'I commentated on Ayrton Senna's death and BBC refused to copy Italian TV'

The man who was given the undesirable job of commentating on Ayrton Senna's death has revealed what it was like to cover the tragic 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. Senna was one of two drivers who were killed on a horrifying weekend for Formula One.

Steve Rider was the face of the BBC's F1 coverage at the time. He has now opened up on how the broadcaster differed in its coverage from Italian channels, whose feed displayed horrific clips of Senna's fatal crash. The BBC also had coverage of the World Snooker Championship, in which Stephen Hendry beat Jimmy White, and would flick between scenes from The Crucible and F1. Rider recalled doing a favour for Simtek that weekend, whose driver Roland Ratzenberger ended up dying in a qualifying accident.

"They had a suspension part they needed to get to Imola, and they wanted me to carry it by hand," the 75-year-old told The Telegraph. "So, this thing ended up propped up against the back of our studio. About an hour later, we learned Roland Ratzenberger, one of their drivers, had been killed in qualifying."

Even though he was informed of Senna's death soon after the accident, Rider was not allowed to confirm it to BBC viewers until the local hospital had made an announcement. Instead, he was forced to tell those watching at home that there was an "ongoing situation".

"In '94, you were effectively the only source of information," he continued. "People's mobile phones weren't going to be lighting up. So it was down to you to set the tone for how this awful news was delivered.

"On site at Imola, there was a policy to say: 'This is an ongoing situation'. We had our own BBC camera there, so we could cut away from the worst of the footage that Italian TV was providing. It was the start of the World Championship Snooker final, so I was standing on the pit wall with all this going on, cutting in and out of frames of snooker. But thank goodness for that. It was tough."

Senna crashed into the high-speed Tamburello corner on lap seven. It is widely claimed that he had raised concerns over the safety of the track the night before the race. His friend and rival Alain Prost has claimed that the Brazilian told him: "I'm not optimistic at all about this race."