What was the cause of Ayrton Senna's fatal accident?

Question

I was just watching various videos today on Youtube and this is the first time I saw his accident. He did not attempt the corner so what was the cause? Did the car steering break or did Senna have a fatal medical event before the corner like an aneurysm?

Answer 1

I'm not sure but I heard its because there was so much downforce pushing the car to the ground it was essentially driving on its underside (hence no way steer). I believe this is why the FIA introduced the legality plank, which sets a minimum height a car must be to prevent this from ever happening again.

Answer 2

It's still a mystery. The official most plausible theory is that his car jumped for a fraction of a second because of the cold tyres (after a slow lap under safety car I think, apparently the floor of the car was touching the track instead of the tyres). Not realising this, he attempted a correction by steering in the other direction and it ended up tragically.

Senna was not the kind of driver that just crashes out like that without something triggering it, specially during that weekend, he was aware Ratzenberger had died and I doubt he would have been careless in that situation.

Answer 3

His car apparently touched the ground as a result of too much downforce as well as too low ride height.

This resulted in a sudden loss of downforce mid corner.

It's the most likely cause but his accident remains a mystery.

Poor Ayrton immediately started braking and had managed to slow his car down to around 140mph at the point of impact.

He should have been able to just get out and walk away from the car if not for that piece of carbon fiber from his suspension that punched through his helmet.

If you ever get the chance to watch that race you will be stunned by how quick the cars had become, visibly quick and very very nervous into corners.

Nothing like the smooth cornering of today's cars or even the active suspension cars of the previous year that was banned.

And the Williams was thought to be one of the most uncompromising cars in the field, Senna spinning out of the race in Interlagos chasing down Schumacher was testimony to that.

Answer 4

jealousy

Answer 5

I believe the cold tyres were in part to blame.. together with a chosen ride height which didnt seem to allow for this parameter/possibility. When they are cold they have reduced psi.. and when u have the large amounts of downforce F1 cars achieve, the problem becomes magnified massively and may well have been the reason for the car bottoming out on the corner.....

When an F1 car bottoms out the aero downforce stops working due to the removal of the airflow underneath the car.... As you can imagine, this is extremely dangerous on a high speed corner where the downforce provides this crucial level of grip to enable you to take the corner.

The fraction of a second the car bottomed out was enough to cause him to lose it. On impact the front wheel/suspension arm snapped off and struck Ayrton on the head.. causing instant and severe damage. You can see from the amount of blood in the clips, how severe the injury must have been. I doubt he would have suffered much if atall.

That weekend shook F1 to the core and many safety measures were implimented ranging from the HANS device to suspension arm tethers and the afore mentioned plank.

Answer 6

a tire and wheel assembly broke loose and just happened to hit him dead on in the cockpit.  The rules were changed after this to build up the sides of the cockpit with the hope of keeping a tite to enter the cockpit.  Notice how much helmet was visable from the side back then and comare it to now.  You can see the helmet if just barely visable from the sides now.