Ayrton Senna finished his six-year spell with McLaren (before joining
Williams
for 1994) by taking his only pole position of the season (the only
pole for the season not won by Williams drivers), and his fifth victory
of the year. It was the last race that Senna won. This was the last
race for cars with
active suspension, which was banned from the
1994 season. Having taken his actively suspended
Lotus 99T-
Honda to victory in the
1987 Monaco Grand Prix, Senna was the first and the last driver to win a race driving an active suspension car.
It was the last race for four-time World Champion
Alain Prost.
Senna was so overcome with emotion, knowing his great rival was
retiring, that he embraced Prost on top of the rostrum. (Prost's
contract with Williams initially included a clause forbidding Senna from
joining the team as his team-mate).
Riccardo Patrese and
Derek Warwick
also retired from Formula One after this event, the former having
competed in 256 Grands Prix (a record that stood for fifteen years until
being beaten by
Rubens Barrichello), and the latter signing off on a return year after two seasons' absence from the sport.
Two of the sport's more prominent sponsors withdrew from Formula One after this race. The Williams team's association with both
Canon, which had started in 1984, and
Camel
led to the retirement of one of the sport's more iconic liveries; the
famous Williams white, red, yellow and blue colour scheme being
replaced by the blue and white of the
Rothmans cigarette brand for
1994. Camel's withdrawal also meant the Benetton team were obliged to switch to sponsorship from Japanese cigarette brand
Mild Seven for the following season. Canon would not reappear as a Formula One sponsor until the
2009 Singapore Grand Prix, in which the logos appeared on the flanks of the
Brawn GP team's cars.
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