Red Bull Racing chief technical officer Adrian Newey says that he is still haunted by the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of Ayrton Senna 19 years ago.
Senna was driving one of Newey's racing cars, the Williams FW16, when he crashed at Imola's infamous Tamburello corner on May 1st 1994, sustaining fatal head injuries.
Newey was the Williams F1 Team's chief designer at the time of the Brazilian's death and was charged with manslaughter following the crash alongside the team's technical director Patrick Head and team principal Frank Williams.
Prosecutors blamed the team for a poorly welded modification to the steering column of Senna's car which was found to have cracked following the crash.
Newey, Head and Williams were acquitted of any wrong doing but Newey admitted in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live that "no-one will know" what was to blame for the crash that claimed the life of arguably F1's greatest driver.
Discussing the accident in a very honest interview with the BBC he said: "What happened that day, what caused the accident, still haunts me to this day.
"The steering column failure, was it the cause, or did it happen in the accident? There is no doubt it was cracked. Equally, all the data, all the circuit cameras, the on-board camera from Michael Schumacher’s car that was following, none of that appears to be consistent with a steering-column failure.
"The car oversteered [when the rear tried to spin] initially and Ayrton caught that and only then did it go straight.
"But the first thing that happened was oversteer, in much the same way as you will sometimes see on a superspeedway in the States – the car will lose the rear, the driver will correct, and then it will go straight and hit the outside wall, which doesn’t appear to be consistent with a steering-column failure."
Newey also revealed his regret at failing to provide Senna with a car capable of winning. The Brazilian driver moved from McLaren, where he had took all three of his world championships, to Williams after the Grove-based squad's back to back constructor's titles in 1992 and 1993.
Speaking about Senna and the 1994 car he said: "There was an aura about him, something that’s difficult to describe. He most certainly had a presence.
"Ayrton’s raw talent and determination… he tried to carry that car and make it do things it really wasn’t capable of. And it just seems such a shame and so unfair he was in that position. And then, of course, by the time we did get the car sorted, he wasn’t with us any longer."
The full interview with Adrian Newey can be heard on Thursday at 9PM on BBC Radio 5 Live.
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| (c) Octane Photographic |
Newey was the Williams F1 Team's chief designer at the time of the Brazilian's death and was charged with manslaughter following the crash alongside the team's technical director Patrick Head and team principal Frank Williams.
Prosecutors blamed the team for a poorly welded modification to the steering column of Senna's car which was found to have cracked following the crash.
Newey, Head and Williams were acquitted of any wrong doing but Newey admitted in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live that "no-one will know" what was to blame for the crash that claimed the life of arguably F1's greatest driver.
Discussing the accident in a very honest interview with the BBC he said: "What happened that day, what caused the accident, still haunts me to this day.
"The steering column failure, was it the cause, or did it happen in the accident? There is no doubt it was cracked. Equally, all the data, all the circuit cameras, the on-board camera from Michael Schumacher’s car that was following, none of that appears to be consistent with a steering-column failure.
"The car oversteered [when the rear tried to spin] initially and Ayrton caught that and only then did it go straight.
"But the first thing that happened was oversteer, in much the same way as you will sometimes see on a superspeedway in the States – the car will lose the rear, the driver will correct, and then it will go straight and hit the outside wall, which doesn’t appear to be consistent with a steering-column failure."
Newey also revealed his regret at failing to provide Senna with a car capable of winning. The Brazilian driver moved from McLaren, where he had took all three of his world championships, to Williams after the Grove-based squad's back to back constructor's titles in 1992 and 1993.
Speaking about Senna and the 1994 car he said: "There was an aura about him, something that’s difficult to describe. He most certainly had a presence.
"I guess one of the things that will
always haunt me is that he joined Williams because we had managed to
build a decent car for the previous three years and he wanted to be in
the team he thought built the best car – and unfortunately that ’94 car
at the start of the season wasn’t a good car.
"Ayrton’s raw talent and determination… he tried to carry that car and make it do things it really wasn’t capable of. And it just seems such a shame and so unfair he was in that position. And then, of course, by the time we did get the car sorted, he wasn’t with us any longer."
The full interview with Adrian Newey can be heard on Thursday at 9PM on BBC Radio 5 Live.
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