lap he broke his own pole position time,
until he felt ill at ease, backed off and returned to the pits.
Senna's absolute determination to win manifested itself in dismay at
McLaren's inability to challenge Williams in 1992. With Prost signed
up by the Grove based squad for 1993 and possessing a veto over
Senna joining him, Ayrton considered a sabbatical from F1. He tested
for Marlboro Team Penske in Indycars, setting swift times and
exciting the motoring press. Of course, this test was but a one-off,
but the prospect of both Senna and Mansell racing Indycars in 1993
was a brilliant scenario.
In 1994, Senna finally left the ailing McLaren team for the top team
at the end of 1993 Williams-Renault. After the banning of active
suspension Williams started the season trying to close the gap to
Benetton. Senna failed to finish his first two races, despite taking
two superb pole positions against the Benetton at both events. On
May 1 1994, he took part in his third race for the team, the San
Marino GP. Although he would not finish it, Senna started his last
race from pole position.
That weekend, he was particularly upset by two events. On the Friday
of the Grand Prix, during the morning session, Senna's protégé, the
then newcomer Rubens Barrichello was involved in a serious accident
that would prevent him from competing in the race. Senna visited
Barrichello in the hospital (he jumped the wall at the back of the
facility after being barred from visitation by the doctors) and was
then convinced that safety standards had to be reviewed. On
Saturday, the death of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger in
practice forced the issue and even caused Senna to consider
retiring. Ironically, he spent his final morning in meetings with
fellow drivers, determined by Ratzenberger's accident to take on a
new responsibility to re-create a Driver's Safety group to look at
safety changes in Formula One. As the most senior driver, he was
offered (and accepted) the role of leader in this effort.
A crash at the start of the race involving Pedro Lamy and J. J.
Lehto (in which a stray wheel hit spectators in the grandstand)
caused the caution flag to wave. On the second lap after the
restart, Senna's car left the track in Tamburello and struck an
unprotected concrete wall. Telemetry shows he left the track at 193
mph and although he managed to slow his car to 135 mph in less than
two seconds, his car struck the concrete barrier. After Senna's car
had come to a halt false hopes were raised when his head was clearly
seen to move slightly. Professor Sidney Watkins M.D., F.R.C.S.,
O.B.E. a world-renowned neurosurgeon and Formula One Safety Delegate
and Medical Delegate, head of the Formula One on-track medical team,
who performed an on site tracheotomy on Ayrton Senna, reported:
"He looked serene. I raised his eyelids and it was clear from his
pupils that he had a massive brain injury. We lifted him from the
cockpit and laid him on the ground. As we did, he sighed and,
although I am totally agnostic, I felt his soul departed at that
moment."
Senna was 34 years old. The lack of information on the cause of
death led to much speculation. What is known is that the front right
tire with attached suspension piece became loose on impact, hit
Senna on the head and pierced his visor, causing the fatal trauma.
Images of Senna's battered helmet indicate that some sort of
puncture had occurred at the top of the visor, just over his right
eye. This led to the now most commonly accepted theory that one of
the car's suspension bars had come loose and impacted with Senna's
head.
The FIA and Italian authorities still maintain that Senna was not
killed instantly, but rather died in hospital, to where he had been
rushed by helicopter after an emergency tracheotomy and IV
administration were performed. There is an ongoing debate as to why
Senna was not declared dead at the track. Under Italian law when a
person dies at a sporting event, that death must be investigated,
causing the sporting event to be cancelled. The Director of the
Oporto (Portugal) Legal Medicine Institute, Professor Pinto da
Costa, has stated the following:
"From the ethical viewpoint, the procedure used for Ayrton's body
was wrong. It involved dysthanasia, which means that a person has
been kept alive improperly after biological death has taken place
due to brain injuries so serious that the patient would never have
been able to remain alive without mechanical means of support. There
would have been no prospect of normal life and relationships.
Whether or not Ayrton was removed from the car while his heart was
beating or whether his supply of blood had halted or was still
flowing, is irrelevant to the determination of when he died.
The autopsy showed that the crash caused multiple fractures at the
base of the cranium, crushing the forehead and rupturing the
temporal artery with haemorrhage in the respiratory passages. It is
possible to resuscitate a dead person immediately after the heart
stops through cardio-respiratory processes. The procedure is known
as putting the patient on the machine. From the medical-legal
viewpoint, in Ayrton's case, there is a subtle point: resuscitation
measures were implemented.
From the ethical point of view this might well be condemned because
the measures were not intended to be of strictly medical benefit to
the patient but rather because they suited the commercial interest
of the organisation. Resuscitation did in fact take place, with the
tracheotomy performed, while the activity of the heart was restored
with the assistance of cardio-respiratory devices. The attitude in
question was certainly controversial. Any physician would know there
was no possibility whatsoever of successfully restoring life in the
condition in which Senna had been found." [2]
Professor Jose Pratas Vital, Director of the Egas Moniz hospital in
Lisbon, a neurosurgeon and Head of the Medical Staff at the
Portuguese GP, offers a different opinion:
"The people who conducted the autopsy stated that, on the evidence
of his injuries, Senna was dead. They could not say that. He had
injuries which lead to his death, but at that point the heart may
still have been functioning. Medical personnel attending an injured
person, and who perceive that the heart is still beating, have only
two courses of action:
One is to ensure that the patient's respiratory passages remain
free, which means that he can breathe. They had to carry out an
emergency tracheotomy. With oxygen, and the heart beating, there is
another concern, which is loss of blood. These are the steps to be
followed in any case involving serious injury, whether on the street
or on a racetrack. The rescue team can think of nothing else at that
moment except to assist the patient, particularly by immobilising
the cervical area. Then the injured person must be taken immediately
to the intensive care unit of the nearest hospital". [3]
Rogério Morais Martins [Micropower] states that:
"According to the first clinical bulletin read by Dr. Maria Teresa
Fiandri at 4.30 p.m. Ayrton Senna had brain damage with haemorrhaged
shock and deep coma. However, the medical staff did not note any
chest or abdomen wound. The haemorrhage was due to the rupture of
the temporal artery. The neurosurgeon who examined Ayrton Senna at
the hospital mentioned that the circumstances did not call for
surgery because the wound was generalised in the cranium. At 6.05
p.m. Dr. Fiandri read another communiqué, her voice shaking,
announcing that Senna was dead. At that stage he was still connected
to the equipment that maintained his heartbeat.
The release by the Italian authorities of the results of Ayrton
Senna's autopsy, revealing that the driver had died instantaneously
during the race at Imola, ignited still more controversy. Now there
were questions about the reactions of the race director and the
medical authorities. Although spokespersons for the hospital had
stated that Senna was still breathing on arrival in Bologna, the
autopsy on Ratzenberger [who died the day before] indicated that
death had been instantaneous. Under Italian law, a death within the
confines of the circuit would have required the cancellation of the
entire race meeting.
That in turn, would have prevented the death of Ayrton Senna.
The relevant Italian legislation stipulates that when a death takes
place during a sporting event, it should be immediately halted and
the area sealed off for examination. In the case of Ratzenberger,
this would have meant the cancellation of both Saturday's qualifying
session and the San Marino Grand Prix on Sunday.
Medical experts are unable to state whether or not Ayrton Senna died
instantaneously. Nevertheless, they were well aware that his chances
of survival were slight. Had he remained alive, the brain damage
would have left him severely handicapped. Accidents such as this are
almost always fatal, with survivors suffering irreversible brain
damage. This is due to the effects on the brain of sudden
deceleration, which causes structural damage to the brain tissues.
Estimates of the forces involved in Ayrton's accident suggest a rate
of deceleration equivalent to a 30 metre vertical drop, landing
head-first. Evidence offered at the autopsy revealed that the impact
of this 208km/h crash caused multiple injuries at the base of the
cranium, resulting in respiratory insufficiency.
There was crushing of the brain (which was forced against the wall
of the cranium causing oedema and haemorrhage, increasing
intra-cranial pressure and causing brain death), together with the
rupture of the temporal artery, haemorrhage in the respiratory
passages and the consequent heart failure.
There are two opposing theories on the issue of whether the drivers
were still alive when they were put in the helicopters that carried
them to hospital. Assuming both Ratzenberger and Senna had died
instantaneously, the race organisers might have delayed any
announcement in order to avoid being forced to cancel the meeting,
thus protecting their financial interests.
Had the meeting been cancelled, Sagis - the organisation which
administers the Imola circuit - stood to lose an estimated US$6.5
million." [4] [5]
The FIA dismisses that conception as an unfounded conspiracy theory.
The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola was immediately
investigated by the FIA, and the track's signature Tamburello, a
lightning rod of controversy because of the lack of run-off and two
previous incidents – Piquet's 1987 crash in Friday practice caused
by a tyre failure, which kept him out of the race, forced Goodyear
to withdraw all tyres after the first practice, and replace tyres
for Saturday's qualifying session. Two years later, Gerhard Berger's
Ferrari was in flames after another tyre failure early in the race,
surviving because of alert safety workers, and actually caused by a
front wing failure. But Senna's death meant the end of the sweeper,
and it was replaced by a chicane in 1995.
In 2000, he was posthumously inducted into the International
Motorsports Hall of Fame.
In 2004, a television documentary by National Geographic called
Seconds from disaster: The death of Ayrton Senna was screened
worldwide. The programme considered the available data from Senna's
car to reconstruct the sequence of events that led to the fatal
crash. The programme concluded that an unusually long safety car
period had reduced the pressures in Senna's tyres, thereby lowering
the car. As the car entered the Tamburello bend, it bottomed-out and
the loss of the ground effect led to a sudden reduction in
downforce, and hence grip. As Senna instinctively corrected the
resultant slide, the downforce and grip suddenly returned, and Senna
effectively drove off the circuit. The programme came to the
conclusion that if Senna's reactions had actually been slower, he
might have survived the crash. To many within the F1 world including
drivers of that era who had raced at Imola, the conclusions drawn
from low tyre pressure as a cause of the accident seem highly
implausible. Telemetry recorded that Senna took the bend at 190mph
on lap 6 with cold tyres. The information released in the trial
stated that Senna started the race with 86 litres of fuel and had
planned a two stop race strategy, one less than Schumacher who
started the race lighter on a 3 stop strategy. The theory that low
tyre pressure caused the crash was defeated in court when Stefano
Stefanini, head of Bologna's traffic accident unit, testified that
Senna, with a heavier car than Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill,
recorded a time of 1.24.887 on the sixth lap, Ayrton's only lap at
race speed and the 3rd fastest lap of the race. Alboreto and other
drivers of the era claimed that given Senna's lap time, his tyres
would have been at race temperature by the 7th lap and could not
have been a factor in the crash.
Senna in the MP4/8 at Monaco in 1993The ban on active suspension
affected Williams more than any other team as it was the key
development that had helped make the Williams car the class of the
field from 1991-1993. 1994 started with the Williams drivers
complaining of severe handling problems and a twitchy rear-end. The
FW16 new rear end was introduced at Imola. It was ironic that at the
beginning of 1994 Senna himself had told the press that he would be
surprised if there would be no large accidents that year. He
referred to the fact that after the wide "white label" 26" Goodyear
slicks were banned for 1993 (replaced by "yellow label"), now the
technology at the very core of the cars, the science around which
they had been based for the last few years (active suspension,
traction control and ABS) was also banned for 1994. He surmised that
the cars would have trouble staying on the road, which is exactly
what was observed at the beginning of 1994. J.J. Lehto damaged his
vertebrae at Silverstone in January and Jean Alesi broke his neck in
pre-season testing, prior to Ratzenberger's and Senna's fatal
accidents at Imola. During qualifying for the next race at Monaco,
Wendlinger suffered an accident which left him comatose for months;
Ratzenberger's replacement, Andrea Montermini, broke his feet in the
Simtek in Barcelona, and Pedro Lamy broke both knee-caps in testing
at Silverstone in May. None of these accidents was deemed to be
caused by driver error, although there is no evidence to suggest
that the accidents were caused by the ban on driver aids.
There are other factors – Senna did not like the position of the
steering column relative to his seating position and had repeatedly
asked for it to be changed. At Imola Senna found himself in a car
with his team's engineers struggling to cope and adapt to the ban of
active suspension. Patrick Head and Adrian Newey agreed to Senna's
request to shorten the FW16's wheelbase, but there was no time to
manufacture a shortened steering shaft. The existing shaft was
instead cut, shortened, and welded back together with reinforcing
plates. Many surmise, based on comparing hours of onboard video
footage from Brazil and Imola that the movement of the steering
wheel during the race at Imola was completely abnormal. Senna on his
final lap is seen turning the wheel left to full lock with no
movement of the front wheels. Others have raised suspicion at what
can clearly be seen on the onboard footage as Senna looking down
onto his steering wheel seconds before entering Tamburello.
The astonishing irony of the on board video available from Senna's
car is that the final seconds of footage before Senna's car impacts
the wall, are missing. The approximately 1.5 seconds of remaining
video which would have provided a definite answer as to the cause of
Senna's death were lost in an act of astounding coincidence when the
TV race director decided to switch camera signals at the very
instant the Williams started to leave the track.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, numerous rumours abound that the remaining
1.5 seconds are not lost and reportedly show Senna's steering wheel
clearly coming off in his hands as his car is leaving the track.
Although allegations exist that this video has been seen by a number
of people at the top level of motorsport, there is no evidence to
support its existence.
Senna's distinctive helmetDamon Hill, Senna's teammate at the time
of his death, had this to say in an interview given on the subject
10 years later.
"After the warm-up we went to the drivers' briefing. Ayrton was
upbeat and determined after his good performance, but he had
concerns about the new safety car regulations. These fears were to
be prophetic. It was a measure of the political climate of Formula
One that Ayrton Senna felt it necessary to get other drivers to ask
questions about the safety car so that he did not appear to be
alone. The implication was that the bosses made the rules; if you
had issues with that, they would make sure you knew who ran things.
So we got on to the subject of the safety car (importantly distinct
from the "pace car" used to spice up US racing).
Ayrton became vociferous, claiming that it was ill-conceived and
dangerous for one specific reason — the temperature of the tyres of
a Formula One car is critical in several respects. One, they only
stick when they are very hot; two, the pressure varies enormously
with temperature and, consequently, the stability of the tyre
construction.
To sum up: if a Formula One car has to follow an ordinary road car
it will not travel fast enough for the tyres to keep within their
designed working temperature and pressure. I believe this was a
contributing factor in Ayrton's accident, as the safety car was
deployed directly after the start, exactly as he had feared.
And so it was we left the briefing on Sunday having agreed to pay
some kind of tribute to Roland on the grid. We went to the normal
sponsor functions and then back to the motorhome. I never really
talked or spent any time with Ayrton before the race. Everything was
extremely businesslike, with an added severity because of the death
of Roland." [6]
The Williams team was entangled for many years in a court case with
the Italian prosecutors over manslaughter charges, but they were
found not guilty and no action was taken against Williams. In 2004,
the case was re-opened, but closed again in 2005 when there was no
new evidence.
His death was considered by many of his Brazilian fans to be a
national tragedy, and three days of national mourning were declared.
Senna is buried at the Cemitério do Morumbi in his hometown of São
Paulo.
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