{"id":65421,"date":"2025-05-01T10:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T10:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/65421\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T10:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T10:27:10","slug":"people-dont-realise-camaraderie-between-senna-and-schumacher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/65421\/","title":{"rendered":"People don’t realise camaraderie between Senna and Schumacher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Wheatley was in his fourth season of Formula 1 as a mechanic in 1994, having started on Roberto Moreno\u2019s car at Benetton before the Brazilian was ousted in favour of Michael Schumacher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That gave him a ringside seat for the early stages of what was shaping up to be one of motor racing\u2019s great rivalries \u2013 until tragedy struck at Imola during the San Marino Grand Prix weekend 31 years ago.<\/p>\n

Those not around in F1 at the time tend to view this era as one of cut-throat competition, epitomised by political and technical skulduggery. The Benetton team spent much of that year under suspicion of breaking the rules.<\/p>\n

On track, the battles between Schumacher and Ayrton Senna \u2013 young charger versus established great \u2013 often cleaved to this narrative of bitter rancour. Each would eagerly complain about the other\u2019s on-track conduct<\/a> while fighting for positions.<\/p>\n

But Wheatley, now team principal at Sauber<\/a>, remembers an entirely different atmosphere prevailing behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had this kind of ongoing relationship in 1994,\u201d he told F1\u2019s\u00a0Beyond the Grid\u00a0podcast, \u201cwhere Michael would set a pole position, and then when Ayrton would come out of the garage, I’d show him the pitboard with Michael’s time on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he’d like open his visor, shake his head, close it. He’d come in, go faster than Michael, and he’d be looking at me from the pitwall as if to say, \u2018Well, where’s my time [on the pitboard]?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was this camaraderie that maybe people aren’t aware of. You’re not just in fierce competition with people. You’re rubbing up against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rubens <\/p>\n

Rubens Barrichello, Jordan involved in a huge crash<\/p>\n

Photo by: Photo 4<\/p>\n

The events of the San Marino Grand Prix weekend brought that hidden sense of togetherness out into the open: in the days preceding Senna\u2019s fatal accident in the race on 1 May, Rubens Barrichello<\/a> had escaped a heavy shunt into the barriers during Friday practice and Roland Ratzenberger had been killed when the front wing of his Simtek came adrift at speed on Saturday.<\/p>\n

F1 then was very different to how it is today for paddock personnel; there were no curfews to limit working hours and, for young mechanics, a work-hard-play-hard ethic prevailed. The events of Imola delivered a brutal reminder of the risks inherent in top-level motor racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cImola 1994 is the worst weekend I can ever remember,\u201d said Wheatley. \u201cI can still remember the emotions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve kept a lot of stuff from \u201994 because I think, for me as a young man, that was a major turning point. I can still remember Mick Cowlishaw, the [Benetton] chief mechanic, coming up to me, putting his hand on my arm, because he knew the relationship I had and how I thought of it, and telling me he [Senna] had gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat weekend was full of so many things. You know, Rubens\u2019 crash, where he puts his hands in front of his face [at the moment of impact with the barrier]. That image is incredible. It just shows the human being inside the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Roland. I can remember seeing that on TV and immediately understanding this was not a normal accident \u2013 this was really, really serious. Then in the race, JJ [Lehto] stalling on the grid, the massive impact that caused the red flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen [Michele] Alboreto lost his wheel in the pitlane and the wheel nut hit my number one mechanic, cut his leg. The wheel went into the Lotus pit where it hit somebody in there\u2026 then Senna’s accident in the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn’t want to get on the plane. I can remember we were sat around the airport lounge in silence. The Williams<\/a> guys had just been told about Ayrton, and none of us wanted to get on the plane \u2013 \u2018What’s the next thing that’s going to happen?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

Stuart Codling\n<\/p>\n

Formula 1\n<\/p>\n

Michael Schumacher\n<\/p>\n

Ayrton Senna\n<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Wheatley was in his fourth season of Formula 1 as a mechanic in 1994, having started on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4216,4199,707,4200,24496,24497,5909,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-65421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-ayrton-senna","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-miami-gp","13":"tag-miami-international-autodrome","14":"tag-michael-schumacher","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114432104490014824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}