Motorsport · 1994 · Imola, Italy
The Death of Ayrton Senna
A day after a rookie is killed in qualifying at the same circuit, three-time world champion Ayrton Senna dies at the Tamburello corner, and Formula 1 remakes its approach to safety.
3 (1988, 1990, 1991)
World titles
7th
Lap of crash
Major circuit and chassis regulation changes
F1 safety reforms that followed
The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend at Imola was already overshadowed before the race began. The rookie Roland Ratzenberger had been killed in a qualifying crash the day before, the first fatality at a Formula 1 race weekend in twelve years, and Senna, visibly shaken, had been speaking privately about the state of the sport's safety standards.
On lap seven of the race, driving for Williams, Senna's car left the track at the high-speed Tamburello corner and struck the concrete wall almost without slowing. He was airlifted to hospital and died of his injuries, the sport's most decorated driver to be killed in a race in decades.
The two deaths, one day apart, became the greatest catalyst for safety reform in Formula 1's history: circuits redesigned, cockpit and chassis regulations tightened, and fatal accidents reduced across the following decades to a fraction of what the sport had previously accepted. In his native Brazil he is mourned in a way few athletes anywhere are.
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