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REMEMBERING
SENNA 25 YEARS ON: AYRTON’S LEGACY AND LEGEND
HOW THE SUPERSTAR’S DEATH CHANGED F1 FOREVER BY THOSE WHO WERE THERE
DAMON HILL ON F1’S DARKEST DAYS
ALONSO’S BATHURST BID
WHINCUP AGONY All-time champ on his struggles
Issue #1760
May 2 18 to May 15, 2019
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PLUS
Fernando to open way for superstars
SUPERNIGHT PREVIEW YOUR GUIDE TO PRIME TIME TV RACES
s w e n e n O Formula
THE THOR CHARLES LECLERC was in charge of his own destiny when it came to the thorny question of Ferrari team orders in Azerbaijan. Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto declared earlier in the year that the more experienced Vettel would be given priority over Leclerc. But team orders don’t work if Leclerc disappears into the distance like he did in Bahrain. It was different in China where Leclerc and Vettel were running in tandem and the former had to let the latter go ahead. Leclerc looked set to be in front of Vettel in Azerbaijan. He was fastest all through practice and right up until the second qualifying session, when he made a mistake and crashed. That put Leclerc eighth on the grid and a long way behind Vettel who started third. When chatting with reporters in the Baku paddock prior to practice, Leclerc was asked if he thought he could beat Vettel if he was permitted. “I don’t know,” Leclerc mused. “It’s very early in the season still. It’s a tricky question.”
WILLIAMS’ WOES IF THERE is one Formula 1 team that really didn’t need to have two wrecked cars on a race weekend, it was the struggling on-its-backfoot Williams. During Friday morning’s practice in Baku George Russell ran over a loose manhole cover that ripped up his Williams and cracked the chassis. During qualifying the next day Robert Kubica made a mistake and rammed his Williams into the barriers. “Ahead of this weekend I was kind of feeling there was a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and then this happens,” said deputy team principal Claire Williams. Now money, time and resources that were designated for upgrades on the car need to be diverted to repairing and replacing what got damaged. “We haven’t had the best year, clearly everybody has seen that,” Williams said. “It started with not
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getting our chassis to testing, and we’ve had to really play catch up off the back of that. So we are now in a position where we have all our race quantities (of parts), and now we’re looking to bring the upgrades that have literally been sitting on a shelf as we’ve cleared the backlog out of manufacturing.” Williams said the return of team cofounder and technical genius Patrick Head is benefitting the team. However the body language between the two – when they ignored each other in the pit garage at the previous race in China – was interesting to observe. “Patrick is acting as a guide for our team of engineers at the moment, just making sure that they’re doing everything that they should be doing,” Williams said. The Williams FW42 car, which arrived late for preseason testing in Spain, has been pretty much unchanged.
“From the moment we put the car down in Barcelona we knew we’d be having this car for the next four races or so,” Russell said. There still is a major problem of the car being inconsistent and unpredictable. “We have to get on top of this issue and until now we were not able to,” Kubica said after the race in Baku. “First of all we have to understand it. In this area in China I was surprisingly happy, in Bahrain I
wasn’t. George was happy in Bahrain and I wasn’t. Friday here I had some bigger problems and some smaller problems. I was never 100 per cent in the situation to drive and think about driving. “There are many things that are quite positive and probably some of them are hidden by general performance, but also still a lot of things to improve. My driving and the pace are much better than it looks.” Williams will have a few updates for the next race in Spain. “They will give us a good indication of how the rest of the season will pan out,” Russell said. “A number of different things varying from aerodynamics to brakes. It is not a full update but it will give is a clear direction of where we need to focus. Based on those results it will help us understand if we have any hope for the remainder of the season or not.”
NY QUESTION He then paused for a long time during which the Ferrari press officer interjected: “Say yes.” “I believe there is the potential to do so,” Leclerc continued. “But then from the potential to actually doing it, I need to do a lot of work and put all the things together. But, yeah, we’ll see.” Leclerc has a strategy to deal with team orders and politics. “I work on the driving side as much as I can,” he said. “And like I always did to be in the best shape possible in the key moment of the weekend. Then I accept the decisions, but I’m trying to do the best job possible in the car.” He did a great job in Baku right up until Q2. What upset him was that there was no real reason to be pushing the car to the limits in that session, as he would have comfortably transferred to the final Q3 session for the top 10 drivers. While he did manage to lead
part of the race in Baku, Leclerc was, because of his accident and starting eighth, out of synch with the strategy of the leaders and he finished fifth. “The fifth place obviously when I’m looking at FP1, FP2, FP3 and quali is not very representative,” Leclerc said. “I am disappointed because I felt great in the car. I think in the car there was definitely the potential to do pole position, and I threw all our chances away by touching the wall yesterday, it is my mistake. “It was entirely my fault, and I’ll do everything to never make it again, to learn from this mistake and come back stronger. I’ll never forget the mistake, because it hurts, but it will make me stronger for the next race.” And a stronger Leclerc might be able to qualify and race ahead of teammate Vettel. Leclerc is in charge of his own destiny.
RENAULT NEEDS TO REGROUP AFTER A sloppy start in the first four races of the season, the Renault team desperately needs a reset and regroup when the Formula 1 circus reconvenes in Spain for the first race in Europe. Aussie Daniel Ricciardo has failed to finish three times, and he and teammate Nico Hülkenberg have nothing more than a pair of seventh places between them so far. Both Hülkenberg and Ricciardo lacked confidence in the car’s braking, grip and handling throughout the weekend in Azerbaijan. And those are crucial ingredients for lapping quickly around the wall-lined Baku street circuit. Finally, in the race, Ricciardo managed to get into the flow. He was heading to a finish in the points when he literally backed his car into the Toro Rosso of his former teammate Daniil Kvyat. “Very clearly it’s been a bad weekend,” Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul said. “From FP1 onwards we never found our pace despite big changes to the car overnight. We finally managed to recover an acceptable competitiveness level during the race for Daniel but it would never be the case for Nico. “Overall, the first stint of the season has been disappointing, but if we manage to get all things in order, we can have a decent competitiveness level as demonstrated on several occasions. We must absolutely see the start of the European season as an opportunity to reset.” Ricciardo and Hülkenberg really hope that Renault’s regression in form in Baku is a
one-off track-specific dip in performance. Just two weeks after Ricciardo finished seventh in the Chinese Grand Prix – and thus being the best of the midfield behind the top three teams – he started 10th in Baku with two McLarens, a Racing Point and a Toro Rosso lined up on the grid in front of him. Hülkenberg lined up 15th and finished 14th. “I didn’t really feel at home or happy in the car at any point during the weekend,” Hülkenberg said. “I didn’t feel the love or the harmony between the car and myself.” Ricciardo was also not happy. “All weekend we haven’t really been on it,” he said. “That is why getting into the points would have been a fairly good recovery for us, and that’s why I’m gutted not to pull that off. Relative, it looked like we had pretty good pace on the medium. On the soft compound tyre we struggled at the beginning. If we’d finished the race, we’d actually be quite upbeat about it. But not much more to say. I feel pretty small at the moment.” Officials punished Ricciardo for causing the accident with Kvyat by giving him a three-place grid penalty for the next race. Spain’s Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is used as a F1 test track because it exposes weaknesses in the cars. Like all the teams, Renault will have a number of upgrades for its car at the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix. It will be a telling test if Renault has managed to reset and get its season back on course.
WINNING AT ALL AYRTON SENNA introduced a new ruthless attacking driving style to Formula 1, something that could have resulted in injury or death in previous eras when the cars and circuits were not as safe. Michael Schumacher refined those tactics to new lows. Thankfully, Lewis Hamilton – his hero is Senna – has not continued the trend. Senna became upset with Jackie Stewart during a famous TV interview during the 1990 Australian Grand Prix weekend. Stewart said that Senna had been involved in more accidents and contact with other cars than all the other world champions combined. The circumstances leading up to all of this were the two clashes between Senna and Alain Prost in the Japanese Grand Prix. In 1989, when they were McLaren teammates, Prost refused to yield, they collided, and as a result Prost became champion. A
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year later Senna won the title after he deliberately rammed Prost, now driving for Ferrari, off the track. Senna told Stewart that he had every right to go for the gap trying to pass Prost. “If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing to win,” Senna insisted. The reality was far different. It was revenge. “We all have weaknesses,” Senna’s former McLaren boss Ron Dennis recalled on the 10th anniversary of Senna’s death, “and Ayrton might well have read the section in his own particular guide manual that said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. He was basically following the path of balance, and he was trying to find a way to justify the behavior that he wasn’t particularly comfortable with, but with which he felt was a way of balancing the books.”
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What did Dennis do after Senna walked back to the pits following the first lap accident in 1990? “What you do in that circumstance is that you immediately evaluate the repercussion that could immediately spring from it,” Dennis said. “You professionally guide him, which I did, to avoid it becoming an issue. So you basically have to support the situation in order that you don’t get
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embroiled in the post-event politics. I wasn’t supportive of it, but I enjoyed the benefit of it (by winning the championship). You think was that a just outcome, was that the way it should be?” Not on the day of the accident but later on, Dennis told Senna that McLaren does not win at all costs. “I don’t think that he was particularly proud of that particular judgment,” Dennis said. “It was not one his finest moments, and he wasn’t proud of it. I don’t think that in the end that even he could justify it on the basis of the outcome. He would have preferred to have won the world championship without that particular event.”
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Remembering Senna 25 years on
Rubens Barrichello (left) was injured at Imola in a separate accident. Below, Aryton Senna leads Roland Ratzenberger early in the San Marino Grand Prix weekend.
three months and talk about safety is Gerhard Berger. “After his retirement (at the end of 1993), Alain Prost said FIA President Max Mosley took we must talk about immediate action to improve safety. I said anytime. Formula 1 safety after the Imola weekend. I’ve even rung him, but he’s never rung back. “The fact is, it’s not fun and it doesn’t make money. So, most of the time, they don’t want to do it. In the past, we’ve had a drivers’ safety commission. When you have the first meeting, you have everybody there; second meeting, half; and third and fourth meetings, they just don’t bother. “It’s more fun to go and do a promotion, go skiing, swimming or something. One can understand it. In the end, the driver’s job is to drive. It’s our job to see they drive safely. But if it was a question of a driver using a car which is more dangerous, but five seconds a lap faster than a slower one, they would all opt for the quicker one.” During a drivers’ meeting following Ratzenberger’s death, Senna proposed that the defunct Grand Prix
The scene of Aryton Senna’s accident, watched live with horror around the world.
Drivers Association be reformed. A month later, Gerhard Berger and Niki Lauda did just that. The drivers had now realised that they had to take a part in their own destiny. Later that year, the GPDA requested that chicanes be installed at Spa and Monza. Meanwhile, Mosely and the FIA came up with a range of changes to be implemented throughout the year and into the next to improve the safety of the cars, circuits and drivers. Mosely also set up a new safety commission, a variation of which exists to this day. “What we did in 1994,” Mosely later recalled, “we had a whole lot of changes made after Senna, and we did that with a fairly simple manoeuvre – we said to the teams: ‘We want these things changed and if you don’t do it, we are not going to organise a World Championship in 1995.’ “Then, anyway, everybody began to see the sense and people agreed, but it was done by unanimous agreement, with the little threat of not running a championship.”
BICKERING
ACTUALLY, THE teams’ tactics were “agree now” and “negotiate and bicker later”. The FIA mandated to reduce cornering speed by cutting downforce by about 15 percent and reducing horsepower just two weeks after the cursed San Marino GP. Two weeks later, cockpit lateral driver protection had to be increased, and the front suspension had to be strengthened to reduce the chance of wheels or suspension pieces flying off during an
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SAD REFLECTIONS
Our veteran F1 correspondent’s personal memories of F1’s most gut-wrenching weekend
accident, as had happened with Senna’s car. His helmet had been struck by both a tyre and a suspension piece. More changes were proposed for the rest of the season, including making pump petrol mandatory and a ‘stepped bottom’ floor to reduce downforce. For 1995, horsepower would be reduced from 750 to 600. All of this was a typical tactic Mosely used to effect change, making some outrageous proposals so that the teams would then be happy to compromise and agree on something they would not have accepted in the first place. Still, some teams protested vehemently, saying that the FIA’s kneejerk changes actually made the cars more dangerous. Mosely told the teams they could skip a race if they needed more time to modify their cars. The squabbling – some of it very bitter – continued throughout 1994 and beyond, and it continues to this today.
Max Mosley was very much the person to drive this safety campaign very strongly forward to not let this happen as much as it is possible in the world to have a safe sport. “If you see what safety level we have in these days, then it is a tremendous success.” That was as true in 2004 as it is in 2019. Jean Todt replaced Mosley as FIA president in 2009 and continued the safety quest along with the late Charlie Whiting, whose roles included that of FIA safety delegate. And, for now, Aussie Michael Masi has taken over Whiting’s duties. The bottom line is that safety standards have improved drastically since the terrible weekend of April 30-May 1, 1994 that changed F1 forever. Sadly, we have the deaths of Ratzenberger and, mainly, Senna to bitterly thank for those life-saving reforms.
THE HORRIBLE events of that tragic San Marino Grand Prix weekend at Imola started 17 minutes into Friday afternoon’s practice session. Brazil’s Rubens Barrichello lost control of his Jordan at 225 km/h just before the pit entrance of the Autodromo Dino e Enzo Ferrari. He was knocked unconscious as the car somersaulted. When he woke up in the track’s medical centre, the first thing he saw was compatriot Ayrton Senna, tears in his eyes, standing over him. Little did any of us at the track that weekend realise at the time that this was just a precursor to what was to come – and worse. The next day Roland Ratzenberger lost his life when he crashed his Simtek at 280 km/h into a concrete wall. I remember watching the TV monitors in the media centre and seeing Senna standing on the track at the accident scene (he had commandeered a course car to get out there). I wondered if he was having thoughts of his own mortality after believing he was invincible for so many years. I recall the subdued atmosphere in the paddock on Sunday morning. I got glimpses of a downcast and somber Senna – either in person or on TV – as he quietly talked to Williams team members at their motorhome or in the pit garage. Just to make things worse, there was a start line accident when Pedro Lamy’s Lotus rammed JJ Lehto’s stalled Benetton. We found out later that nine people had been injured by debris flying into the grandstand. It was another nasty chapter in that awful weekend. This was not the first time I had been at a race track where a driver or marshal died, but it was the first time for me on an F1 weekend. I was dismayed about Ratzenberger, but because he was a newcomer, his death did not affect me like Senna’s death in the early laps of the race the next day. Senna was a legend. I started covering F1 fulltime in 1984, the same year Senna started in F1. So I had ‘known’” him for 10 years. We in the media centre and the paddock had to wait hours for any information on Senna’s condition. Deadlines were looming. Our editors were calling us on landlines in the media centre asking for updates. We had none. Every now and then, an unconfirmed rumor would swirl around. This was, of course, long before the days of social media. Can you imagine the storm of speculation that would have been flying around in today’s information age? Finally, just before 7 pm, the doctor at the nearby Bologna hospital confirmed that the legendary Senna was dead. I was stunned, as were some of the other younger journalists, when the news finally reached us at the track. Some of the old hacks who had been around in the 1960s and ’70s, when racing deaths were common, told us to stop being so distraught. Sad and shocked as we were, there was lots of work to be done and we stayed late into the night in the media centre. A test session had been scheduled at the track in the days after the race, and I had planned to stay for the that. Fortunately, the test was canceled. On the Monday morning I drove my rental car north, out of Imola and onto the Autostrada up through Milan and on to Lake Como. I went to a little hotel where I always stayed for the Italian Grand Prix. I spent several days there among the mountains and the lake, contemplating the tumultuous Imola weekend. How I felt could be summed up in one word: Numb. DK
CHANGED FOREVER
MICHAEL SCHUMACHER summed things up well on the 10th anniversary of 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend. “Unfortunately, we only think about one driver,” Schumacher intoned. “I like to remember both drivers who died in the same weekend. Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton died, and everyone was obviously shocked about this. From my point of view, it was the first experience with death in the sport I most love. “The only positive I can take out of this one, and at least that is important, is that we have seen a lot of action in terms of safety happening since that day.
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Since officially becoming the third tier of Supercars racing late last year, Super3 has firmed as a must-do category for young drivers heading towards the top of the sport. DAN McCARTHY discovered why it has become a key stepping stone towards a Supercars career
SUPER PATHWAY
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UPER3 BEGAN its life as the V8 Touring Car Series with a modest four-car field at Mallala in 2008. Along the way it has launched a number of careers but in 2019 interest in the category has exploded, and it now shapes up as a crucial pathway towards becoming a professional Supercar driver. Running with the Shannons Nationals program at the time, Rob Curkpatrick had initial conversations with Les Morrall about establishing a series for 10-year-old Supercars that had been decommissioned from the Development Series.
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“It started off as a bit of a go racing gentleman’s category, but it has evolved into a stepping stone,” said Curkpatrick. “We’ve always had younger or less experienced drivers, but it seems to be the balance is stepping a bit that way (toward young drivers) now.” The inaugural V8 Touring Car champion was ex-Supercars privateer Chris Smerdon, who took eight wins on the way to the title and has since witnessed first-hand the category’s growth. “What we were trying to do was get these old cars that were in people’s sheds, out and about, and the series just gradually gathered momentum from there and it ran
Josh Fife made his car racing debut driving for Brad Jones Racing at Phillip Island. Original Kumho Cup competitor Chris Smerdon alongside Hamish Ribarits in the Professional Class (below).
for probably four years with a lot of people just enjoying a race weekend away, not taking things too seriously,” Smerdon said. “Then we started to see some of the other more competitive teams come in with better prepared cars and the whole series started to move up a level.” An influx of professional teams began to identify the series as a key stepping stone for young drivers in 2016, with leading Super2 team MW Motorsport and Supercars squad Brad Jones Racing entering. MW Motorsport has fostered many young drivers over the past four seasons and believes that the experience in Super3 greatly enhances the chances of success in Super2. “For us it just creates opportunity for guys to have a run and see what Supercars are like and to get some skills in them before they move to Super2, because Super2 is so competitive you just can’t step in there as a rookie or you’ll get cleaned up,” said MW Motorsport boss Matt White. Team owner Brad Jones added that Super3 has made the leap to Super2 a much easier one.
Formula 4 graduate Jayden Ojeda also made his Supercar debut at Phillip Island (above). The big field of Super3 cars entering the Southern Loop (top) on the opening lap. Images: Ross Gibb and Insyde Media “It’s really the opportunity to get into a sedan, go racing and get a feel for what it’s like to race a sedan, whereas in years gone by people came out of F4 or Formula Ford and then went from that into Super2. It’s a really big step so I think it (Super3) has filled a bit of a hole in the market,” said Jones. Eight teenagers are racing in the Super3 Series this year and had strong weekends at Phillip Island, including Jayden Ojeda and Broc Feeney. Ojeda is last year’s Formula 4 champion and is
confident that he has chosen the right pathway. “It’s good they have expanded on what they had in Super2 and created a Super3, I think it’s a really good pathway,” Ojeda said. “If you look at the pathway you’ve got Super3, Super2 and then eventually, hopefully, the main game.” At age 16, Feeney is the youngest driver in the category this season and had a successful opening weekend, scoring pole and winning the first race of the season.
“I raced the Toyota 86 Racing Series last year and it’s the next move. Obviously the goal is to make it to Supercars and Toyota 86 was a great starting platform,” Feeney explained. “Super3 is basically the best costeffective step to move up. It just makes that next step forward a lot easier, Super3, Super2 and then obviously Supercars.” Jones is the only team owner to run entries in each of the three tiers, and he feels that while Super3 is not essential, it’s nonetheless a great step. “To jump straight in Super2, it’s a pretty big step, so I think that it’s a good step,” Jones told Auto Action. “If you start in Super3, spend a season there and then you’ve got the opportunity to move into Super2 and then the main championship.” Jones has recruited two rookies in the form of karters Madeline Stewart and Josh Fife, with both making their tin-top debuts at Phillip Island. “A lot of young people are looking to get into Supercar racing and I know these two through Tom Williamson. They drove for him
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