Formula One comes together in San Marino to remember Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger 20 years on

(Scuderia Ferrari SpA via Twitter)

Formula One stars past and present attended a memorial at the Imola circuit in San Marino today to mark the 20th anniversary of the the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna on what was one of the darkest days in Formula One's recent histroy.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso were joined by Luca Badoer, Gerherd Berger (Ayrton's former McLaren team mate) along with a number of other people from the world of Formula One. Speaking at the memorial, Kimi Raikkonen said:

'I was very young. I saw the accident on TV and what I remember most is that, the next day at school we talked about it. Senna was very important for Formula 1, as a driver and a person and his death led to a rapid acceleration in the process of increasing the level of safety in our sport. That has avoided other tragedies from occurring. Unfortunately however, one cannot change the past, neither for Ayrton nor for Roland Ratzenberger. The only thing we can do is remember this champion, whose exploits defined the history of Formula 1 for a long time.'

Fernando Alonso also spoke at the memorial with the Spaniard saying:

'I can well remember the photos in the papers and seeing on the TV news the stories of the duels between the McLarens of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. He had the number 1 on his car and I raced karts thinking about him, of his yellow helmet that was always winning,” said the Spaniard. “I also competed in karting in Italy, working with someone who had been his mechanic when he raced in that category and so you can imagine how important that was for me. I had a poster of him up in my bedroom. The only positive thing to come out of the weekend that took Ayrton and Roland Ratzenberger away from us was that, from then on, safety in Formula 1 improved significantly. In fact, we can say that inside our cars there is something of the legacy of Senna and Ratzenberger, because after that terrible 1994, nothing was ever the same again.'

Since his death, the Williams Martini Racing team have carried a permanent tribute to Senna with the 'Senna' logo on their front wing. Senna's favourite Brazilian football team Corinthians paid tribute to the Brazilian Formula One legend by their players wearing his helmet prior to the start of their match against Paulista

A statue of Ayrton Senna was erected at the Imola circuit and there have been calls for a permanent memorial to be commissioned for the Imola circuit to remember Roland Ratzenberger who was killed in qualifying for the San Marino Grand Prix.

©Ben Johnston 2014