The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix was the third race of the 1994 Formula One World Championship. Michael Schumacher, driving for Benetton, won the race despite contact with Damon Hill. Nicola Larini scored the first points of his career when he achieved a podium finish in second position. The race weekend was marked by the deaths of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in separate accidents.
About 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in brief
The 1994 San Marino Grand Prix was the third race of the 1994 Formula One World Championship. Michael Schumacher, driving for Benetton, won the race despite contact with Damon Hill. Nicola Larini scored the first points of his career when he achieved a podium finish in second position. The race weekend was marked by the deaths of Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger and of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in separate accidents. Other incidents saw driver Rubens Barrichello injured and several mechanics and spectators injured. Fatalities and injuries at this Grand Prix proved to be a major turning point in both the 1994 season, and in the development of Formula One itself. It led to an increased emphasis on safety in the sport as well as the reforming of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association after a 12-year hiatus. Since the race, numerous regulation changes have been made to slow Formula One cars down and new circuits incorporate large run-off areas to slow cars before they collide with a wall. Italian prosecutors charged six people with manslaughter in connection with Senna’s death, all of whom were later acquitted. The case took more than 11 years to conclude due to an appeal and a retrial following the original verdict of not guilty. There were two driver changes heading into the race. JJ Lehto replaced Jos Verstappen, the latter having replaced Lehto for the opening two races of the season. Jordan’s Eddie Irvine, still serving a three-race suspension, was replaced with Andrea de Cesaris for this race.
In the World Constructors’ Championship, Beneton were leading on 20 points and Ferrari were second on ten points, with Jordan third on seven points. The race was held on 1 May 1994 at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, located in Imola, Italy. It was the first with two driver deaths since the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix. They were the first fatalities in the F1 World Championship since the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix, and the first time since 1960 that two drivers had died in the same race at the same time. The crash of Jules Bianchi at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix which led to his death the following year also led to a 20-year gap between the two deaths of Ratzenbergers and Senna. The last time two drivers died in one race was at the Italian Grand Prix in 1991. The death of Senna was the second in the history of the sport, the first being at the Japanese Grand Grand Prix on 24 April 1994. The Brazilian was given a state funeral in his home town of São Paulo, Brazil, where around 500,000 people lined the streets to watch the coffin pass. The driver of the Williams-Renault team at the time, Damon Hill, described the feeling after the crash: “We all brushed ourselves off and carried on, reassured that our cars were as tanks and we could be shaken but not hurt.” The Williams driver was the fastest driver at the end of Friday’s qualifying session with a time of 1:21.48, almost five-enths of a second faster than Schumachers and Berger’s teammate.
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