One commentator wept. Another seemed to be at a loss for words.
“I don’t know how I can report this,” a Fuji Television broadcaster said while standing trackside at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
The news, as motorsports fans around the world now know all too well, was that the legendary Ayrton Senna, the three-time Formula One champion whose Williams car had left the track at over 300 kph and struck a concrete barrier on the seventh lap of the race, was dead. It was the second tragedy for F1 in as many days after the death of Austrian Roland Ratzenberger during qualifying.