UK Senna TV Program

[Logan]

Anyone catch the Ayrton Senna crash program on Channel 4 last night?

Seemed to be a bit lacking in all the facts and looked like they didn't get the blessing from the FIA, Williams etc. The car footage was all computerised or consisted of blurry shots of old F1 & F3000 cars running in domestic series.

They finally decided the car went off because the ride height was too low and the car lost downforce.

Was quite good as a begginers course in F1 and aerodynamics though, with Frank Dernie going through the technical stuff.

Logan.

[paulzinho]

I missed it, hopefully my nan taped it.

[Stephen Green]

Yes I watched it and thought it was good, but didn't reach any real conclusion as to the result of the accident, with different people coming up with different scenarios. The one interesting part was that it looks like the steering column didn't break as was originally thought, and that the ride hight was the reason as you rightly say.

The footage of F1 cars was from the BOSS series and was shot maily at Brands Hatch, Oulton Park and Donington. For the most part the cars were Paul Stoddards Tyrrels.

[jiggly_puff]

i think the program was too short......could have at least given it an hour!!!!

[LucaBadoer]

When they spelt Ayrton as Aryton at the start - how stupid can they be!!!!!!

[touringlegend]

It was a good programme, too short yes, but it made you think, use your head.

[badoer fan]

The name Frank Dernie rings a bell to me. Does anyone know who he is? Did he run a team or something, or does he work with a current team?

[ghinzani]

Originally posted by badoer fan
The name Frank Dernie rings a bell to me. Does anyone know who he is? Did he run a team or something, or does he work with a current team?

Former designer for Ligier and Lotus amongst others.

[TimD]

As a slightly different perspective on the show - I didn't know it was on, but I went into the office this morning and had three colleagues approach me about it. They don't really follow racing, and know me as the weirdo who doesn't like football, but as casually interested sports fans, they all said how clear the programme had been in explaining what might have happened to a non-expert audience.

For that alone, I am grateful, and I was able to continue a couple of quite serious race-tech based conversations during the course of the day.

[Stephen Green]

Ah Tim, someone else who doesn't follow football, rugby and cricket. What a pleasure to meet you!

[touringlegend]

Frank Dernie, I believe, is still a designer at Lola, who has designed this years MG sportscar, touring car, & rally car.

[Piquet]

Originally posted by TimD
As a slightly different perspective on the show - I didn't know it was on, but I went into the office this morning and had three colleagues approach me about it. They don't really follow racing, and know me as the weirdo who doesn't like football, but as casually interested sports fans, they all said how clear the programme had been in explaining what might have happened to a non-expert audience.

For that alone, I am grateful, and I was able to continue a couple of quite serious race-tech based conversations during the course of the day.

Funny you should say that Tim - I had two non-F1 fans come to me by 9.15 to say they thought it was good & asking if I could go back over some of the points. It certainly makes a change from the usual "the cars just go round in circles" - one of them was actually surprised that the drivers did actually do something in the car, as they thought computers did all the driving !! "...yea, you are not too far off the mark!!"

The lack of original footage was a pain, especially when they showed the computerised footage for the 25th time !!

[Sodemo2]

The part that I don't understand is that (they said) the car bottomed out and that the car went into a slide (which Senna saved) but then went straignt on. Why then after he saved the slide did he not try steering left instead of just going straight on.

Incidentally I have the on-board footage of Sennas last lap, and at no point does he loose the back end in tamburello.

[wodonnell]

To the casual viewer programme probably seemed quite good and I found some part of it very interesting (ie, the bit about the steering column).

However, the programme seemed to be more bothered with showing off its flashy graphics rather than providing us with any actual facts.

As mentioned previously, anyone who has seen the actual footage (rather than the computer generated copy!) can probably confirm that the back of the Williams did not step out going into Tamburello - which was one reason the accident looked so strange in the first place.

Whilst the technical information given was presented well and backed up the points they were trying to tell us, a lot of the facts they gave were just plain wrong.

They tried to tell us that it was the wheel hitting Senna in the head which killed him. How does this account for the suspension parts which pierced his helmet (which they never mentioned!)

[Stephen Green]

I would imagine that the suspension parts were actually still connected to the wheel. It would be quite feasible for the TV company not to want to make a big thing of the fact that the suspension parts punctured his helmet and then killed him. That wasn't the point of the program really.

Surprisingly I came away from watching it quite confused as they didn't, nor could they, come up with a definitive answer to the crash. To my knowledge that's never been proven 100%?

[Speed Demon]

Originally posted by Sodemo2
The part that I don't understand is that (they said) the car bottomed out and that the car went into a slide (which Senna saved) but then went straignt on. Why then after he saved the slide did he not try steering left instead of just going straight on.

Incidentally I have the on-board footage of Sennas last lap, and at no point does he loose the back end in tamburello.

I am certain that the back end did step out - but it would only have to be a minisule amount to cause trouble at that speed, at that point. From a forward facing on-board camera, you will not necessarily notice anything different.

Why did he go straight on? Well, he would have applied a little opposite lock to catch the slide, which seems to be confirmed by the telemetry. When the car regained it's grip, it then would have followed the trajectory of Senna's steering, which was now pointed the wrong way for the corner (although I doubt it would have been by much). Only then would he have steered left again. By this stage he was off the accelerator and on the brakes. Since F1 cars blow exhaust gases through the diffuser, coming off the throttle would further destabilise the car, causing a lack of downforce and making it difficult to turn in at the speed he was travelling at.

Add all of this together and add-in the lack of run-off and you can see that Senna just ran out of road, and luck. Without the wheel striking his head, the accident would have been survivable.

[paulzinho]

Did they have power steering then? Its just i heard a rumour about it failing.

[Logan]

I think they did have power steering although I'm not sure as it might have been phased out along with traction control, active suspension etc.

The main thing with the steering was the possibility that the column had snapped in half after Williams had made some alterations to it at the request of Senna - the italians thought it had and Williams said that it happened after the crash.

I can't remember what Williams' official line eventually was or whether there even was one?

Logan.

[paulzinho]

Someone told me that the power steering may have failed and the subsequent extra force used caused the steering column to break.

Also if the back end had stepped out wouldn't it have been more beneficial to go into the wall back first rather than a heavy side impact?

[LucaBadoer]

Originally posted by badoer fan
The name Frank Dernie rings a bell to me. Does anyone know who he is? Did he run a team or something, or does he work with a current team?

FROM http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/cref-derfra.html


Name: Frank Dernie
Nationality: Great Britain
Date of birth: April 3, 1950

Dernie was brought up in Lancashire and won a place at the famous engineering school at the Imperial College of London University. He worked briefly designing gears for David Brown Industries and then tried his hand at the design of record players with the Garrards company.

At the end of 1976, however, he joined the Hesketh F1 team, working on the design of the 308E for the two seasons before the team closed down. By the time that was over he had acquired a taste for the engineering challenges in F1 and soon afterwards found a job with the newly formed Williams Grand Prix Engineering. He became Patrick Head's first aerodynamic assistant and, working in the Imperial College windtunnel in London, helped Head and assistant designer Neil Oatley to produce the Williams FW07. The car made Williams a winning team and Dernie continued to head Williams' aerodynamic activities into the mid-1980s - helping to win three World Championships and playing an important role in establishing the team's own windtunnel facility. Later he designed the Williams active suspension system.

In 1989 he was finally lured away with an offer to become Team Lotus's Technical Director, replacing Gerard Ducarouge. Lotus was by then in decline and it hit rock bottom at the end of 1990. Dernie left to take up a similar position with Ligier at Magny-Cours. He remained with the French team for two years but when Guy Ligier sold the operation to Cyril de Rouvre, Dernie went back to England and found a job working with Ross Brawn - who had once been his deputy at Williams. He engineered Michael Schumacher in 1993 but was then sent off to work as technical director of Ligier again after the team was bought by Benetton boss Flavio Briatore.

The team was later taken over by Tom Walkinshaw but in April 1996 Dernie moved with Walkinshaw to Arrows. A year later Walkinshaw appointed John Barnard as the new Arrows technical director and Dernie left the team. He joined Lola Cars as technical director with the brief to help rebuild the company after its disastrous F1 program. Dernie has concentrated on CART racing ever since.

[Jonny Apex]

Well done Luca on spotting the typo of Aryton Senna at the start of the programme. It never did recover after that did it? The fact it had to use computer simulators rather than the real footage says how much the FIA wanted to get involved in this. Good down to earth explanations of the physics involved which is what I suppose the casual viewer needs so they don't switch off, but its findings actually smack in the face of those of the official inquiry, don't they. I thought the court case said a broken steering column was to blame?

I hardly feel a tacky programme like this does anything for Senna's name or the high levels of professionalism within F1. I can only imagine most of those who work in F1 must have cringed when they saw this programme. I know I did.

[Crash and Burn]

It was a good program - but to me it missed out on two major points...

1) Senna wasn't the only driver to be killed that day - no one every talks about Ratsen. Being killed and how he was killed. Ok Senna was the best - but that was two lives lost in two days. Imola was lucky to be in the next year's calender.

2) Every bit of fact was correct except they quickly passed over the bit about his speed. They said his back end slip out - which is correct due to his ride height being low. Senna then corrected this whilst his foot was hard on the brake. Correct. Which then caursed the accident. BUT they missed the following which was in the court room..........

It was brought up that Senna had pressed full to the floor to get away from the pack (which you would do), rest of the other drivers where around 80% down as they knew the tyres where cold. Senna being Senna was a racer and like to race and pressed down 100%. The court came up with - the temperature of the tyres wasn't high enough to allow the car enough grip and ride hight to allow the under belly to stay of the floor. If he had not gone full throt. he would have made it around the floor. This is one of the mainy supporting factors that allowed Williams not to be blamed.

This is me is a bit unfair - they are blaming Senna for his own death. He was a race driver who loved to race. Who else would floor it.

But all in all the program showed everything else and finally put to rest all the talk about who did what etc...

It all boils down to two factors

1) Senna's head / the Wheel/suspension was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
2) It was a racing accident.

Well done Channel 4. Senna you will be missed, no matter what people say he was one of the best ever drivers. His racing did his talking - when his mouth let him down. R.I.P.

[Speedworx]

The program was made using information from Williams. I enjoyed the program (as did my parents).

It gave me more of an insite into what happened. I was left feeling that they answered the reason of how he crashed.