Sabotage

Ah, yes, the Italian racing media.

I lived in Florence in 1989 when McLaren Honda was riding high and read a lot of the Italian
racing magazines. While these were beautiful publications, each and every one of them were
Ferrari lap dog apologists.

In races that were dominated by McLaren Honda, the Italian magazines tried hard to keep the
faith of the TIFOSI high. "If not for A, B, C, D, E..., etc. Ferrari would have won the race". Some
of the conspiracy theories were so far fetched all you could do is scratch your head.

Conversely, all countries are pretty much guilty of this. I recently became aware of a popular
Brazilian conspiracy theory that Senna was in fact assassinated by a sharp shooter before
he crashed at Imola.

It doesn't matter when these theories are met with pragmatic explanations, people are going
to believe all manner of nonsense.

BHW

 

That would have to be a really SHARP SHOOTER.. hard to take a shot at him from behind the barrier when its a river.

I was living in Europe during 89 - 90 - 91. was at Monza the weekend they announced Prost was going to Ferrari- you would have thought Ferrari won the world championship. he won the race & they went crazy.

 

Little did they know ...

 

One thing that does occur to me, it wouldn’t take an awful lot to sabotage a car. One tiny bit of solder loosens, one sensor cracked, loose bolt, the slightest thing can destroy the lap time of these cars, even stop them completely, so having thought about it, I suppose it is possible something is happening. Maybe it’s not a scuderia employee, could be Jo Bauer’s staff members assigned to stand over the cars in the garage..... they get access to the car, and are the ONLY ones allowed to touch certain areas with a tool....

This may have legs yet you know!

 

Sounds like desperation to me, anything to deflect the truth.

I seem to recall a similar theory back in the Barnard days with the gearbox failures, SF could not get on top on the consistent failures and so blamed the gearbox and sabotage at UK end. Frustrated Baranard went to Italy and examined the whole assembly process and found that the lady who assembled the moog valve was never trained to do it and it was a repeated o ring failure due to poor assembly. After that the gearbox worked OK, not perfect but it was still early days for the new development.

I would say they have clever engineers but as others have said repeatedly, they have no one to look up to and respect. A confident general will always have dedicated followers and not be afraid to make the call when needed.

Tony​

 

Ferrari's most dangerous ennemy has always been Ferrari.

Rgds

 

Hey, I was at Monza in '89 too shooting for Panorama Magazine.

In fact, I was visiting Maranello the day Prost signed his contract with Ferrari (of course unknown to me
at the time) which was announced formally the next day.

Logic goes out the window with these conspiracy theories. It's a way for the uneducated to try make themselves
look smart which usually lasts about ten seconds when the theories fall apart.

In the case of this Senna story, imagine the caliber gun that would have to be used. Sniper rifles of
that sort tend to be rather large and make a big noise. With 400,000 potential eyewitnesses present,
the get away would be impossible.

BHW

 

... and the Frenzy around it.

 

Why......sounds vaguely familiar......McLaren after Ron Dennis???

 

It worked for JFK's assassin?

 

In other circumstances, I´d consider the possibility: there are rumours about a mad astronaut sabotaging the ISS, so anything can happen.

But right now, why would anybody bother? Ferrari is way down in the points table, even if they win a few races it wouldn´t make a big difference.

 

Perhaps they didn't bother when they see that Ferrari do it themselves in bad strategy calls!

 

Haha, love the Senna theory. But I am convinced Williams was responsible for the death of Senna. Or whomever engineered/welded the steering column after Senna asked to have it extended because of the dicey handling with the ban on traction control that season. it needed and outer tube reinforcement. And the whole whitewash from the F1 community and Nat Geo about loss of downforce and bottoming out is just hogwash. If that was so, we would have seen it every time, every shower of sparks (so common) , straight after straight, corner after corner, bump after bump. It was a lame attempt to mask the failure in the new, little known world of aero, ... when 5 plus laps beforehand, including tire pressures showed the exact opposite! Cars also lean away from the corner with g force. The bottom is never exactly flat when cornering or pulling g in a sweeper. Michele Alboreto also stated Senna could not have made a mistake there. (Like overdriving) It's like the Hunaudiere and Mulsanne straights at LeMans. The one place where you have time to think and breath. Not a place you make mistakes. Enough on that rant...

I like the view that Binotto is inexperienced. I think it is good that he is an engineer but it is more than just a leadership vacuum. The rules, especially for engineers, are competition killers during the season. There is no practical way to do real empirical analysis of success and failure with the ban on testing. It really sucks. In the Schumi days you could pound out the laps and and make adjustments. Ever since the hybrid era, MB has been ahead because of that framework. They got it right out of the gate. When MB was allowed to cheat by burning oil for calories, power was the issue and they still had other advantages, SF had a chassis car with more downforce. This year SF made an aero car with less downforce and less mechanical grip in the chassis. They do have more power, but I think they blew up the turbos by pushing with the temp swings and weather change at Hockenheim. The run off area on the drag strip with skating rink conditions is crazy. It's the first I ever heard of it or knew it was there. In rain, it's lethal. Didn't happen last year even though Seb went off a Sachs for his own mistake in the rain.

 

John
If you haven't already read the book (how to build a racing car) by Adrian Newey, it gives a real behind the scenes account of the Senna tragedy and how Williams left him out to dry.
totally agree, there has been lots said about the ban on testing. Its a bit like one team having all the best players and nobody else can dip into the transfer market to enhance their team & try to catch up. Stupid rule, doesn't save money, in fact I would say it increases expenditure as teams have to invest in millions $£ of computer simulation hardware and software in a vein attempt to change the situation. 4 x one week tests would improve matters, but I guess Mercedes would have the veto on that one, why would they give up a strong position
Tony

 

Thanks Tony. I will check for the book. I love how Ron Dennis came to Senna's defense in the Prost-Suzuka saga. Man the politics back then with Balestre were insane! Don't know much about Newey so I should check it out. Sure he is an aero genius but I don't know how he fits into the Williams saga. Forghieri has a great story on how Senna almost went to Ferrari even after Prost until some Ferrari manager "sabotaged" the deal for some silly selfish reason. You'll find it in Forghieri on Ferrari. Great coffee table book.

 

I think this is it?

https://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Car-Autobiography-Greatest/dp/000819680X/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=how+to+build+a+car&qid=1564601977&s=books&sr=1-3

 

I remember that Patrick Head, then technical director at Williams, testified during the enquiry that the steering column had been machined on Senna's car to allow the steering angle he required (different than the original apparently). For this, the diameter had been reduced on some length for fit the appropriate support (he said), or this is precisely at the point of reduction that the steering column had broken. Patrick Head presented calculations to demonstrate that even at the point of reduced diameter, the column strength was still well within safety margins. So, as the enquiry couldn't prove if the steering column on Senna's car had broken before the impact on the wall, of during that impact, it couldn't find Williams guilty of negligence, and the team was exonerated.

I suspect that the machining was at fault. In similar cases, shafts have broken at the point of reduction between 2 diameters when a minimum radius cut wasn't respected. It just becomes a weak point. Did the steering column break suddenly, preventing Senna to steer his car? I guess we will never know.

As for the sparks seen before the crash, I suspect that running slowy behind a safety car reduce tyres' temperature significantly, hence diminishes temporarily the ground clearance. But F1 cars usually bottom out without problem.

 

Snipers have reached targets 2 miles away.
At 1/3 of that distance (1000 meters ?) a trained sniper would be capable to hit a moving target like a driver's head in car coming straight on.
Police protection staff, secret services or military commando teams train on that scenario regulary.
That would be far away from the track and the crowd to avoid detection, and escape unnoticed.
As for the noise, without using a suppressor, one can have a very noisy motorcycle engine, or a powerplant running nearby as a decoy to cover the detonation.
I would say it's quite feasable.

 

While we are at it, if we can find the bloke who "sabotaged" my 1980's Alfas and Lancias and my 1990's Ferraris that would be just great.

 

Thanks William, we can continue the conversation in another thread if you want. Along the conspiracy thread though I'll respond with this:

The weld could have stressed the metal and so could the machining as you indicated. The black boxes were removed and the critical chips were the ones missing or tampered with. And the power steering sensors were for level not position and on the wrong end of the column to matter after failure. All of this is in a great rebuttal video on YouTube.

By sparks, I didn't mean to suggest that Senna's car was sparking out of the ordinary. To the contrary in fact. Those cars bottomed out all the time with showers of sparks galore. A real crowd pleaser and no indication of loss of ground effect at all. Just a silly assertion in Senna's case. And the tire temp thing is the same. Plain silly. Every lap on those tires increased the tire temperature after the safety car. If they were too cold to grip or too low for ground clearance and good ground effect, the car would have slid on the earlier laps, not the later ones. the car would be lighter in fuel later too, (hehe). The steering column clearly shows abnormal flex as the weld and splice fails. Clearly visible in the films by watching the yellow button. The flex demonstrated afterward by David Coultard is silly too. A driver never exerts that kind of flexing force on the wheel in the cockpit. Rotational maybe on flat out sweepers like Tamburello, but not flex in a safe column. Just dumb. This is clearly demonstrated in other cockpit video of safe steering columns. You don't have the leverage in the cockpit anyway to get that kind of flex on a good column. More rubbish. The column failed. Senna crashed and died. Not at the hospital, on the track. More travesty piled on top of tragedy.

I believe Williams is carrying the cold, heavy weight of Karma right now at this moment.

 

Oh yeah, unsupressed rifle shots can still be disorienting in open areas. One of the things that helped Oswald get away was the confusion. With echos off the buildings and overpass you can't tell where it's coming from. The closer you are, the worse it is because it's so loud. The shock and stun reflex overrides your ability to discern where it's coming from.

 

John, yes that s the one. I was thinking of another book by John Barnard -The perfect car - Equally as good if not slightly self serving. Fascinating insight into how Ferrari conducted themselves and was rather banging his head on the wall.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/08/19/the-perfect-car-john-barnard-biography-reviewed-f1-book/

Happy bedtime reading!

tony

 

I wont spoil it for you but Newey was less than pleased with how the Williams team conducted themselves.