Why was the death of Ayrton Senna so controversial? [Part 5]

The choice of Safety Car may have been a factor in Senna’ crash:

The use of the Opel Vectra Turbo as a safety car is also a great source of controversy.  F1 cars can have over 850 hp (in the case of Senna’s) and achieve well over 200mph. By contrast the Vectra had at best 200 hp and a top speed of 150 mph. The colossal difference meant the fastest pace that the Vectra could achieve was nothing compared to that of an F1 car. (Seismic Seconds, n.d., p. 20:10) Hence why after the safety car was deployed, following a crash involving JJ Lehto and Pedro Lamy, Senna can be seen overtaking the Vectra and gesticulating at it to go faster. (Senna, 2010, p. 1:31.48) Because the Vectra was dictating such a slow pace it meant that the tyres on the pursuing F1 cars cooled. This meant that they contracted by 4-5 mm as the pressure dropped by 25% and this forced the car to run lower to the ground than usual. (Seismic Seconds, n.d., p. 20:30)

The  controversy of this point lies in the endless search for speed in Formula 1 dictated by the cars’ need to run as close to the ground as possible to improve aerodynamics. The small gap between the floor of the car and the tarmac meant that the air had to flow faster underneath the car. This in turn creates an area of low pressure under the car sucking it to the ground. This is known as the Bernoulli principle. Therefore in the quest for speed engineers made the car lower to increase the effect. As such if the car runs too close to the ground it risks bottoming out altogether. As a result the air flow underneath the car stops and suddenly the car is left with little down force and a sudden loss of grip. (Seismic Seconds, n.d., p. 19:20)  One theory is that this lead to the death of Senna.

With cooled tyres and a low ride height as the car passed through Tamburello at 190 mph and passed over the bumps the car bottomed out as seen by the sparks flying out of the back of the car after 11.04 seconds of lap 7. This therefore left the driver with no down force or grip mid corner as seen at 11.28 seconds were the back of the car steps out from the driver control. With such sharp reactions  as soon as 11.30 seconds have passed according to the telemetry Senna is already counter steering into the slide to correct the oversteer. (Hilton, 1999, p. 200) Although inconceivable to some, others controversially believe that therefore it was his own lightening reactions that killed him. This premise is because as he corrects the car he is steering right to the wall of Tamburello. Therefore as the air resumes flowing underneath the car raising grip levels, the car grips and follows Senna’s steering input and shoots to the right straight at the wall. As such he has set his own course. (Seismic Seconds, n.d., p. 21:30)

The controversies therefore settle over the track design once again because the initial cause of the slide was caused by the bumpy track surface. But also the FIA safety regulations and the Williams engineers for being permitted to and choosing to run the car so low to the ground as to risk the situation occurring altogether. But the greatest controversy is over the safety car. Why was such a slow car used, thus allowing the tyres to cool down so much? The biggest issue is that on the race weekend a Ferrari 348 is photographed. (Senna, 2010, p. 1:31.33)It was being used as the Firefighting car. Obviously it was capable of much greater speeds than the Opel. Although it would still be nothing to a Formula 1 car, the pace it had over the Opel could potentially have kept the cars’ tyres that fraction hotter, as such they would not have cooled and contracted to the degree they did. As such Senna may still be alive today, had it been used as the safety car instead. Not only was this mistake made, but also made despite Senna’s own request, albeit posed by Gerhard Berger, to employ a faster safety car as the pace of the car used at Aida was not fast enough. (Jones, 2011) So negligence is seen on behalf of the officials who seemingly ignored this request. The amendment they did make, however, was not to use the slow pace car on the parade/warm up lap, but this seemingly lethargic approach taken across multiple areas of the sport ultimately cost a life. This is a clear example of what made the death of Ayrton Senna so controversial.