F1 – Imola and the Senna-Schumacher duel that never was. Imola will always be linked to Ayrton and Michael .

Imola will always be linked to Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher who in 1994 were giving life to one of the greatest duels in the history of Formula 1, which sadly vanished in that damned Tamburello curve of the Imola racing track.

Although there is great anticipation at Imola to see if Max Verstappen will take revenge on Lewis Hamilton, and for us to see Ferrari’s performance in the second round of the 2020 Formula 1 season, in Monza two of the protagonists will always be Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. In fact, even if several years have passed, it is still alive in the minds of all sports fans from the exploits of these two great champions.

Precisely for this reason even today, one wonders who would have won that duel without that accident. Senna, who had left McLaren to hunt for the third title of his career, had not found the feeling with the FW16 from the first test , and after two races in which he had collected zero points, he was already thinking of leaving the Growe team at the end of the season.

Ayrton, after the retirement of his historical rival Alain Prost, had found another great opponent with whom he had already had some clashes in previous years. In fact Michael Schumacher had launched the challenge by winning at Senna’s home in Interlagos, repeating the win also in the Pacific Grand Prix, and arrived in Italy with a twenty-point advantage over his rival.

At Imola, however, Senna responded by taking pole, but the accidents of his friend Rubens Barrichello on Friday in free practice, and especially the one in qualifying of Roland Ratzenberger, troubled him to the point of thinking of not starting. On Sunday he was regularly on the grid, but after defending the first position at the start, he lost control of his Williams car at the Tamburello corner.

In that instant, the Formula 1 fans not only lost one the most beloved drivers of all time, butalso the greatest duel in the history of the sport. From Ayrton Senna’s great opponent, Michael Schumacher became his worthy heir, achieving what Ayrton dreamed of, by ending his career in Ferrari and bringing the title back to Maranello.