'Somebody's going to die': Teammate predicted Ayrton Senna's death to him

A former teammate has revealed he predicted Ayrton Senna's death in an eerie phone call with the Brazilian driver five years before the fatal accident at Imola.

On the 25th anniversary of the tragedy, Gerhard Berger has spoken for the first time about his close friend's death.

Senna, 34, died instantly when his Williams ran off the road at 306km/h on lap seven of the ill-fated 1994 San Marino Grand Prix and hit a concrete wall.

It was one of three major accidents on a black weekend in Formula One that had already claimed the life of Berger's Austrian countryman Roland Ratzenberger.

In a heartbreaking development, Berger has now relived the day he and Senna tried to improve the Tamburello corner where the three-time world champion would lose his life.

"I had an accident at the same corner as Ayrton in 1989," he said.

"When I was in hospital, Ayrton phoned me and asked how I was. I told him I was hurting, and suffering from the burns as my car caught on fire.

"But I said ‘Ayrton, we need to move this wall because one day somebody is going to die there’. He agreed."

Their next visit to Imola in 1990, with the two friends now McLaren teammates, resulted in an inspection of the corner on an unscheduled track walk.

"I remember it like it was yesterday," Berger said.

"At lunch, Ayrton and I walked out from the pit lane and down to the Tamburello corner.

"We looked over the wall and behind it there is a river. We both looked at each other, and said there isn’t anything we can do.

"There is no space behind the wall, we didn’t think about putting in a chicane to slow the cars down, and we just accepted it for what it was.

"So, we walked back and didn’t do anything. That was the place where he would die some years later."

As misinformation about Senna's condition spread, the San Marino race was restarted.

Berger retired on lap 16 with a mechanical failure and arranged for a helicopter to the hospital where Senna had been taken.

"Professor Sid Watkins, the Formula One doctor, was there and told me it didn’t look good, but asked if I wanted to see him in the operation room," Berger said.

"I went in and they were doing something with his head as it was covered, but he was already dead.

"We stood in front of him for a while and then we left. Immediately after this it was confirmed he had died."