Ecclestone: "Ayrton Senna's death was positive for F1"

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SUPER NUMBBER
No, Senna's death was NOT good for F1. Think of what he could've achieved had he lived longer.
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Your next sentence nails your view to the cross making your first sentence irrelevant.

Senna's death was not god for him, his family or his many adoring plans.
BUT look at the immediate effects from it. I believe that WAS GOOD FOR F1.

I'm a huge Senna fan dont anyone question that, but look at the pace things moved after his passing? Its a shame it took such a high profile death to make the idiots sit up.
 
The drivers themselves benefited more than anyone. I'm not even going to begin to list how many lives were saved and serious injuries avoided thanks to the safety advances made after Ayrton's death.
 
Bernie Eccelstone, the world's biggest disappointment
 
I think Roland Ratzenberger's(other fatality that weekend), is just as instrumental in keeping F1 safe now, if it weren't for that, the F1 Driver's Union or whatever it is called might not exist now.
 
SUPER NUMBBER
No, Senna's death was NOT good for F1. Think of what he could've achieved had he lived longer.
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Thanks to his death, we have HANS, better surival cells, higher cockpit sides and cars which are better at dispelling the energy.
Ok, if not Senna, it would have happened to someone else, but thats not my point - think of it as "his type of death provided positive improvements for F1".

That it happened to such a high profile driver did have a larger impact though, thats for sure. It clearly made a point that no matter the skill of the driver, he could be killed and it meant people went to the efforts of trying to stop it happening again.
 
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ExigeEvan
Total dominance? Much like the sort that came to Michael Schumacher? Which almost killed the sport to the casual fan?
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At least we'd have set the record for best F1 driver straight, instead of basing it solely on Schumacher's 7 like some people seem to do...

Only_in_f1
Your next sentence nails your view to the cross making your first sentence irrelevant.

Senna's death was not god for him, his family or his many adoring plans.
BUT look at the immediate effects from it. I believe that WAS GOOD FOR F1.

I'm a huge Senna fan dont anyone question that, but look at the pace things moved after his passing? Its a shame it took such a high profile death to make the idiots sit up.
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How do any of my statements make the other irrelevant? You just said it's a shame to have lost Senna before they started getting in gear with safety. Why did it have to take Senna's death for them to improve safety?

Ardius
Thanks to his death, we have HANS, better surival cells, higher cockpit sides and cars which are better at dispelling the energy.
Ok, if not Senna, it would have happened to someone else, but thats not Bernie's point - think of it as "his type of death provided positive improvements for F1".
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Okay, imagine Schuberth (the company that made Massa's helmet) had sat on their thumbs, waiting for an accident like his to happen before they developed their helmet technology....where would Massa be today? I guess instead of waiting his return, we'd be thanking Massa's death for the future advancements in safety....
 
SUPER NUMBBER
How do any of my statements make the other irrelevant? You just said it's a shame to have lost Senna before they started getting in gear with safety. Why did it have to take Senna's death for them to improve safety?
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That's not for me to answer, but Bernie is right in saying it made positive setps for F1.
 
SUPER NUMBBER
Okay, imagine Schuberth (the company that made Massa's helmet) had sat on their thumbs, waiting for an accident like his to happen before they developed their helmet technology....where would Massa be today? I guess instead of waiting his return, we'd be thanking Massa's death for the future advancements in safety....
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Actually, Schuberth and the rest of the helmet manufacturers were complaining of the strict helmet regulations before that accident, it was thanks to Max and the FIA that Massa is still alive.
People become too relaxed when it comes to safety when there are no accidents, you can never do enough and sometimes it takes a wake up call for some to take it seriously.

However, I'm not saying we should be applauding Senna's death - more that we should respect what it meant for Formula 1 safety afterwards. And this is what Bernie somewhat badly is saying too.
 
I think that Ayrton Senna's death can be related in many ways to Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s death, they were both amazing multichampionship drivers, who died doing what they loved, IMO that is probably the way they would have wanted to go out, not in that way, but doing what they loved, and although both events were sad for fans and friends alike, F1, Nascar, and racing in General has become more safe as a result.
 
Am I reading it wrong? I could swear I never saw Bernie mentioning safety in that article, instead he only talked about how good it was for business. But considering how every one is saying Bernie meant safety, then I guess saying that the "advertisement generated was immense" means something like 'we managed to improve safety a lot'...
 
tibiquera
Am I reading it wrong? I could swear I never saw Bernie mentioning safety in that article, instead he only talked about how good it was for business. But considering how every one is saying Bernie meant safety, then I guess saying that the "advertisement generated was immense" means something like 'we managed to improve safety a lot'...
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Wow, you my friend are correct. I'm sorry for my ignorance but your correct, what he say's is advertisements.

Wow. I stand by what I said for safety but yeh that article doesn;t say that
 
Only_in_f1
Wow, you my friend are correct. I'm sorry for my ignorance but your correct, what he say's is advertisements.

Wow. I stand by what I said for safety but yeh that article doesn;t say that
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I find it funny that this "interview" doesn't appear on autosport, BBC or any credible english-speaking website.

Yet it appears on many less credible ones and websites in other languages, where translation may be mucking things up too.
Its easy to take words out context and make them sound horrible, many of these websites do it daily.

Until someone publishes the full, un-edited interview I doubt he actually said it this way.

tibiquera
Am I reading it wrong? I could swear I never saw Bernie mentioning safety in that article, instead he only talked about how good it was for business. But considering how every one is saying Bernie meant safety, then I guess saying that the "advertisement generated was immense" means something like 'we managed to improve safety a lot'...
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Apparently he said that, but without a full transcript, video or audio version of the interview, we can't know it wasn't either taken massively out of context or translated badly.
 
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Ardius
Thanks to his death, we have HANS
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I agree with your arguement in general, but if I recall correctly HANS was developed a privateer racer died in an accident, and then made mandatory by the FIA after Dale Earnhardt Sr's accident. It wouldn't have prevented Senna's death. It would, however, improved Ratzenberger's chances as he suffered a basilar skull fracture just like Earnhardt and many other drivers.
 
Well, the original source is one of the most reliable types of sources you can get from Brazil (Folha de Sao Paulo is one of the most respected newspapers there), so I'm not concerned about the source not being credible. And about the translation, well, it's nearly impossible to give any other meaning to that quote. If you speak more than one language you understand the types of translation errors that can happen, and I can tell you that there's not a lot of ways you can mess up the sentence "advertisement generated was immense". You can translate it 100 times back and forth and you still won't get a 'his death made the sport safer'.
 
This guy is really crazy, seriously I was really pissed to see that. Well I argue with this guy, I just wish he would follow Briatore as well.
 
tibiquera
Well, the original source is one of the most reliable types of sources you can get from Brazil (Folha de Sao Paulo is one of the most respected newspapers there), so I'm not concerned about the source not being credible. And about the translation, well, it's nearly impossible to give any other meaning to that quote. If you speak more than one language you understand the types of translation errors that can happen, and I can tell you that there's not a lot of ways you can mess up the sentence "advertisement generated was immense". You can translate it 100 times back and forth and you still won't get a 'his death made the sport safer'.
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But the placement and wording in his sentences would have had an effect on how he meant it, yes? I'd like to see the full interview before jumping on his back.
For example:
"After Senna's death, safety was improved immensely, not to mention the advertisement generated was immense"
"Admittedly, the advertisement generated was immense but more importantly safety was improved after Senna's death".

The media are very good at dicing sentences to make them sound worse than they are. Just as much as translation can sometimes bring across the wrong impression, especially with a language like English which places a lot of emphasis on context and is also usually quite backwards compared to other languages.

Bernie has said stupid things before (e.g. Women in racing, Hitler comments, etc). So I wouldn't be surprised if he has said this, especially at the same time as the Brazilian GP, when it would create a media frenzy. But, I also see it isn't mentioned anywhere from my usual sources for credible news reporting.

People asking for Bernie to leave should perhaps think about what happens when that does indeed happen. Does anyone have a suitable suggestion for a replacement? Like him or hate him, Bernie does certainly sort things out and people are quite afraid of him. He has awful ideas and says stupid things, but I think he's done that nearly all his life. I seem to remember a certain quote from his Brabham days being quite apt, he was mad back then too.
When Bernie leaves, there will be a rather large grab for power and I'm not sure F1 will be better for it.
 
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Unfortunately the whole article is only available to subscribers. However, I'm confident they wouldn't distort Bernie's words. The source is too good for that to happen.

My point is: if you're not confident that's what Bernie said, that's fine. But don't say he meant safety, because that is far from the quote.
 

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