May 1st [Music] 1994 Formula 1 Legend Aon Senna dies in a crash that shouldn't have happened most people think this was an accident but was it really because for some reason this large scale case did not receive white coverage nor did the trial itself and it took the Italian justice system 13 years to answer the question who killed Senna I've spent SP the last few weeks deep into research to understand every detail of this puzzling case but the answer I found was probably the last thing I expected imagine if we could go back in time to the beginning of the 1994 season at the start of the Season Senna receives a championship winning car as a fan favorite he takes pole in Brazil this gave everyone even more hope for his victory but unfortunately the first two races went poorly for him a spin and an engine failure his home Grand Prix and a crash at the Pacific Grand Prix due to new FIA rules the Williams fw16 was quite difficult to [Music] handle at the same time Michael Schumaker in the beniton was in great shape he won the first two grand pris of the Season Aon was already 20 points behind we are here this third round the European season starting now starting from zero so basically our championship starts here 14 races not 16 it was noticeable that Senna was nervous at the third Grand Prix in San Marino and suddenly the pressure Rises when his friend Ruben barello suffers a heavy crash in Friday's practice fortunately the injuries were not serious you've seen the W he's all right he's all right he's shocked of course but he's all right on Saturday during qualifying Roland ratzenberger lost control at 314 km per hour and crashed into a concrete wall he dies on the spot but his death is only reported when he arrives at the hospital why because according to Italian law a death during a sporting event requires it to be interrupted on the morning of May 1st the race day at the driver's briefing Aon insisted on the reestablishment of the Drivers Association they agreed to take security measures before the next Grand Prix in [Music] Monaco on this day Senna would start from Pole Position again with Schumaker right behind him the lights go out and right away Pedro Lami crashes into vapen beniton it's a Lotus they'll have to stop the race I'm sure because there's debris on the circuit the deis from the Collision scattered all over the track moreover they injured Spectators the safety car leads the pack until the end of lap five on restart Aon and Michael began to push each other again Michael puts a lot of pressure on Aon on lap six center holds but on lap seven [Music] he suddenly loses control of his car in the tamborello corner he leaves the track and crashes into the wall at the moment of impact the Brazilian suffers sever head injuries Medics arrived at the scene of the accident and notice a weak pulse he was bleeding badly and was unconscious but his pulse was regular although we could see that the situation was critical Aton is immediately hospitalized by helicopter to a hospital in bolognia Formula 1 management was informed of sena's critical condition but no one informed the other drivers while the drops of blood from the helicopter terrify the journalists the race in imil continues the chaos that rained over the Ferrari circuit that weekend ends with mechanics being injured on the pit Lane the reason is a loose rear tire from the car of Michelle Alberto schuma lini and hackin take the podium steps of the San Marino Grand Prix only after the broadcast ends reports about Senus condition are starting to arrive Center has died three times World motor racing champion has died on the evening of May 1st eron's body was taken to the Institute of forensic medicine the shock of the tragedy came along with a wave of outrage the Italian press wondered why the race continued after all it was clear that sena's injuries were fatal everyone was convinced that the organizers only cared about their financial interests and refused to stop the race Oscar luig [Music] the important case will be headed by a low-level prosecutor maito passarini he was entrusted with a document outlining the action plan in the main stages of the investigation at the first stage the track and imilo was arrested the cars of both drivers were taken under guard for detailed analysis on May 3rd The Institute of forensic medicine conducted autopsies of the driver's bodies on the order of the prosecutor's office the results are impressive as both had sustained fatal injuries at the time of the accident suspicions are raised against the race management and medical staff because the resuscitation procedures performed on Eton were more in their interests at the same time according to the doctors the Medics did everything right they realized that sena's heart was still beating and the rescue team immediately transported him to the hospital the same day Sen's body left the building for the forensic examination [Music] he was transported to Paris by a plane specially provided by the Italian government from there he went home on a Brazilian McDonald Douglas by varic Airlines for this purpose the passenger flight received a special permit to transport the coffin right in the cabin early in the morning of May 4th the plane appears over the runway of the airport in sou Paulo [Music] 100 40 30 20 aon's coffin is covered with a Brazilian flag it's driven by a fire truck on a 30 km Journey to the city center where a farewell ceremony was organized at the local Legislative Assembly Building several million people took to the streets to honor sena's memory the flow of people was endless the president of Brazil declared 3 days of mour in the country and also attended the ceremony among the attending the farewell were a dozen former and current Formula 1 drivers including team leaders Ron Dennis and Frank Williams on May 5th Aon Center was buried at the maroon Cemetery in sou Paulo in Brazil Aon Center is remembered as a sports hero he gave Millions to help underprivileged children elsewhere in the world though we remember him best for this we are watching the arrival of a CA truly serving [Music] Talent unfortunately his last poll was in Brazil 1994 however his first poll on home soil was in a lotus 98t in 1986 these moments have left a mark on the history of Formula 1 forever now you can become a part of this legendary story too meet the exclusive watch from Sen's 98 T4 car by RC watches if you haven't heard of this brand before these are unique Danish watches that contain the DNA of great Legends just think their collection even includes a watch made from John delorean's personal dmc2 or Steve McQueen's TR6 motorcycle the new 98 T4 watch is made from the Roaring monster Lotus 98 which was raised by Aon Senna himself as the tacam Rings are made from reforged aluminium from the car it took 2 years to develop this watch in collaboration ation with the Lotus team and will be released in a limited edition of only 989 pieces in the design you can find many references to the Lotus 98t black and gold colors the car number and many more each of the watches embodies the greatness speed and uniqueness of airon Center so click on the link in the description to pre-order one right now with 20% off Bernie eilon the head of Formula 1 also arrived in Brazil but he was denied participation in the ceremony the family of the Brazilian racer blames the organizers of the championship for everything 3 days after the accident a journalist asked echol Stone if it was true that he had told Leonardo Senna that Aon had died instantly after the incident Bernie replied that at that moment he did not not understand the information coming from the doctors over the radio he heard the word head as dead in 10 minutes later he rushed to apologize to Leonardo echostone shows a facts from bolognia which states that the Fatal injury was diagnosed at 6:40 p.m. 4 hours after he was sent to the hospital when asked if he knew about the autopsy results which showed that the Fatal injury was sustained at the moment of impact Bernie said that no one told him anything specific about about the Pilot's condition at the time this sounds like hypocrisy because Mr eckelstone was getting all the information he could to continue the race it became quite clear that it would be the worst thing for the promoter in Italy for the race to be stopped by law it would be bad if we did that because we' be completely responsible even if we're not responsible on May 6th fans and fames said goodbye to Roland ratzenberger in salsburg the ceremony was much more modest attended by about 250 people at the same time the investigation continues during which an Austrian flag was found in Williams's cockpit Aon hoped to raise it at the Finish Line in memory of ratzenberger at the IMA circuit the road surface and the Crash side are being examined the prosecutor's office requested all available video footage from the scene as well as electronic control units from centers in renberg's cars but it turned out that the teams's engine had removed them although they had no right to do so at the same time all the TV programs were trying to figure out what had happened why did Senna a triple world champion suddenly Veer off the road suddenly the autosprint editorial office received a phone call former Formula 1 driver Gabriel tarquini asked us to take a closer look at the published photos taken at the crash site in particular to focus on the steering wheel that was lying next to the car it didn't look like it had been removed from the steering column as usual it looked like the steering wheel had broken at first this detail didn't raise any concerns after all everyone thought that it was simply cut off by Rescuers during the extraction of the driver from the cockpit however each of them confirmed that they had not done so in fact the steering wheel was already broken and was lying on senna's lap from this point on the version that the accident could have been caused by a broken steering wheel becomes believable but not everyone thought so already on may2 the British press published a message from the head of Formula 1 Bernie eckelstone senna's death was a tragic accident according to him Aon was killed by a front wheel that came off at the time of the impact with the wall if it had gone 10 cim to the side or above his head the Brazilian would not have been injured and it's really true according to experts the contact between the car and the wall was at a very bad angle of 22° however Telemetry data showed that the speed at the time of the Collision was a frightening 211 kmph at the moment of the impact the wheel was directly between the cockpit and the wall and left a black rubber Mark in the contact Zone the suspension element passed through the edge of the top of the helmet and pierced Center's head the impact was so severe that the car cracked on the right side and split along the height of the wall on the left on May 17th maritzio pasini appoints a group of expert evaluators nine of them were to present their findings on the incident to the investigation within 2 months among them are engineer Mao forti who built the championship winning Ferrari for Nikki louder Tomaso caretti and ex-pilot Emmanuel lairo they were also joined by engineer from Williams George Yano and three experts from sagis which was the promoter of the race anima nine members of the Williams team were initially implicated for an unintentional homicide including Frank Williams himself also Under Suspicion were five members of the simtech team for which ratzenberger was driving and even the owner and technical director of the team Nick WTH two Executives of sagas were added to the list of suspects the director of which is federo bendinelli on May 18th badini received a Renault engine control unit it served as a black box on sena's car but it turns out that the unit was reused by renault's Sports Department that is the data of lap 7even was first copied to a computer after that they were transferred to the judicial system the story of the black boxes becomes even more mysterious when Williams announces that the second box was broken perhaps they wanted to hide something we will reveal the details of this mystery a little bit later on May 25th padini and experts inspected the drivers's cars Patrick head technical director and co-owner of Williams was present technical delegate Charlie Whiting was also present accompanied by FIA technical staff at the same time the prosecutors appointed the company C promo to inspect the road surface in IMA topographic work is also been carried out to examine in detail the areas where the accidents occurred what about ratsenberg is accident the investigation immediately received Telemetry data from simtech it showed that Roland had covered a longer distance than usual on his previous lab this proved that the Austrian driver went off track and damaged his front Wing as a result it came off at the Torell corner and the car was left with limited control at 314 kmph later photos emerged showing raten Burger hitting the curb and damaging the car this finally convinced mazio not to open a criminal case against the simtech team but things only got more interesting in sena's investigation at the end of June one of the experts Enrique lorenzini informed pasini of his findings under his supervision The Institute of Metallurgy conducted a study of sen steering column the findings could have dramatically changed the course of the case it turned out that the steering column had been modified its original tube had been cut a tube tube of smaller diameter was inserted in place of the cut part moreover it was fixed by welding on both sides this according to the professor caused the steering column to lose its strength during the race the rod joining the steering wheel to the wheels was virtually sliced in half it had been badly welded together about a third of the way down and could not stand the strain of the race it seemed like the job had been done in a hurry but I can't say how long before the race someone had tried to smooth over the join following the welding I have never seen anything like it an electronic microscope examination showed that 70% of the circumference had signs of fatigue failure even before the accident it was also found that the column showed signs of wear and constant stress these findings were consistent with another examination conducted at the pratica diare Aerospace military laboratory experts from the Williams team agreed agreed with the conclusions however they disputed the percentage they estimated that only 35% of the circumference had fatigue cracks while 65% continued to hold the load and the column retained sufficient strength until the impact with the [Music] wall by this time marito padini had interrogated Sen's teammate Damon h Patrick head and the chief designer of the car Adrien newie as a result it turns out that the modification was made at Center's request he wanted more room for his hands in the cockpit because in McLaren Aon was used to the free position of his wrists because of this the engineers tried to slightly change the steering position but the problem was the FIA rules in his book how to build a car knew he writes if we had simply lowered the steering wheel we would not have ped the test so we did the following we locally reduced the diameter of the steering column by 4 mm at the same time padini receives a videotape it contained a recording from the onboard camera on Sen's car but there's a catch Macio was angry he was waiting for the tape for 4 months compared to Frank Williams who received it just a few days after the accident it was only in February 1995 that the group of experts from the University of Bologna led by laini completed their work let me remind you that a long nine months have passed since the first conclusions were made the 500 Page Long report stated that the accident was caused by a breakdown of the modified steering column therefore badini submits the reports of both drivers incidents to the bologna prosecutor's office he then sends a report asking for charges to be brought against the Williams team members and the track management the process of gathering evidence was exhausting why numerous inspections endless research each stage only delayed the resolution of the case how long do you think it took only by the summer of 1996 mazio completes his massive 800 page report he submits it to the court in imer thus it is only 2 and 1/2 years later that the process utor receives permission to bring charges of manslaughter against six people in Italy this is punishable by 6 months to 5 years in prison now let's take a quick look at the charges the Williams team was charged with a poorly executed modification of the steering column bendinelli because he did not change the tamborello corner which everyone considered dangerous track director Geor G Boi and FIA race director Roland bla are accused of not making changes to the track safety system after raten Berger's death as you can guess each of them began to deny their guilt the track management stated that both incidents were accidents the Williams team believes that the steering column broke when it hit the wall to be honest with you the Formula 1 World had a mixed reaction to the accusations Flavio briatore questioned the holding of the race in Italy and he was not the only one Max Mosley considers the Senate trial to be outrageous if there is a conviction he will seriously reconsider the possibility of finding other countries for the race besides Italy that's why the Press especially the British press was skeptical of the trial they were looking for their answers the opening of the trial in the Senate case was scheduled for February 20th 1997 however 4 days before the trial an unexpected twist occurred the British newspaper the Sunday Times published an article that could have changed the course of the investigation it showed a photograph of a small blue object it was lying in front of sena's car with only 7 seconds left before the [Music] accident the author suggested that it was a piece of a beniton do you remember the accident that happened at the start you see Sena car was vulnerable to such damage due to low tire pressure Adrien newie agreed with this hypothesis but he wasn't completely sure door because the tires were destroyed in the crash so it was impossible to examine them but there's a catch the tire manufacturer a good year managed to do it in the police report they stated the damage to aon's tires was caused by the impact with the wall and is the result of the accident prosecutor passarini said that the photo was already known to the investigation however he assured that this fact does not affect the conclusion regarding the steering column the same article gives another version the Brazilian pilot could have lost Consciousness during the race sometimes during the lap sen could hold his breath to sharpen his senses this is confirmed by footage from the onboard camera at the moment of losing control his head tilts sharply to the left however Telemetry data quickly refuted this Theory it clearly shows that Aon was actively breaking and conscious neither version changed the course of the investigation therefore on February 20th 1997 the trial finally began in IMA an interesting fact is that the local courtroom was too small judge Antonio costanzo was forced to move the hearing to a large Hall this is where parties are usually held Frank Williams and other accused team members were absent at the opening of the trial Patrick headed and Adrien newie plan to attend the trial only as observers they have the right not to answer questions in court the British team team will be defended by Italian oreste dominioni the case included several thousand pages of charges and materials the trial lasted 9 months until the end of November 1997 you might be wondering but there were 31 hearings during this time more than 50 Witnesses and experts were heard it would take too long to review each and every hearing and frankly it would not be very interesting so let's focus on the key facts and evidence let's start with a track in IMA according to the team Williams believed that the cause of the accident was poor track conditions but is this really true only federo bendinelli was present at the first Court hearings of all the defendants it was him who was responsible for the management of the IMO RAC trck the track was famous for its high speed and danger especially at the beginning of the lap from the Main Street the cars enter the left-hand tamborello Corner tamborello was there was always a corner where your heart was in your throat because you knew if you went off there the way you would hit the wall was the matter of luck want to know the best part while analyzing previous accidents at tamborello badini comes to some unexpected conclusions so what's the point in 1987 Nelson PK crashed off the track due to a punctured left rear tire he suffered a concussion in 1989 geard Berger crashed out of the r due to damage to his front Wing the Ferrari collided with the wall and instantly caught fire beggar lost Consciousness and suff it burns in 1991 Mikela Alberto's front Wing suddenly fell off this led to an accident that injured his leg Ricardo pes's final accident was caused by a puncture of the rear right tire the Italian suffered a concussion the prosecutor summarized that when the front wings were damaged the cars left the tracks straight in cases of a punctured retire the car spun finally the pieces started to fall into place badini was not just demonstrating the behavior of the cars on this section of the track he made a major conclusion all of the accidents at Torell were caused by mechanical failures in the case of Aon CNA several hypotheses emerged the unstable behavior of the car could be caused by two factors the cooling of the tires behind the safety car and the bumps in the asphalt as the road surface and imer wore out over time the organizers took steps to improve the asphalt locally on several segments of the track including tamborello they put patches of new asphalts when the cars drove over them you could see Fountains of Sparks as they hit the asphalt in tamborello there were four patches of new asphalt the longest of which was in the most critical part of the turn to make matters worse wor it had included bumps Williams Engineers claimed that it was the cause of Aon losing control let's take a look at how the drivers acted in the tamborello corner Damon Hill chose a wider trajectory to avoid the bumps Senna unlike everyone else Ste the car into the apex of the corner he knew about the bumps and seemed to deliberately attack them that's how he was able to go around the corner faster the a bit quicker but still very hard to D very very hard Michael schumacker did a similar thing to Center however after the accident the Germans stayed away from the inside Line This became a topic of discussion between the drivers when the race restarted it was clear from their gestures that they were analyzing the potential causes of the accident based on this Williams's lawyer oreste dominioni presented the team's version the accident was caused by by poor road conditions combined with cold tires dominioni refers to an amateur video it was filmed during the preseason test IMA Aon accompanied by bendinelli and Boi inspects the asphalt to tamborello Senna was clearly unhappy with the state of the track the Brazilian points out the bumps to the management and urges them to take action however bendinelli confirmed that the next day the technical services fixed the problem and the FIA representatives of approve the track for the San Marino Grand Prix the prosecutor then called Pier Luigi Martini to testify he's a Formula 1 driver who participated in the San Marino Grand Prix a driver like Senna would not have left the track in this place if there were no problems with the car the effect of bottoming is absolutely normal and can be observed on all racetracks we couldn't completely avoid the contact with the asphalted tarell so we just had to hold on line if the bumps on the track made everything clear the version about the effect of cold tires was more convincing because even Aon himself complained about the safety car going too slow with that low speed the tires cooled down this led to a decrease in wheel pressure and the car lowered as a result you could see Fountains of Sparks when the rear wheels lost traction Center abruptly turned the steering wheel to the other side and the car went straight B serini emphasized that at least nine cars were hitting the asphalt at Torell with their bottoms what's more Sen's car was spitting more Sparks a lap before the incident it's also worth noting that the Sparks appeared only in areas with uneven surface this disproved another version of a possible suspension failure initially there was some talks about the failure of the rear suspension or the tires but these hypotheses were immediately rejected because the car would not have been able to achieve such a deceleration under breaking and maintain this exit line the prosecutor also expressed doubts about the cold TI theory he focused on the analysis of the sixth lap time Macio asked one of the experts Stefano stefanini were there any drivers who improved their Times by the sixth lap no Sen's time was 1 minute 24.87 seconds only later Damon Hill and Michael schumacker were able to surpass it this showed that sena's tires were fully warmed up stefanini was convinced of this there was another secret version that I have not mentioned Macio pasini considered it as the main one the problem was the design of imem safety zone the fact is that the surface of the track in the tumber corner was not at the same level as the runoff area that's why a small jump was formed this became evident from the abrupt breaking traces of senna according to the results of the investigation the average slope of the track was 3.1% and in the runoff area 2.1% torello also had no opportunity to slow down because there was not enough space although the rules require it a clear proof of this was the difference in Sen's deceleration according to the prosecution when when aon's car was driving on the track the deceleration was 4.6 G but when it landed on concrete it dropped to only 2G you don't need to be a mathematician to notice this difference the speed at the impact was 26 km hour if the surface had been flat he could have reduced it to 140 kmph did Aon pay for the negligence of the organizers however sagus lawyers did not agree with the findings of the investigation they provided the court with their own reconstruction of the events according to them Sena hit the wall at 188 kmph not 216 kmph in ideal conditions the speed of the impact would have been 167 kmph instead of 140 but even so in their opinion the front right wheel of the car would have caused fatal injuries article 7 of the 1994 FIA sporting regulations states that the track must be limited along its entire length by two zones of at least 3 m wide on both sides without changing the level another paragraph states that a 12° slope is allowed for roads built before 1991 the difference between the track and the runoff in IMA is 2° which is 10° less than the maximum allowed every incident at tamborello in the past years has been caused by a collision with the wall so why not just move it the answer lies in the natural landscape the explanation came from ghard Burger's emotional Story the year after my accident I returned to Ima Adon and myself walked to this corner to my place where we had the accident and we looked to move the wall and we looked behind the wall and behind the wall is a small River and we look close each other and say we cannot move it because behind is a river and we left again and I think 5 m from this place place where we stand and discuss this he died however Max Mosley the president of the FIA was the first to defend concrete walls he stated that they are acceptable if the contact angle is small that is the war becomes dangerous only where the angle of impact is very large in such cases Tire barriers are used Mr Mosley considered senna's death a tragic accident as a result of a wheel hitting his head Roland Bruna also provided the court with the license issued to the Circuit in 1994 which was confirmed by numerous inspections of the track mazio pasini disagreed with it he concluded that the Torell turn remained a very dangerous place the changes made were to include a smooth Ascent of the runoff area and a 30 to 40 cm departure Zone in accordance with the standards after the investigative measures were completed in 1994 the IMA circuit underwent reconstruction as a result the tarell and V nerve Corners were transformed into an s-shaped chicane and that's not all changes have taken place not only at IMA but also at other Formula 1 tracks the requirements for high-speed cornering configurations and exit zones got tightened since the first days after to the accident fans have been honoring senna's memory at the Williams base meanwhile behind the curtains Engineers were trying to figure out what had happened Patrick headed was one of the first to express his opinion after the race a and Senna made a mistake we have checked the Telemetry he slightly lifted his foot just at that dip in the place where the tarmac changes that caused a loss of grip from the car the statement caused a real boom in the British media the headlines screamed Center made a mistake however the very next day Williams issued a denial the chairman never directly said Senna made a mistake however the Press did not pay attention to this they continued to argue why Aon could have made a mistake the main reason was the driver's depressed state Senna joined the championship team but Schumaker won the first two races moreover the Brazilian did not score a single point renberg's death was a particular L severe shock Aon even cried unlike the media Williams wanted to find out the real cause of the accident to do this they turned to a special program called Adams with the help of which you can develop a virtual model of the accident all the data provided by Williams was entered and the results of the simulation were presented in court the visualization showed that unstable conditions periodically occurred in tamborello some of them could be corrected by steering but others could not the engineers pointed to bumps inside the corner in their opinion it was these bumps that led to the loss of control of the car we do not have access to the visualization that was shown in court however based on Williams's Theory the National Geographic Channel created a documentary so we can use its materials turning the steering wheel to the left Aon encountered an over steer that sent the car towards the inside of the track Senna reacted and turned the steering wheel the other way however the car was shaken again and thrown 9° to the right of the racing line after that Senna decided to keep a straight line trying desperately to slow down badini and sagis lawyers challenged this reconstruction they considered the simulation to be arbitrary and insufficiently substantiated because many of the parameters were approximate how could they know the temperature of aon's tires before the accident in addition one of the experts found a significant discrepancy between the simulation data and the actual Telemetry readings the behavior of the car and the model also did not correspond to the real steering wheel position the force applied to the steering based on Telemetry data is in the direction of the turn to the left and not in the opposite direction however according to Williams Consultants the changing pressure did not correspond to the steering angle in degre but why didn't the driver try to avoid the Collision after breaking based on my experience I can assure you that no driver will agree to hit a wall after breaking they will try to turn the car around Williams responded the car kept going straight due to loss of downforce and low traction on the concrete in the safety zone meanwhile Williams's lawyers are asking for access to Sen car as only two of the three defendants have seen it Adrien ne's lawyer also complains his client was initially interrogated as a witness not as a defendant however judge Antonio costanzo rejected all the defense's objections at the same time a conflict was brewing within the Williams team by 1997 Nei left the team in his book The British engineer writes that Patrick head offers him as the chief designer of the car to take responsibility more on that later because padini has stumbled upon a new detail that comes to mind it turns out that the recording from Sen's onboard camera is interrupted at the last moment when there is less than 1 second left before the Collision doesn't this seem suspicious to you especially when we know the fact that the prosecutor received the tape only 4 months later maybe the formula management wanted to hide something let's find out maritzio pasarin immediately asked judge Antonio Costanza to pay attention to the possible intentional damage to the evidence at the time the governing body was foler headed by Bernie eckelstone the company was not only responsible for the organization but also owned the rights to all the videos they were managed by the foler TV Department which had excluded Ive rights to all Formula 1 videos however from the very beginning the investigation had only two available videos one was from Michael schumaker's onboard camera it shows sena's car leaving the track the second is from an external television broadcast camera it was this angle that captured the last second of the accident unfortunately the impact was hidden behind a bend in the concrete wall a month after the events in IMA it turns out out that Frank Williams has footage from sena's onboard camera Bernie eckelstone gave it to him only a few days after the accident as you may recall pasini only got access to it on September 9th the recording lasted 4 and 1 half minutes it captured part of the time when Anto was following the safety car ending at the moment he lost control the last frame abruptly changes to a black screen but there is still under 1 second left before the Collision this led the prosecutor to a shocking conclusion mazio said he was sure that the video was incomplete because of this fola TV employees are present at the trial among them other director of the broadcast Alan Ward and the company's director Eddie Baker basini wants to understand in detail how the filming process works during the interrogation he finds out that there were 25 cars at the start of the race 13 of which were equipped with onboard cameras editors could switch between four cameras however only three of them could be used for broadcasting that is the technicians decided which images to show live there were 13 onboard cameras on the cars and we could receive a signal from four cameras at the same time but because of frequency issues only three of them were used the decision to turn off the camera on Sena car was was made about 10 seconds before it actually went off at which point there was nothing interesting in front of him but why does the camera turn off at the most critical moment note that more than 10 seconds had passed by then folco Representatives explained to the court that the time could be affected by radio interference or if there are discussions in the control room about which camera to choose at the beginning of the seventh lap when Eton senis C past the pits the staff decided to change the camera the image from his car was not of journalistic interest and was of poor quality so we switched to katayama's car badini immediately denies this in the original video after the final shot the image simply disappears we see a blank screen for 14 seconds only short gray lines run across it then the image from Burger's car appears not kyama I I think you can guess what the focus sta answered it was a mistake that was caused by pressing the wrong button this explanation leaves a lot of questions the technician Andy James who was actually pressing the buttons was switching the cameras on my command I don't know maybe due to technical problems the signal switched to Burger sometimes there are malfunctions the wrong camera or button turns on first a black bar appears on the screen and then the image disappears why does this happen this is a typical monitor image that is being turned on or off at that moment other images show the same effect when you turn on or off the cameras of other cars basini called these arguments confusing he was determined to prove that the footage was the director's priority it took along 9 minutes to follow Sen's car the camera on his car started working at 14713 and kept recording until 14623 it would be ridiculous to call it a mere coincidence that foler employees decided to change the camera right before the accident the prosecutor stated that he was ready to launch an investigation on suspicion of perjury FIA prache Franchesca vanessi could be one of the first to be investigated he claimed to have seen the last second of the accident however he denied this in court saying that he had seen the edited footage from the camera of schumaker's car dominioni reacted sharply to new accusations he said that fer could file a lawsuit against pasini for defamation Macio said that on May 9th 1994 he sent Echo Stone a letter asking for the video from Sen's car on June 17th he repeated the request however the recording was only handed over to the investigation on September 9th were you aware of these requests no echostone probably understood it as a request for images of the moment the car hit the wall which did not exist are you aware that Williams asked foler to provide the video I know that there was a request for the recording I remember that copies were given to Williams which required Echo Stone's permission if they had asked for images of the incident the answer would probably have been the same in your opinion the existing video was not important not from a journalist point of view not from a possible legal proceeding no we didn't think the recording was important and it was a poor quality unfortunately there was no further investigation and the investigation ended with the analysis of the last frame Macio pasarin was not disappointed however because he still had a few more cards in his pockets remember the black boxes this is the most important source of information that answered the main question what really happened there were two control units in total one was responsible for the engine installed by Renault the second was an integrated unit of the Williams team it helped to monitor the performance of the chassis and gearbox they were mainly used for data collection and Diagnostics because this year two-way Telemetry was banned now data can only be transmitted in one direction from the car to the pits during the lab let me explain how it works every time the car passes the pit wall it transmits the data from the last lab to the team then the memory was cleared and the next lap was recorded this is what happened before aon's accident after the data from the sixth lap was transferred the recorder began recording the parameters of the seventh lap but 12.8 seconds later Senna crashed into the wall after Aon was evacuated his car was taken to the FIA locked box 10 minutes later two Williams mechanics approached the car they want to inspect the car but face an obstacle technical commissioner fabito Nosa he had worked at the IMA track for many years and knew the rules well so he politely refused them soon two more mechanics appeared accompanied by Charlie Whiting he orders fabrio to remove both black boxes from the car you're probably asking yourself why the hell are you doing this Whiting we'll analyze his explanation in a minute but first let's find out why noska agreed Whiting told me to open up the garage and that he had permission from John Ki the FIA security chief that day he told me to remove the black boxes the Renault engine box was situated behind the cockpit I removed it with a pair of large pliers the Williams chassis box was behind the radiator near the back wheel on the right wing of the car I have seen thousands of these devices and removed them for checks badini received the Renault unit 2 weeks after the investigation began however it turned out to be empty that's because the company had already read the data the data was copied to a floppy disc and handed over to the investigation along with the dash cam the story of the second Williams unit is even more mysterious it was presented to the court only a month after the accident to make matters worse the unit was broken and the slots were damaged The Mystery of the black boxes becomes even more confusing perhaps someone doesn't want us to know the real reasons for the accident Williams Electronic Engineer Simon coins was shocked when he saw the data recorder it was located above the gearbox 180 cm from its normal Place three of the four connectors were disconnected or damaged I took it to the garage and tried to connect it but to no avail I tried to insert a memory card which was also unsuccessful the trial also revealed that a special memory card was required to read data from the control units it could drain the device's memory in a few seconds however experts found that key components were severely damaged this further aroused badini suspicions out of 20 memory chips only two were damaged but they were the only ones capable of storing data after a power outage an Electronics expert maros Spiga appeared in the courtroom he stated the Williams box was totally unreadable when we got it back it has to be a coincidence but it makes you wonder if someone was very jealous of its contents in March 1997 Charlie Whiting was questioned in court when asked why he broke his own rule about seizing the control units and handed them over to the Williams team rather than to officials Whiting replied it was done out of an urgent need so that the team could investigate possible causes of the accident and make sure that Damon Hill's car was safe still we had access to renault's Black Box which could have explained the true causes of the accident first let's find out if the cause was really the bumpy asphal patches as Williams's lawyers insisted in tamborello Senna passes three patches of new asphalt when passing the first patch Telemetry records an increase in RPM wheel speed also increases this confirms that the surface is Bumpy the car passes the second patch of new asphalt smoothly next Senna puts the hardest inputs on the steering column as the car approaches the last third patch of new asphalt there is interference on the video from the onboard camera and the RPM and wheel speed jumps again after that the force on the steering wheel suddenly decreases Center takes his foot off the gas pedal and the car straightens according to the longitudinal acceleration Aon begins desperately to break while the car remains on the track the speed drops to 240 kmph but when it transitions to the runoff area the braking effect is greatly weakened by the grass strip only when the car lands on concrete the grip improves and the deceleration continues again according to Adrien newie Telemetry shows that Senate does not immediately release the gas the recording shows a hesitation of the gas pedal before breaking Aon reacted to the rear end slide did his best to hold the car let off the throttle a little and reduced the steering angle until half a second later when he realized he couldn't handle the situation logic dictates that if the steering failed he would have hit the brakes IM immediately Mao fori of the panel of experts States the following Aon turned his steering wheel hard left shortly before the crash if he hadn't he wouldn't have made the corner he realized that the steering wheel on his car was not functioning properly and after easing off the gas pedal twice he started to break did the steering column really break down or did Senna make a mistake himself to find out let's look at the steering parameters one of the main indicators is the the fluid pressure in the left power steering cylinder which is responsible for turning the wheels a decrease in the pressure in the cylinder indicates that the wheels are turning to the left and an increase to the right at the same time the change in pressure in the cylinder can also be caused by the wheels hitting the surface as long as cers stayed on the track the cylinder pressure readings coincided with the steering column rotation but pay attention to the cylinder pressure readings when the car landed on the concrete you can see two pressure spikes the first Spike affects the steering column sensors as the second Spike does but to a smaller extent bardini made it clear to the court that Senna was deprived of the ability to drive the car the video shows that the front left wheel is turned to the right also the rubber marks in front of the wall indicated that the car was being pulled to the right at the last moment because of this the Williams experts were not sure if the steering column was in good condition this question remains open however the prosecutor noticed something else and prepared a surprise finally we get to my favorite part in July 1997 badini presents an argument that could change the course of events the prosecutor shows the enhanced video from Sen's onboard camera thanks to the improved quality he notices a small yellow detail it leads him to the the most important piece of evidence in the investigation so what's the point it's just a yellow button on the steering wheel but it's used to analyze the movement of the steering wheel how during the turns in the previous Labs it moved in a regular Arc relative to the cockpit wall this Arc was marked in green 83 mm from the center of the steering wheel a red Mark showed the level to which the yellow button had dropped just before the accident according to the investigation it was located at a distance of 50.5 mm from the center of the steering wheel now that you know all the necessary information let's track the position of the yellow button during the seventh lap let me remind you that 12.9 seconds passed from the start of the final lap to the moment of the impact when Senna enters the tamborello corner the yellow button starts moving not only around the circle but also downward in the vertical plane at 9.8 seconds it descends to the level of the red markers 28 mm below its usual position you can see how the rim of the steering wheel drops at the same time for more than a second the yellow button oscillates at the bottom of the screen and when sener loses control it rises just above the red Arc stays there for 2/10 of a second and then drops back down disappearing from View at 11.7 seconds the button appears for a moment and disappears again at this point Senna is already applying the brakes and his helmet is tilting forward such a strong deviation of 28 mm indicates an abnormal bending of the steering before the accident F1 driver Mikel Alberto was shocked by the results now I am even more convinced that it was a technical problem it doesn't happen that the steering wheel moves a few cm to the side how will Williams's lawyers respond now it seemed that badini had left no chance for the opposition but the team found a way to respond dominioni presents a video shot by Williams in court it shows David card sitting in the cockpit of a 1994 car he demonstrates the movement of the steering wheel with deviations of 15 to 20 mm in different directions at the time coutard was Williams test driver after sena's death he became a racing driver in the video David claimed that the steering wheel movement in aon's car was completely normal judge Antonio costanzo said that he would only accept card's testimony if he was personally present at the trial card appears in court only after the end of the championship in court he confirms his earlier statements the steering movements in Sena car before the accident were acceptable on the fw16 a certain flexibility of the steering column and steering wheel with a displacement of up to 20 mm to the side was normal the National Geographic film Echoes the defense's position and explains the reason for these fluctuations so why did Sen's wheel appear to move up and down inside the car well it was designed that way this exclusive footage shows the amount of vertical wheel movement available in an identical Williams Formula 1 car the amount of effort required to deflect it this much is quite considerable but remember the driver is being subjected to g-forces in excess of three times the force of gravity and with nothing save the wheel to take the weight of the driver's arms the design allowed for this much movement this statement seems to be an attempt to deceive the viewer it may convince the general public but not you and me consider that the steering wheel of a car is an extremely precise instrument imagine if the steering wheel of your car suddenly moved on its own I don't think you could handle it on the road maximum control is achieved only through a clear connection with the car and as Malo for notes no one wants to drive the car if the steering is in this state to prove to you that the Williams team and National Geographic were lying let's analyze the movement of the yellow button at previous races at the races in Brazil and Japan the fluctuations did not exceed 4 to 5 mm the practice sessions in imer showed similar minor deviations after the restart on the sixth lap the button movement remained stable however by the end of the sixth lap the deviation increased to 8 mm just before the accident it reached a whopping 28 mm the yellow button confirmed the investigation's position on the problems with the steering column on Sen's car badini believed that changes had been hastily made before the San Marino Grand Prix however the defense strongly disagreed with this they argued that the changes had been made before the start of the season however the prosecutor asks Charlie Whiting was the Federation informed of the changes to sen steering column no we were not informed but we had to check it out later I inspected and approved sena's car in February and then again in March but I don't remember any of these changes to defend themselves Williams lawyers called engineer Witnesses they were involved in the development of the steering column the first was Tony Pilcher who was responsible for production the original length of the fw15 column was extended at Senate's request on March 10th Williams began assembling three of these speakers the work was done to strictly Define standards and took 3 days after being checked for defects the parts were immediately handed over to the team for installation in time for the start of the Brazilian Grand Prix Gary Woodward Williams engineer says the steering column is checked after every race aon's column was in good condition before his crash at the IMA circuit the examination confirmed the presence of obvious metal fatigue along with a break why didn't your last inspection find this unfortunately life can have unforeseen events in the meantime padini had another unexpected piece of evidence with it he could reveal the true attitude of the Williams team to quality standards in Stefano Stephan's testimony about the condition of sena's car the prosecutor found interesting facts one of them is that the rear suspension cracked during the tests its repair consisted of welding a metal plate the prosecutor was surprised because Formula 1 cars are very complex however a metal plate is used to repair it the second fact concerned damage to the car frame it was found that some fragments at the height of the steering wheel had been partially cut this was done to give more space for senna's hands these changes were part of the operation to change the position of the steering wheel let's get back to the steering column Stephan's report states that the fracture occurred at a distance of 22.5 CM from the steering wheel in this regard badini asked the experts to report on the findings of the metallurgical analysis of the steering column as you may recall both studies showed that at least 70% of the circumference of the new column element was already in a state of fatigue before the accident the fracture of the steering column showed the characteristic signs of a gradual fracture the metal fatigue was caused by high stress at the point where it became thinner due to the downward impact it spread around the circumference of this part the results of the study revealed traces of friction and impact on the surface of the tear this indicated movement between the two parts in addition there were tool marks near the crank badini asks himself a question that was unanswered why would a tool have been used to work on the part leaving such noticeable marks if it could be made from scratch at the factory using special machines after that he asked ma for what was the thick of the middle section of the speaker 1.25 mm can this thickness be considered adequate obviously not because that's where it broke the responsibility for the poorly executed steering column fell on Adrien Nei who was responsible for the design and Patrick head who was responsible for the technical part both denied their guilt they claimed that lower level Engineers were involved in the production badini however responded immediately although the Williams team had a clear division of Duties this does not absolve head and newie of responsibility the lawyers emphasized that there was a principle of trust between professionals and the team this made it impossible for the management to exercise detailed control in the end no one wanted to take responsibility for the incident in early June Damon Hill appeared as a witness at the trial at that time he had already left the Williams team when the Englishman enters the courtroom his lawyer asks to remove the television cameras the journalists use microphones but the next day the newspapers call Hill's testimony Amnesia because his answers to most of the questions were I don't remember it was too long ago although Damon confirmed the changes in the steering column he did not give specific answers can you indicate when exactly the steering column was changed I don't know [Music] no [Music] I well I don't know because I don't know where at the time that it was done in 1994 was your car equipped with power steering yes it was badini emphasizes Hill's testimony to the investigation a month after the imlet tragedy where he said that this system was a novelty of the 1994 season [Music] [Music] possible to do anything to the car Rec at the time I I don't remember what why they told me that things would be all right on my car and I don't know um I didn't ask for a reason I just did what I was told to do at the time when Damon left the courtroom he said that he did not believe the steering column failure was the cause of the accident later Hill repeatedly stated that in his opinion Senna made a mistake himself it seemed to me that Damon was hiding something more that he didn't want to reveal but maybe the team founder will reveal lit already on October 29th Frank Williams and Patrick head arrived in imer for the trial in the Senate case 1997 was a successful year for Williams they won their ninth Constructor Championship in a row at that time the team became the most successful team in the history of Formula 1 Adrien newie also arrived although together with headed they exercised their right not to answer questions in the courtroom we could only hear the position of iron rank what was your role in the team in '94 I was in charge of the economic aspect the search for money Formula 1 eats up a lot of money why were changes made to Senate steering column when and by whom was the decision to modify it made Aon wanted more space in the cockpit and it was decided to do that I don't remember when exactly after each practice session he made several pages of recommend a to improve the car I am sure that all the necessary Specialists were involved in the work can you tell us who these people were I don't know exactly who they were because I don't track every transaction on a daily basis did you conduct your own investigation we tried to find as many facts as we could and study as much TV footage as we could as a company we have formed the opinion that the steering column was intact until the moment of impact we came to this conclusion after studying the Telemetry and running many simulations however we have not fully formed our own opinion on the cause of the accident did you check the steering columns on your other cars after the IMA Grand Prix yes the column on the spare car was perfectly fine but it was decided to find a way to improve the design so they changed it later on yes other Solutions were found for what reasons to dispel doubts our task is to constantly improve the car did you have any doubts about this Center steering column absolutely that's why we're here today to understand what happened your own experts have been saying signs of fatigue cracks along with the column breaking are you aware of that I'm sure the plane I was on yesterday also had cracks I'm not responsible for what happened technical issues I don't monitor every operation on a daily basis there were many people involved in the process and I don't know who exactly can be held respons ible in this case after leaving the courtroom Frank answered questions from journalists that I got across today that was that um we think that the car probably left the road rather than had a steering column failure do you believe this hearing will can get to the truth I doubt it because it's been three and a half years and no one has really come up with a guaranteed answer I don't think this is going to be as easy as people would like it to be after 9 months of hearings we finally came to the Court's verdict it seemed to be the end of the story but believe me at this stage the story becomes even more mysterious first Macio pasini suddenly asks the court to drop the charges against four of the six defendants Frank Williams Federico bendinelli George Bodi and Roland Bruner because were not directly responsible for the design of the machine that leaves only two defendants I think you've guessed that it's Patrick head and Adrien newie because they were responsible for changes in the car and quality control badini said that driver error should be ruled out the accident was caused by a failure in the steering column independent tests confirmed signs of mental fatigue the prosecutor is asking to find Patrick headed and Adrien newie guilty of manslaughter and to give them a one-year suspended sentence judge Antonio costanzo left the courtroom to focus on the decision 3 weeks later on December 16th 1997 he announced his verdict you'll be surprised but all six defendants were acquitted the judge's speech was short just a few minutes he set a deadline of 90 days to explain the reasons for his decision while Antonio costano Was preparing a detailed analysis Williams and the Formula 1 World rejoiced in the victory the only one who was not happy is the Italian press and mazio pasini the prosecutor wants to appeal but he needs a detailed report from the judge on the steering column 6 months after the verdict on June 15th 1998 judge Antonio costanzo provides a full 380 page report on his decision in the Senate case the main conclusions of the report are summarized in Five Points the accident was caused by a broken steering column without this condition Aon CNA would not have left the track in the tarell turn the steering column broke because it was changed the accident was not caused by any defect in the racetrack the modification of the column was not a routine operation but that did not mean that Patrick head or Adrien newie had to be involved in it personally the modif ification was done by experts whom heni had every right to trust even if one or both of the lead Engineers were responsible for the decision to modify the steering column this did not mean that the accident was their fault they had made the decision as carefully as they should have meaning that neither of them was negligent Macio padini felt disappointed to see the perpetrators get away with it after 2 years of hard work he was able to prove that the cause of the ACT incident was a faulty steering column however the prosecutor wanted to bring the case to a fair conclusion he appealed to have head and Nei found guilty because they were ultimately responsible for modifying the steering column unfortunately for maritzio this attempt failed the opposition relied on article 530 of the Italian criminal code according to this article if no additional evidence is presented during the appeal process the pre previous decision remains in force in March 2002 Aon Center's fw16 chassis was released by the bologna magistrate and returned to the Williams team upon arrival in the ukuk the remains of the car were destroyed is this the end did you watch the video to find out that no one was punished I will make you happy because the story does not end there [Music] Michael schumacker became the first six-time world Formula 1 Champion Attorney General Ronaldo razini began to study Senate's case Ronaldo immediately concluded that the decision of the court of appeal was wrong it was a mistake to consider the failure of the steering column as a lack of evidence the accident was caused by a defect for which no liability was assigned will appeal the latest decision of the court of appeal to the Italian Supreme Court of cation in January 2003 the court of last resort citing the substantial errors made by the 1999 Appellate Court overturned the acquittals of ha and newie in April 2004 10 years after sena's death the second appeal process began at that time razini expressed his gratitude to padini who had made the right conclusions during the investigation mazio proposed a suspended sentence for the defendants which took into account all the mitigating circumstances however Mr razini believed that the case should be closed as soon as possible due to the statute of limitations the defendants' lawyers insisted on their clients's innocence oreste dominioni argued that the accident was caused by unevenness of the road that's why the steering column was damaged nothing changed in 11 years years Williams continued to stick to its position on May 27th 2005 two pieces of news were announced one was good the Supreme Court dropped the charges against Adrien newie because he was not responsible for the technical part the second news was negative Patrick headed was found guilty of laps control however due to the expiration of the statute of limitations he was not punished head repeatedly asked for a full acquittal but his motions were rejected on April 13th 2007 the Supreme Court of cassation of Italy put the case to rest decision number 1 1550 it was found that the accident was caused by defects in the modification of the steering column the responsibility for which lies with Patrick head he will not be punished as the statute of limitations for manslaughter in Italy is 7 and A2 years the final verdict was handed down 13 years after the crash the Supreme Court's decision caused minimal public outcry delays in the process have reduced public interest in the case most people still consider it an accident in which no one was punished however now you know the truth on the one hand it took the experts involved