17 April 1997 New hearing at Senna's trial. Forghieri said that there is evidence that immediately before the accident Senna's steering wheel was moving abnormally both vertically and horizontally, possibly by as much as 7 cm and had also become lower by a few cm. Lawyer Dominioni for Williams-Head defence said that the steering wheel could only move horizontally and vertically by a few mm and could not become lower more than 1 cm. Passarini then replied that the range of the movement of Senna's steering wheel can be calculated by the relative position of the steering wheel to the instruments in Senna's cockpit visible in the films and that the movement observed is certainly much more than Dominioni claims and it is by no means normal for a F1 car. FIA's lawyer Causo asked whether the car was still under Senna's control when he lifted the foot from the brake and Lorenzini replied that it certainly was and that Senna had lifted his foot from the accelerator in two stages, showing that up to the last second he had been trying to correct his trajectory, rather than brake.
In the afternoon William's experts Stirano and Minen presented their theory of what happened. Starting from the Cineca elaboration, they concluded that Senna had had a problem of oversteering on a bump just before the accident and had tried to correct the trajectory by counter-steering. Instead, the car tuned by 9 degrees too much to the right and Senna tried desperately to brake.
Newey said that he will give his opinion only when he is called to the witness box. He added that he is going to leave Williams and that he might sue them. He said he's most likely to go to McLaren.
Next hearing will be on 24 April, just before the San Marino GP. Bernie Eccleston will be present.

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