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The San Marino Grand Prix took place in Italy in May 1994. On that weekend, Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian Formula 1 driver, gave an interview about the race at Imola, one of the fastest tracks in the sport. Senna predicted trouble. 'There are no small accidents on this circuit,' he said. He was right.
During the following day's qualifying rounds, Roland Ratzenberger, an Austrian competing in his first season in Formula 1, died in an accident. Senna's fellow Brazilian, Reubens Barrichello, ended up in hospital. That night, Senna telephoned his girlfriend in Lisbon, saying that he did not want to race the next day. Less than 24 hours later, he died in hospital from severe head injuries resulting from a crash on Imola's Tamburello bend.
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Senna's death devastated Formula 1. He was a legend: three times motor-racing world champion, he had won 41 Grand Prix titles. He had a reputation as the most ambitious competitor in one of the most extreme sports on earth. He was renowned for his risky and ruthless driving. The fact that his death came in the same weekend as that of Ratzenberger, after a period of 12 years in which Formula 1 had been without a single fatal accident, made it all the more shocking.
There was an immediate investigation into the accident. Motor-racing experts were convinced that the cause must have been mechanical failure: Ayrton Senna could not have lost control of his vehicle on the Tamburello bend for any other reason.
An inquiry concluded that the accident was caused by a snapped steering column. As a result, manslaughter charges were brought against six members of Senna's Williams racing team, including Frank Williams himself. However, all of them were eventually acquitted, and in 1997 the prosecutor's appeal was rejected.
The snapped steering column theory gave way to a new explanation that Senna's death was simply a freak accident, the tragic consequence of a unique combination of factors.
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