The weekend's cascade of accidents began on Friday when Rubens Barrichello lost control at the Variante Bassa chicane during practice. His car struck the barriers and became airborne, and Barrichello sustained a broken nose and bruised arm after suffering an impact of approximately 95g; he was knocked briefly unconscious. Dr Sid Watkins, the FIA's senior medical delegate, reached Barrichello immediately and kept his airway clear. Barrichello recovered and started the race.
During Saturday afternoon qualifying, Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger — competing in only his second Formula One race weekend — suffered a front wing failure on his Simtek S941-Ford approaching the Villeneuve curva at approximately 314 km/h. The car left the circuit and struck the concrete barriers. Ratzenberger sustained a basilar skull fracture and a rupture of the aorta and was pronounced dead at the Maggiore Hospital in Bologna. It was the first driver fatality in Formula One since Riccardo Paletti at the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix — twelve years earlier.
Ayrton Senna, who had been on track during the session, stopped and was visibly shaken in media appearances that evening. An Austrian flag was subsequently found in Senna's briefcase following the Sunday accident; witnesses understood he intended to unfurl it on the podium in tribute to Ratzenberger had he won the race.
At the race start, JJ Lehto's Benetton stalled on the grid. The race began regardless, and Pedro Lamy's Lotus struck Lehto's stationary car at full speed. Debris flew into spectator areas, injuring eight people in the grandstands. A safety car was deployed and the race restarted under caution.
On lap 7, shortly after the safety car withdrew, Senna led in his Williams FW16 when he reached the Tamburello corner at approximately 211 km/h. The car left the circuit to the right without braking and struck the concrete retaining wall. Senna sustained unsurvivable head injuries and was helicoptered to the Maggiore Hospital; he was declared brain-dead and died later that afternoon. He was 34 years old.
The race was restarted and completed. Michael Schumacher won in his Benetton-Ford. Nicola Larini finished second in a Ferrari, Mika Häkkinen third in a McLaren-Peugeot. Damon Hill set the fastest lap of the race — 1:24.335 on lap 10 — in the other Williams. During a late pit stop, a loose wheel from Michele Alboreto's Minardi struck several mechanics in the pit lane, adding to the weekend's injury count.
The Italian judicial authorities opened a manslaughter investigation. Six individuals, including Williams team personnel and circuit officials, faced charges; all were eventually acquitted after years of legal proceedings.
The Grand Prix Drivers' Association, dormant for years, was immediately reformed. The FIA under Max Mosley launched an emergency safety review that produced sweeping rule changes: successive technical regulations drastically reduced cornering speeds through smaller aerodynamic components and narrower tyres; the HANS device — a head-and-neck restraint — was mandated for all Formula One drivers from 2003; cockpit surrounds were raised and strengthened; tyre-wall and gravel-trap configurations were revised at circuits worldwide.
The Tamburello corner at Imola, where Senna was fatally injured, was converted from the high-speed sweep it had been in previous years into a permanent chicane. No Formula One driver died from a racing accident for twenty years after Imola 1994, until Jules Bianchi sustained fatal injuries at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix and died in July 2015.
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