May 1, 1994. Fábio Marckezini, then 9 years old, was in front of the TV, as he used to do on Sunday mornings at the family home in São Paulo. “I watched everything live. Right at that time, a year before, I began to understand what death was and that had a very strong impact on my life. The guy was a national hero, a Brazilian idol, aged 34. Dying there, live, in your living room, is a very difficult matter”, recalls the journalist and researcher.
On the same day, in São Bernardo do Campo, in ABC Paulista, Danilo Iakimoff, aged 14 at the time, carried out a similar ritual.
“Right after the accident, when he was still in the car, the image of him moving his head was a great hope. I thought he would be fine, but unfortunately, the tragic news of his death later came. At that moment, I went out into the backyard, isolated myself in a corner and started crying. What had happened was unbelievable”, recalls the businessman.
In Belo Horizonte, journalist Antônio Melane had already been in the profession for 24 years, ten of them dedicated to covering Formula 1 on site. That day, however, the work would be done from the editorial office of the newspaper Estado de Minas, in the capital of Minas Gerais, through Rede Globo transmission.
“There was a feeling of sadness, for being a Brazilian, but other pilots had already died in races (On the eve of Senna’s death, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, aged 34, also suffered a fatal accident during training). On the same day, I left for São Paulo and went to cover the wake and burial”, says the retiree, who has lived in Aracaju, capital of Sergipe, for two years.
Although they don’t know each other and were in different parts of the country, 30 years ago, Marckezini, Iakimoff and Melane’s thoughts converged on Imola, in Italy. There, a tragedy killed Ayrton Senna da Silva, a 34-year-old Brazilian driver, who died after an accident on the seventh lap of the San Marino GP.
When the Williams team car collided with a concrete wall at the Tamburello curve, the trajectory of the three-time world champion (1988, 1990 and 1991), considered by many to be the main Brazilian idol, came to an end. A condition that persists to this day, even three decades after his death.
Half a million people on the streets of São Paulo
Four days after the accident, Senna was buried in São Paulo. On May 5, 1994, around 500,000 people took to the streets of the capital of São Paulo to pay their final tribute to the pilot.
“One hundred hours of suffering of the Brazilian people, which began on Sunday morning, with a stupid accident in Ímola, had its culminating moment yesterday, at 12:30 pm, when the greatest racing driver of all time was buried in the Morumbi cemetery, in São Paulo. Paulo”, described the headline in the newspaper O Globo the day after the funeral ceremony.
After a 17-kilometer procession that began at the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, the body was buried in the Morumbi cemetery. “There I began to understand how much he was loved by the people. Something impressive. A general commotion. At that time, the national idol was Pelé, and Ayrton ‘threatened’ the King on this issue”, says Melane.
Senna’s trajectory has been retold extensively, through books, documentaries, films and the like. The former driver walked the path of those who choose the circus of motorsport as their life. From his beginnings in karting, in 1973, to Formula 1, where he debuted in 1984, the Brazilian reached the top of his career. In addition to his third world championship, he racked up 41 victories, 80 podiums and 65 pole positions, in 161 races in the sport’s main category.
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Tags: Ayrton Senna years Brazil mourned death greatest idols
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