Chip

For anyone who was a fan of Ayrton theres a prog on CH4 at 9.30 tonight. Supposed to reveal the truth about his death.

Chip.

P.S I thought he died when he hit the wall at 100+mph. Maybe they know something we dont.

rob588

Am I being thick I can't seem to find it.

Rob

mega_stream

Yup
Its called "going critical"

Neil Smalley

I saw it. Not sure I bought the explanation mind. Cold tyres, lowering the ride height which caused the car to lose downforce.

I think that Senna was too good, not to realise that he'd have cold tyres and their effects after the safety car went in?

Bitten Hero

Sounds a bit fishy to me, but could be true I suppose. Normally takes the tyres about 1-2 laps (depending on compound, weather conditions etc) to get to normal operating temperature. Apart from anything else they should have been logging ride height (we do)...

Mind you, what do they expect, using a Vauxhall Cavalier (or rather the Opel version of it) as a safety car

Richard

[This message has been edited by Bitten Hero (edited 25 September 2001).]

sasman

More padding than an American footballer, was it paid for by an F1 team. I am not convinced, "The car stepped out and Senna caught it a tenth later" I thought it took 3 tenths to even react, so much for there moment by moment analysis. Someone knows the hole story but this seemed full of holes.

Hoppy

Missed it, but I remember cold tyres being the common conclusion at the time.

The safety car was a Calibra Turbo (same as mine). There's no way that thing could even keep it's own tyres warm on a circuit.

Richard.

zjs

Personally I don't think the truth will ever be fully revealed. Liability wars would start up.

On a similar note though, did you know that a movie about Ayrton Senna is being produced? It'll star Antonia Banderas as the stroppy little driver.

Not sure on the release dates or anything else though.

Zak

DavidRB

If you want to read more about the accident and trial (from an admittedly biased viewpoint), take a look at the official website,

DR Motorsport

The final conclusions of the accident aren't too far away, I think.

The safety car had run for 5 or 6 laps by then, and the drivers complained then that it was too slow, and the tyres had cooled down too much. Now the Safety car is an AMG Merc driven by a F3000 driver.

Senna had warned Hill not to hit the bump in the middle of the corner as the cars were bottoming out before the race, and to take a wider line through it. Senna didn't. Now all the cars run at a higher ride height and have a wooden plank under them.

The steering column was modified after the first 2 races, the drivers requested more room in the cockpit, but also the wheelbase of the cars had been lengthened due to the cars rear being prone to suddenly snapping out of line. This was done before Imola.

Data logging was quite new then and not as advanced as it is now. The Williams did have a logger on board, but it was housed in the side pod that was destroyed and was useless, but this info could only be accessed once the car was back in the pits and plugged in. However they piggybacked the telemetry from the Renault engine and was downloaded every time the car passed the pits. But the car ever passed the pits again, so they downloaded the info when it came back on the back of the trailer. It was with this info, that they raised the ride height on Hills car and also disconnected the power steering before the restart. This info showed the car had a sudden dip and rise in the power steering system as the car bottomed out and the tyres went light.

This info came from a friend who was a suspension engineer with Williams in the early 90's working with Mansell and Prost on their active cars.

So as I said, I don't think the program was too far away from the actual events. It just didn't look at the whole picture.

David