0 Published by Martin Zustak 2013 Copyright © Martin Zustak 2013 All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. First published in Ireland in December 2013 Second edition, August 2014 (version 2.8) ISBN 978-0-9575657-0-8 www.martinzustak.com twitter.com/mzustak 1 There is no end to the knowledge you can get or the understanding or the peace by going deeper and deeper. Ayrton Senna 2 Preface I never met Ayrton Senna but I was a fan. Since his untimely death on May 1, 1994 at Imola, every book imaginable has already been written about him, except for one. The subject of that missing book is contentious because it addresses the fundamental question of what caused Senna’s car to veer off the track at 300km/h on Lap 7 of the San Marino Grand Prix. Tamburello was conceived more than fifteen years ago as a private project to fulfil my own need for understanding. The original project had grown in fits and starts and lay dormant for over a decade until its resurrection when I was approached to publish again my old material on Imola ’94. What began as minor revision of a short article has metamorphosed into a book. I’m painfully aware of the fact that - for many understandable reasons - the cause of Ayrton Senna’s accident remains a sensitive subject, but I feel an obligation towards the wider world to share what I’ve discovered. Any inaccurate assumptions or misinterpretations of proprietary design specifications, measurement inaccuracies, errors and omissions are entirely mine. Martin Zustak December 2013 3 Acknowledgements My foremost thanks to the late Christopher Hilton, whose numerous books on Senna and motor sport have been a source of inspiration. I still fondly remember our phone conversations and the visit to his family home in Hearts, UK, back in the spring of 2000. In compiling this book I have drawn background and quoted from several published works. All the relevant credits are indicated in the text and referenced in the Bibliography. For permission to quote, I formally thank Helen Wilson of The Guardian newspaper, and Graham Cook of Haynes Publishing. My most grateful thanks to Paul-Henri Cahier, who supplied the cover photo; to Remi Humbert and Joachim Kutt of GurneyFlap.com, who kindly allowed me to reproduce the close-up shots of Williams’ 1994 car; to Giorgia Buselli, Darragh Colgan, Tycho Schenkeveld, Dalin Vyskovsky, and Martin Kyncl for their generous assistance; and to all those who willingly helped but did not wish to be named in the book. Thanks, also, to the many motor racing enthusiasts whose videos on YouTube have helped massively in research. I am especially indebted to Mark Clair, the founder of RaceRecall in Victoria, Australia, for allowing me to reproduce and annotate the Mustang 350GT accident sequence. I’m most grateful to Patrizia Coluccia, the friendly Press Officer at CINECA in Italy, who kindly gave me permission to enhance the original CINECA material and videos. The book would not have been possible without her support. I owe a particular debt to Rini Ruitenschild, CEO of Hydroline Powersteering B.V. in the Netherlands, for his valuable comments and for putting me in touch with the incredible Tony Woodward, CEO of Woodward Machine Corporation in Casper, USA. Tony generously gave his time and expertise and dealt patiently with my questions about the ins and outs of power steering. This book would have been hollow without him. 4 Fact file AYRTON SENNA 1960 – Born on March 21 in Sao Paolo, Brazil, to Neyde and Milton da Silva. 1964 – Gets a go-kart from his father and inadvertently discovers a world which fulfils his inner needs for control and detail. 1979 – Go-karting race in Jesolo, Italy. Overtaken by his experienced teammate Terry Fullerton and finishes second. Back in the hotel, pushes Fullerton into the swimming pool. 1981 – Norfolk, England. Moves to single-seaters, winning two Formula Ford championships. Unexpectedly decides to quit at the end of the season and flies home to Brazil. 1982 – Returns to England, divorced and fully committed to being a professional racing driver. 1982 –Rejects an offer from Ron Dennis of McLaren to race in the junior F3 category because the contract doesn’t guarantee him a future seat in F1. 1983 – Graduates to F3 on his own terms and wins the first nine races. 5 Fact file AYRTON SENNA 1984 – Arrives to F1 with the midfield Toleman team. Makes his mark in the rain-soaked Monaco Grand Prix by finishing second to Alain Prost in the McLaren. 1985 – Estoril, Portugal. Scores his maiden F1 win in torrential rain in only his second race with Team Lotus, almost lapping the whole field in the process. 1986 – Jerez, Spain. Amazes the Lotus engineers by being able to recall the car’s speed and revs at every corner around the circuit. In qualifying, predicts his own time to a fraction of a second. 1986 – Detroit, USA. Skips the mandatory press conference after setting pole position in qualifying in order to watch Brazil lose in the football World Cup against France. Wins the race the next day and waves the Brazilian flag on his victory lap. 1987 – Monza, Italy. Announces a deal with Ron Dennis to join McLaren alongside two-time World Champion Alain Prost. Stays for the next six seasons. 6 Fact file AYRTON SENNA 1988 – Monte Carlo, Monaco. Fastest in qualifying by an astounding margin, 1.427s clear of teammate Alain Prost. Later confesses to having an out of body experience on the record lap. Crashes out of the race while in an unassailable lead and storms off straight into his nearby apartment. 1988 – Suzuka, Japan. Clinches his first World Championship by charging from fourteenth to first. 1989 – Monte Carlo, Monaco. Refuses to speak to Alain Prost following a controversial overtaking move on his teammate at the previous race at Imola, and Prost’s subsequent comments in the press. 1989 – Suzuka, Japan. Has to win to keep his title hopes alive. With six laps to go, overtakes Alain Prost for the lead at the chicane but Prost turns into him and the two McLarens collide. Senna re-joins the race and goes on to win, only to be disqualified for missing the chicane and causing the collision. 1990 – Suzuka, Japan. Prost – now driving for Ferrari - has to win to keep his title hopes alive. Senna takes justice into his own hands and deliberately crashes into Prost at the first corner to clinch his second World Championship. 1991 – Sao Paolo, Brazil. Maiden win on home soil despite being stuck in sixth gear and suffering unbearable muscle cramps in the last ten laps. Goes on to win the Championship for the third time at the end of the season. 7 Fact file AYRTON SENNA 1992 – Spa, Belgium. First on the scene of Erik Comas’ 300km/h accident. Stops the car and rushes to help the briefly unconscious Frenchman. Attends to Comas and holds his head until the paramedics arrive. 1992 – Plays second fiddle to Nigel Mansell in the Championship as his McLaren is no match for the technologically superior Williams car. 1993 – Donington, England. Excels in the rain in the underpowered McLaren and delivers the most memorable opening lap in motor racing’s history by going from fifth at the start to first at the end of Lap 1. 1993 – Estoril, Portugal. Confirmed as Prost’s replacement at Williams for the following season. 1993 – Adelaide, Australia. Wins his 41st F1 race in his final outing for McLaren, and afterwards is invited by singer Tina Turner on stage for ‘Simply the Best.’ 1994 – Asks sister Viviane to set up what would become the Ayrton Senna Foundation, which helps millions of underprivileged children in Brazil. 1994 – Imola, Italy. Crashes fatally while leading the San Marino Grand Prix. 1994 – Sao Paolo, Brazil. Laid to rest at Morumbi Cemetery on May 5. An estimated three million people attend his funeral procession. 8 information. Would he accept that the world of motor Prologue racing has shied away from trying to resolve the conundrum of his death, or would he insist on going through every number, every telemetry trace, and Ayrton Senna has been dead for a generation, yet the every piece of information again until he was cause of his accident remains a mystery. The question convinced there was no new knowledge to be gained? is - does it matter? Curiosity is fundamental to the human condition, Common sense says let him rest in peace: and the surest way of attracting someone’s attention establishing the cause is a mission impossible. The to a problem is to tell them it’s not solvable. safety lessons have been learned and since the Gigabytes of data about the accident are scattered tragedy, F1 enjoyed its longest ever spell without a across cyberspace and in print but, at least outside fatality. Further analysis is not going to bring Senna the courtroom, they’ve never been brought together back or help his family, and the Italian legal system in a comprehensive fashion. This book is an attempt had its day in court but grudgingly conceded that to achieve that, and to do Senna’s legacy justice by racing cars are prototypes just like the space shuttles approaching the subject with single-mindedness and Challenger and Columbia: when people and attention to detail of which the late Brazilian would components are pushed to the limit, mistakes and hopefully approve.