Par Gilles Festor
Published 34 minutes ago, Updated now
In Imola, during the 2022 Emilia-Romagna F1 Grand Prix, fans of Ayrton Senna crowd around the statue of the racing driver, who died in the race. CLIVE MASON/Getty Images via AFP
REPORTAGE – On the circuit where he tragically died on May 1, 1994, admirers of the Brazilian continent gather in front of his memorial, which has become a place of pilgrimage.
Special envoy to Imola
Flags by the hundreds, over tens of meters, lining the fence. They come from everywhere, from Brazil obviously, Argentina, Slovakia, Serbia, Poland, Lebanon and even Brittany. Some hang, faded by time. Others, bright, are firmly attached next to testimonial signs, padlocks, roses and t-shirts or football jerseys saluting the memory of the idol. In the Tamburello bend, where he died after hitting the concrete wall at 212 km/h with his Williams-Honda on May 1, 1994, Ayrton Senna is also there. Or rather the magnificent bronze statue signed by the artist Stefano Pierotti representing him.
The Ayrton Senna memorial in Imola. JULIEN DELFOSSE / DPPI / Panoramic
Sitting atop a bronze pedestal, the Brazilian has his head bowed and his face closed in his pilot’s suit. His hands on which a bouquet in the colors of Brazil has been placed are joined, as if the legend of the circuits was praying in front of this cursed curve which took his life…
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