It is impossible to forget that day in 1994, whether you experienced it "live" or relive it now through the show at number one on the platform. But what really happened in Imola on that "cursed" day?
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
From the great and very great Formula 1 fans to those who simply remember the front-page headlines of all the newspapers in the country, it remains difficult, if not impossible to forget that May 1, 1994. On the Imola Circuit, during the San Marino Grand Prix, we witness the sudden, tragic accident that will quickly lead to the death of Ayrton Senna, nicknamed Beco or Magic: the Brazilian racing driver who at only thirty-four years old has already established himself as one of the greatest champions of all time.
An icon of sport but also of customs, pursued by paparazzi, Senna was a true living legend, famous for his victories with the McLaren team but also admired for his beauty, elegance, and charisma. Or perhaps for his many flirtations and love stories, above all the one with the American top model Carol Alt, who became one of the most popular actresses on the big and small screen in Italy, in particular for the sexy biopic on Marina Ripa di Meana by the Vanzina brothers, My First Forty Years. It will therefore be no coincidence that the Brazilian series Senna, with Gabriel Leone in the role of Ayrton, immediately jumped to number one on Netflix.
Leone had also already played the driver Alfonso de Portago in Michael Mann's beautiful Ferrari with Adam Driver. But above all, the life story of Senna, generation after generation, remains fascinating and mysterious for the most varied reasons, from sports records to the fatality of his cruel destiny. And it is precisely on that cursed day and the omens of death that Ayrton himself would have encountered in his last days of life, once he arrived on the Imola Circuit, that the final part of the show focuses. Warning! The article contains SPOILERS for the Netflix series Senna.
What really happened on that first of May, on the day that Italy celebrates Labor Day, while all the Formula 1 fans were sitting firmly in front of the TV? Although there is a procedural truth that would have clarified the reasons for the accident, there are many questions that remain open, including those of those who read a whole series of events as sinister omens that announced to the champion his own death. The Netflix series Senna chooses to retrace these small and large events symbolically. All of them can of course also be read in an absolutely pragmatic and rational way, or according to the terms of one of the great mysteries of existence: that of bad luck.
The show retraces step by step the rise of Ayrton Senna da Silva, born in São Paulo to a wealthy Brazilian family. In the international cast of the series, Alice Wegmann plays Lilian, his ex-wife, the only woman he has ever married, whom he met since school. But there is also Kaya Scodelario in the role of a journalist with an imaginary name, who also embodies many real figures who have followed the champion's unstoppable rise from Formula 3 to Formula 1 year after year. Finally, at the end of the series, Senna faithfully reconstructs a series of truly particular events, which all focus on the hours preceding the accident.
And the moment in which Ayrton Senna physically goes down to the Imola circuit, to check exactly that point on the asphalt, corresponding to the Tamburello Curve where he will find death, certainly remains of great impact. But it didn’t end there. On April 29, 1994, the day of free practice, driver Rubens Barichello had the same type of accident, coming out of it slightly injured, but still alive. Senna and Barrichello had asked the team mechanics to make the same modification to the steering column. According to the trial documents, an error in the execution of that modification caused the breakage that led the driver to lose control of the vehicle on a curve, inevitably leading to the crash, which occurred at 216 kilometers per hour.
The race had also started very badly, with an accident at the start between JJ Lehto and Pedro Lamy, while the wreckage of the cars had even hit some spectators crowded in the stands, causing injuries. And among the omens of death that the thirty-four-year-old driver would have had, there was also the tragic death of his colleague Roland Ratzenberger, which occurred on Saturday, April 30, on a different curve, the Villeneuve. And we know for sure that Senna, deeply upset and worried, had already decided to wave Ratzenberger's Austrian flag in case of victory in Imola that first of May. "There are certain things we cannot control.
I cannot give up, I have to keep going," he finally told his friend and doctor Sid Watkins, who later confirmed that he had advised him to retire, given his many worries and the objective reasons to fear for his life. Many small elements that we now find in the Netflix series and that over the years have fueled the myth of this young champion, destined to die a few hours after the accident in Imola at the Ospedale Maggiore in Bologna, to the shock and grief of the entire world.
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