“It was horrible to announce the death of Ayrton Senna”

Thirty years after the death of Ayrton Senna, former international correspondent Raul Moreira, the first to report the fatality, recalls the day of the accident and moments with the Brazilian driver. May 1, 1994 seemed to be a Sunday of new beginnings for Ayrton Senna . After riding in the Brazilian GP, ​​when he was hunting for German Michael Schumacher’s Benetton, Senna abandoned the Pacific GP, in Aida, Japan, at the beginning, after his Williams was touched at the start by Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren and Ferrari. by Nicola Larini.

At the San Marino GP, in Ímola, Italy, the third stage of the Formula 1 World Championship, Senna took pole again and was looking to recover in the championship in which he was still a huge favorite for the title. Williams, his new team, had dominated F1 in the previous two seasons. In 1994, the regulations banned electronics from the category, a great asset for the team that was now looking for a new setup for its cars.

“The Williams car was difficult to drive. But the projection of results was good, so much so that Damon Hill almost became champion. In this logic, considering that Senna was much faster than Hill, it is to be considered that Senna would win the championship of 1994”, says former international correspondent Raul Moreira.

The race in Imola was Raul’s international debut in F-1. After covering the Brazilian GP and not going to the Aida stage, he would travel the world covering the competition for a newspaper and radio. Furthermore, his Quick Reading column would be distributed to several press outlets with the sponsorship of a large food company.

“We would have an even more fantastic duel between Senna and Schumacher than with Prost”, he supposes.

Live tragedy shocked the world

On the Friday before Senna’s death, Raul arrived at the Enzo e Dino Ferrari race track after the serious accident of Rubens Barrichello, who was saved after being revived on the track by the medical team. On Saturday, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger died after crashing violently at the Villeneuve curve.

It was the first fatality in F-1 since 1986, when Italian Elio de Angelis — Senna’s former teammate at Lotus — died in a test for the Brabham team. On a GP weekend, it was the first death since 1982, when Italian Riccardo Paletti’s car caught fire.

“F-1 had a radical change with the end of electronics. But in Brazil there were no reliability problems, neither in Aida. Suddenly, everything went downhill in Ímola”, says Raul Moreira.

On Sunday, right at the start, an accident involving JJ Letho and Pedro Lamy sent pieces of the cars and two tires into the stands, injuring nine people. The safety car was in action until the sixth lap, while debris was removed from the track.

On the seventh lap, the moment occurred that forever marked the memory of millions of fans around the world: Senna’s Williams went straight through the dangerous Tamburello curve and collided with the wall at more than 200 km/h.

“It was a dead silence”, says Raul about the reaction of Brazilian journalists in the press room. “What caused perplexity was that Senna remained motionless.”

The arrival of the medical team and the ambulance, followed by Senna’s removal by helicopter, highlighted the seriousness of the situation. “When we saw the position of his feet on the stretcher, we saw them putting cloth on it, then there was general panic”, recalls Raul.

Some journalists went down to the paddock to seek information. Not knowing what to do, Raul saw that journalist Livio Oricchio decided to go to the Maggiore hospital, in Bologna, where Senna had just been taken, and asked him for a ride. “We were the first Brazilian journalists to arrive at the hospital,” he says.

The medical report already indicated that the pilot was brain dead, removing any hope of recovery, although his heart was still beating. Journalists from all over the world took turns using the hospital’s public telephone, at a time when few had cell phones.

By fate, it was Raul who was on the phone, speaking live to a radio, when doctor Maria Teresa Fiandri officially announced Senna’s death, news that he was the first to broadcast. “At one point, there was a commotion in the hospital lobby, I was on the phone and I heard the doctor talking,” she says. “It was horrible to announce his death.”

Bewildered, Raul only left the hospital at midnight, taken by a team of Swiss journalists who left him at the hotel. “When you wake up, the penny drops. Then it’s very difficult,” he remembers.

Love and death on the Tamburello curve

Senna’s death cut short Raul’s adventure in F-1, which lost his financiers. He stayed in Italy for a while before returning home to Salvador. Months later, a surprise: he received a package from the race track with the belongings he had left in the closet in Imola, where he had never returned.

In 1995, back covering F1, Raul went to the fateful Tamburello corner, on a pilgrimage that marked the first year of Senna’s death. There, he met his future wife, the Italian Frida, to whom he was married for five years.

Because his international debut took place on a tragic weekend, Raul was nicknamed the “Black Angel of Death” by his press colleagues. “After the races, everyone went out for dinner and Galvão Bueno paid the bill for everyone, he was a generous guy.”

In a Globo special in 2014, Galvão said that he witnessed Senna say that he wanted an Austrian flag, as he would win the race and would honor Ratzenberger. But the Brazilian’s lost look inside the pits and his expression of regret as he put on his balaclava, already on the starting grid, were very different from usual.

The cause of the accident was the breaking of the steering rod — which had been enlarged at Senna’s request —, leaving the steering wheel inert just as he entered Tamburello. With the force of the impact of the crash, the suspension bar of the right front tire broke and turned like a spear against the most vulnerable point of the helmet, at the height of the visor, piercing the driver’s head on the right side.

With loss of brain mass and skull fractures, the Brazilian idol only didn’t die on the track because the medical team led by Sid Watkins performed a tracheostomy right there so he could breathe.

Senna projected a good image of Brazil

Two days after the 1994 Brazilian GP, ​​Raul and several journalists returned to the Interlagos racetrack, in São Paulo, for a meeting with Ayrton Senna. The three-time champion showed them, first-hand, a car from the German brand Audi that he would start importing to Brazil. “He let us drive the car, I drove three laps and spun,” laughs Raul. Senna then embarked for his F1 commitments and only returned to Brazil dead, at the wake that moved the country.

Ayrton Senna started his F1 career in 1984, when Brazil was still emerging from the dictatorship and did not have a good image in the world. His first victory, the following year, was on the day of President Tancredo Neves’ death. “At the time, we were in the worst shape. We had Sarney, there was no direct election for president, there was hyperinflation. In Italy, Brazil was known as the country of street children”, explains Raul.

With great talent, Senna achieved rapid success, becoming three-time F1 world champion, a category already highly globalized due to his television broadcasts. “He projected Brazil’s image internationally. Senna was the driver who donned the national hero’s outfit. He was an obsessed guy, he lived for that. He was a guy with a different average standard from other drivers, with a very particular personality “, he evaluates.

“This hero survived. The guy Senna persists thirty years later and still feeds people’s imagination”, concludes Raul Moreira.

Eleven days before the last race, in an interview given at the Parc des Princes stadium, in Paris — where he kicked off a national team match, being applauded by the French public and having his entrance preceded by a minute of silence in honor of the player Denner —, Senna was asked what his biggest wish was.

“My biggest wish is to run for many years to come, in a competitive way, in a healthy way and, on the day I stop competing, to still be healthy and be able to lead a very active life, and maybe enjoy it a little more life with family”, said the unforgettable track champion, thirty years ago.