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It was 15 years ago today...

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    It was 15 years ago today...


    #2
    It was 15 years ago today...

    Do you know what, just having posted that picture brings a lump to my throat.

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      #3
      It was 15 years ago today...

      That was a black weekend, a reminder of the old days when that sort of thing was commonplace. I think everyone had become rather complacent and thought that safety advances had made it impossible for an F1 driver to die. When two die on the same weekend, one of them the yardstick by which every other was judged, it destroyed that comfortable bubble in which the sport had been living and made all the drivers feel incredibly vulnerable - reading the motoring press afterwards, there was such a feeling of "Well, if Senna can be killed, where does that leave the rest of us mere mortals?"

      I seem to recall that he'd insisted on going to the site of Ratzenbergers crash the previous day, just as he had with Martin Donnelly's unpleasant accident several years before. Partly this was ascribed to his desire to peer into the abyss and try to understand what had happened, but partly I think this was down to Senna's humanity. His press conferences on days like that were utterly mesmerising and gave the lie to suggestions that he was a cold, calculating person.

      I hadn't even watched the race, I'd gone to the stock cars at a seaside track in Lancashire, and it hadn't even been mentioned on the tannoy. I got back into the car to hear a very subdued Alan Green commentating on a football match, observing that everything else pales into insignificance "....after the terrible news from Imola".

      I remember thinking "Oh fuck, what else could go wrong after yesterday?", and being completely disbelieving when he elaborated. A real Princess Diana moment (or perhaps she was a Senna moment) when you cannot believe what you're hearing and time seems to stand still.

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        #4
        It was 15 years ago today...

        Oh, and there's a quite beautiful piece on dotmund's blog on the subject, too. http://totoroche.wordpress.com/

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          #5
          It was 15 years ago today...

          That is, indeed, a very good piece. And a good blog too.

          Senna did go to the site of Roland Ratzenberger's crash, for his own reasons as well as to attempt to find out something for the benefit of himself and the other drivers. One of the touching facts about Sennas own crash was that investigators found a rolled up Austrian flag in the wreckage of his car. It appears that Senna had planned to raise it in memory of Ratzenberger, presumably once he had won the race in his honour.

          Senna was a gentleman racer in many ways. A flawed gentleman for sure and a driver who many found annoying at times. Perhaps annoyingly good is more accurate as that kind of talent brings on the desire - from some quarters - for winners to lose.

          Sporting tragedies can hurt. For the Munich Olympics I was 10 years old so really didn't understand what was happening. Hillsborough and Heysel were shocking to watch unfold on TV but I didn't feel that close to them on a personal level. Ayrton Senna was driving for me when he got in the car. I was in shock when I watched this happen.

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