Williams FW16 - The Remains

Bruninho Wrote:
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> Im glad they destroyed it. The FW16 was an
> electric chair with that twitchy rear end. I know
> that Interlagos was full of bumps this season but
> it made even more clear the fact that the rear end
> of Senna's Williams was bloody wild and forcing
> him to drive on the limit all the time, taking
> unnecessary risks catching up with the stable and
> fast #5 Benneton-Ford.

If a car is hard to control, a driver isnt going to push it as hard because they know they will crash. plus the looseness of the car will slow the driver down as they are catching the car through the corner rather than accelerating off it.

The Williams was not the best car for sure but that was not the cause of the crash, senna had driven worse thats for sure.

The point is after the race williams also found damage on Hills car there was hair line fractors in the steering rack but this was past as normal.

Bruninho Wrote:
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> Hill had a massive shunt at Estoril, it just
> proves that the car still had other problems.

If you're talking about the one I think you are, then he collided with a Swirvin' Irvin' at very low speed and had a harmless half-roll. I'm not sure how that can attributed to the car. :\

gav Wrote:
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> Bruninho Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Hill had a massive shunt at Estoril, it just
> > proves that the car still had other problems.
>
> If you're talking about the one I think you are,
> then he collided with a Swirvin' Irvin' at very
> low speed and had a harmless half-roll. I'm not
> sure how that can attributed to the car. :\

Well, my 1994 memories are pretty much cloudy atm. That was a year I wanted to forget, so I probably dont remember correctly the Hill incident. I just remember of his car upside down. Stopped watching every single F1 race from 1994 until 1997/98, when JV and Mika won their titles.

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Gav is right, Hill flipped upside down when he collided with Irvine at Estoril.

The fact that Senna lapped Hill in an identical car at Brazil showed how determined Senna was at dealing with the poor handling of the FW16 at the beginning of the season.
Williams did eventually get the car sorted to the point that Hill could challenge for the championship.

I think there is a lot of very unfair williams bashing going on here. did nobody see the documentary made called seconds to disaster? It was made using a lot of secret telemetry from williams, and some of it was used as evidence in their court case. I think before you all go jumping to your own conclusions, about how williams did or did not build a car worthy of senna you should watch it i've found it here on youtube:

part 1:




part 2:

&feature=related


Part 3:

&feature=related

It's very informative and shows you a great insight to the whole unfortunate weekend.

"Racing is LIFE. Anything before or after is just waiting"
Steve McQueen.

The only reason hill got close to winning the championship that year was due to silverstone and the mess up MS made, and the dq in spa.

Then again it could be said the B194 had TC and that may have been the only reason Shumacher was in the posistion he was in.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

True but that part have never ever proven but senna was meant to be really pissed off about it but at the end of the day he got 3 poles in a car that should not have been on pole and beat a car with apparent tc.

As I said a number of times look how ms drove in other years before 1994 spin crash spin crash then all of a sudden 1994 win after win, yes he probably got better with experience but that was a bloody big jump.

Senna always said in 1994 that there were 2 different benettons on the track. I wish to this day they could have proved it but none of it would bring senna back so its not worth talking about.

Johnny Herbert said in an interview a few weeks back that the Benetton did have a special clutch mechanism that gave them very little to no wheel spin at the start. You could say he lied and knows more, but on the other hand, what has he got to lose?

i remember watching that documentary on nat geo, if i am right palmer or alberito explains in the video that it was the dislodged right wheel/suspension that hit senna in the head was the cause for the death... again the design of the car gets the blame as there was no sufficient protection around the cockpit. in the documentary he clearly states that if not for that dislodged wheel that got stuck between the wall and the car on impact and popped out to hit senna, senna would have walked out of the car safely.

bazza_racer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think there is a lot of very unfair williams
> bashing going on here. did nobody see the
> documentary made called seconds to disaster? It
> was made using a lot of secret telemetry from
> williams, and some of it was used as evidence in
> their court case. I think before you all go
> jumping to your own conclusions, about how
> williams did or did not build a car worthy of
> senna you should watch it i've found it here on
> youtube:

Saw it years ago (2001?) when it was originally shown. It did not use secret telemetry from Williams, that telemetry was already used in the investigation and was given to the program makers.
The program focuses on only one possible explanation for Senna's accident which Williams was using as their evidence at the time so is heavily biased.

I'm not bashing Williams as they have always been a favourite team of mine but there was a cover up IMO and there is evidence out there to prove it.
However i would have been very annoyed if any one of the Williams team was found guilty and tried as they did not deserve it.

If anything the FIA are more guilty for getting slack with cockpit safety after some potentially fatal accidents before Imola '94. It took two deaths before they got their act together.

The Benetton did use TC. Eddie Jordan has lodged a protest based in the fact that in sector 3, the times were very close to the ones they did in previous year.

From Autosport
Sector 1/2
Senna 46.652s
Hill 47.554s
MS 48.219s

Sector 3
Senna 29.310s
Hill 30.000s
MS 28.071s

The last sector time is all about traction, turns 10-11-12. A massive amount of time is lost in those turns without traction control. The Jordan team complained after the race that MS's Benetton was running traction control; his last sector time was the only one similar to the cars of 1993 (when traction control was legal).

This is enough for me to prove that they had TC...

Senna poles the struggling Williams: Brazil'94


Senna poles the struggling Williams: Imola'94


Not a pole lap for Pacific GP, but its a good onboard.


DC explains the FW16 cockpit. Im still unsure about trusting him or not.


And I have heard lots of stories about a Williams engineer - probably Patrick Head - telling Hill to shutdown the "power steering" before the Imola restart. I did a search, as well and found lots of stories about it.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2008 12:12AM by Bruninho.

the words follow are a reprodution...

Mosley and Benetton Lawyer collude in 1994 to save Benetton from total ban




see the full post in => [forums.autosport.com]

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That was only due to the fact they did not know at that time what had gone wrong. As I said before in the court they said that the steering rack on Hill's car showed signs of stress but this was passed as normal. I can not find it online thats just from memory hope thats ok.

The sector times do not really tell that much, ms could have used more downforce and he had a v8 which was better at low revs anyway. That could be why people did not listen to Eddie. the Benetton in 1993 did not have TC in Imola btw they did not get it until Monaco I think it was so you would expect the same sector time.

TBH after the race in Imola i dont think anyone would have bothered wih a protest.

interesting article but that´s how life works, quite naive to expect other things
and there´s always some sort of cheating: ferrari probably had tc in 2001 before it was ruled legal at spain and mclaren probably had lc in 98 and that 2 break pedal thing in 97 if i remember correctly
about that tc thing:
the big differences in sector times point towards different approaches in setting up the car imho. also it would be interesting which track is talked about, i see no name

marcl Wrote:
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> he had a v8
> which was better at low revs anyway. That could
> be why people did not listen to Eddie.

It's worth noting that when you push a car over about 8000rpm you rely almost completely on power as you don't get maximum torque until the engine revs peak, and you generate a lower torque value compared to horse power.

As an example, a 1992 Civic VTi (B16 engine 1.6l) produces 158hp @ 7600rpm, max torque (~150Nm) is at 7000rpm.

A modern formula car revving to 19,000rpm will only gain max torque at about 18600rpm. Torque never really comes into it at such high tolerances, as a car producing 750hp at such a high rev limit will generate only just over half the power in torque.

So iirc the engines around that time operated at around 11-13k rpm so while there would've been some differences in torque relating to various power outputs you wouldn't see that much of a difference relatively. Unless the engine produced a significant amount of extra power there really wouldn't be another 2s extra to be found due only to the engine characteristics, that seems unlikely to me.

Bruninho Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> gav Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Bruninho Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Hill had a massive shunt at Estoril, it just
> > > proves that the car still had other problems.
> >
> > If you're talking about the one I think you
> are,
> > then he collided with a Swirvin' Irvin' at very
> > low speed and had a harmless half-roll. I'm not
> > sure how that can attributed to the car. :\
>
> Well, my 1994 memories are pretty much cloudy atm.
> That was a year I wanted to forget, so I probably
> dont remember correctly the Hill incident. I just
> remember of his car upside down. Stopped watching
> every single F1 race from 1994 until 1997/98, when
> JV and Mika won their titles.

They are indeed cloudy. Eddie Irvine reversed backwards onto the circuit and clipped Damon Hill, who took avoiding action but still couldn't miss Eddie. He was flipped at low speed and landed upside down in the gravel. The car was almost completely undamged when it was in the gravel trap.

But when the car was delivered back to the team, it had major damage. Despite Damons protests, the marshals insisted on hooking the tow rope to the front suspension, rather than the roll bar holes, and promptly ripped parts of the front suspension and body work completely out.

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Remember the start at Magny Cours? No one could do that unless someone stalled.

What Magny Cours? of 94, no I haven't seen that one.