Ayrton Senna — champion nonpareil

"Show me a hero 

And I'll write you a tragedy"

 

— Scott Fitzgerald, Notebooks. 

Somehow some great lives seem destined to be cut off at the very peak. Cruel as this cutting off, this act of fate, may be, it is the final saga - the unexpected end - that helps complete the picture of a legend. 

Dying young provides an ethereal halo to these legendary heroes and sets them far apart from the survivor-heroes who live to tell and retell their oft-repeated tales. 

Then again, even before the tragic end at Imola 10 years ago, Ayrton Senna was the rarest of heroes in an area of activity - sport - where champions are commonplace but heroes are hard to come by. His strength of will and fierce motivation saw him stretch human limits like no other driver had done, or even dreamed of doing, before. 

The most consistently fast driver in Formula One history in the pre-Schumacher era, Senna was well on the road to creating records that would have made extraordinary demands on the German genius, who is now the undisputed king of the sport. Senna won 41 Grands Prix from 161 starts and was the world champion in 1988, 1990 and 1991. 

But then, it is almost a sacrilege to speak of records and statistics in a tribute to the Brazilian genius. For records were as irrelevant and insignificant to Senna as mystical powers are to a saint. His motivation was more spiritual than sporting. 

Money did not matter. Fame was irrelevant. In fact, nothing really mattered - that is, nothing that would matter to ordinary mortals mattered. 

And the `passion' Senna often talked about is not something that people living ordinary lives with low pressures would understand, much less readily relate to. Only the very few who constantly seek a higher and higher intensity of purpose could have empathised with Senna. 

He was a man who preferred high speeds and great pressures, a man who constantly pushed back frontiers, testing his own will and endurance harder and harder. Essentially, the car was no more than a handy vehicle as Senna drove towards his own Nirvana. 

In that sense, he was a complete one-off in the world of sport. Formula One racing has more dare devil heroes than all the other sports put together. But Senna was not just another win-at-all-costs champion. 

For Senna, speed and daring were not macho statements. He operated on an elevated plane where the ordinary thrills of motor racing did not matter. And what many saw in him as arrogance was no more than contempt for lesser mortals who had no idea of, or desire for, the kind of perfection he sought constantly. 

Obsession with perfection is fairly risk free in most areas of human activity. The batsman can strive to play the perfect innings, not an edged shot, not a single uppish drive. A tennis player can strive to play the perfect match, almost every winner hitting the lines, not one unforced error. If it doesn't come off, fine. The batsman, the tennis pro, they can wait for the next opportunity. 

So it is in almost every other profession. I can strive to write the perfect sentence, the perfect story. If I fall short, no sweat. There is always tomorrow. 

But it is another thing striving for perfection at 200 mph time after time, week in and week out, and especially when you know that it is not your input alone that will make for perfection. If one little thing has gone wrong in the setting up of the car, if one small mechanical problem crops up, what goes is not just perfection but life itself, as it happened at the Tamburello corner for Senna in the San Marino Grand Prix 10 years ago. 

And to think that Senna achieved greater perfection at greater speeds than any other driver in the history of the sport! To think that the great maestro did it for more than 10 years without a single serious accident until that killer weekend at Imola! 

The level of concentration required to drive one perfect Grand Prix race is phenomenal. But to produce as many as Senna did is something almost beyond human capacity. 

No great driver in the history of Formula One racing, from the five time Argentine world champion, Juan Manuel Fangio down to the four time champion Frenchman, Alain Prost, has ever shown the kind of mastery that Senna did on treacherous tracks. Michael Schumacher comes closest. 

Senna was the uncrowned Monarch of Monte Carlo. On a tricky road circuit that the best of champions hated to compete in, Senna was champion six times. And every time it rained during a Grand Prix, making the track dangerous, there was one man - Senna - who ignored the odds and took the chequered flag leaving the opposition a long way behind. 

If his driving style was aggressive, then Senna was no maniac with his right foot on the self-destruct pedal. It is just that he had that extra bit of genius that not only set him apart form the greatest of champions in the sport but also allowed him the freedom to take that extra bit of risk as we have seen Schumacher do over the last several seasons since Senna's death. 

It was the Brazilian's extraordinary sense of judgment, poise, intelligence and subtle skills that helped him seek out the gaps that simply did not exist for the other drivers. 

For all that, it was not as if Senna was not aware of the dangers in his sport. "Car racing is intrinsically dangerous. I know that from when I was four years old," he said. 

"You can take a risk with each race. It depends on several factors, the quality of the car, its ability to absorb shocks, its technical preparation and mechanics. But there are other factors over which one is powerless. There are so many other imponderables which can provoke an accident." 

To be sure, Senna, for all his genius, was not infallible. He made his share of mistakes. And he always acknowledged them. But it is highly unlikely that the three-time world champion had lost control because of a serious error on his part and without any mechanical malfunctioning as Damon Hill, his teammate 10 years ago, suggested the other day. 

"As well as grief, there was another dimension. If it could happen to Jim Clark, what chance did the rest of us have," said Chris Amon on Clark's (world champion in 1963 and 1965) death in 1968. Every active Formula One driver must have echoed those feelings after Senna's death. 

Formula One racing is a tough, dangerous and quite often brutal sport, one that victimises its greatest of champions. But Senna had somehow seemed invincible, almost untouchable, not only by his peers but even by Death. 

"You appreciate that it is very easy to die and you have to arrange your life to cope with that reality," said Niki Lauda, who miraculously came back from the jaws of death after a gruesome accident in Nurburgring in August 1976. 

Somehow it seemed that Senna, for one, did not need to cope with that reality, so indestructible did he seem. In that sense, Imola represents his first and only defeat. 

Then again, surviving is easy enough. That's what men have excelled in for thousands of years. But living is not easy, especially if you wanted to live like Ayrton Senna da Silva did. And die like he did.

Special Feature: Ayrton Senna's first bitter rivalry

Long before he locked horns with the likes of Alain Prost in Formula 1, Ayrton Senna endured his first fierce rivalry in Formula Ford. Andrew van Leeuwen sat down with Senna's first bitter rival, Rick Morris.

Chances are you haven’t heard of Rick Morris. A career Formula Ford racer, Morris might not be a household name. But back in the early 1980s, Morris was the thorn in Ayrton Senna's side.

The year was 1981. Senna, having relocated to the UK from Brazil to chase his F1 dream, was signed up as Van Diemen’s lead factory driver for its Formula Ford 1600 campaign.

By then, Briton Rick Morris had already become a staple of the European Formula Ford scene. What started as a one-off race with Motor Racing Stables had led to Morris buying a £400 Formula Ford in the early 1970s, before he was drafted into the Hawke factory team in 1975.

After a brief stint with PRS, Morris was lured over to Royale for the 1980 season to work alongside young gun engineer Pat Symonds – now of Williams fame. Morris was then promoted to full factory status for 1981 – where his primary target was to take it to Van Diemen and their new Brazilian karting guru Ayrton Senna.

“I spent the year battling with Alfonso Toledano and Senna,” recalls Morris. “My car was better on the faster circuits; I won the Thruxton races, I won two of the Silverstone Grand Prix races, and I beat Ayrton both times at Brands.

“We had a lot of wheel-banging. He was an absolute arsehole during that year. Completely self-centred. ‘You blocked me Rick’… ‘I didn’t mean to Ayrton’.

"We used to call him Harry, because his mechanic Paddy, a legendary Van Diemen mechanic with very long hair, started calling him Harry.

“Ayrton was such a funny bugger. He wouldn’t test in the morning when it was cold. His gloves were always inside out sitting on the radiator.”

A lesson in determination

According to Morris, racing against Senna was a relentless endeavour. Between the Brazilian’s natural talent, and his commitment to his craft, Senna didn’t let up. And Morris had to learn to play along if he wanted to compete.

“Van Diemen had this thing where they could always use the Snetterton circuit at half past five when everyone else had pissed off home, and they had it for half an hour or 45 minutes. So they were going around and around,” explains Morris.

“But that taught me a lot. There was the old Russell Corner; it was a flat-out chicane with kerbs either side. I figured that if the car wasn’t too stiffly sprung, you could go through there flat. It hurt your arse, because the car was bouncing over the kerbs, but it meant I could stay with the Van Diemens.

“They always left me behind on the hairpin before the bridge, particularly Ayrton with his karting experience. He was great off that corner, but I couldn’t do it, I just didn’t have the traction in the Royale. But I’d get him through Coram, and I’d get him through Russell, then I could stay in the tow onto the straight.

“It taught me that there is always a way. If you’re determined enough, you’ll find a way.”

Rocky relationship

While it was Senna who ultimately came out on top in 1981, (Morris: “I was leading that for most of the year, then I had an accident which f####d me up”), the rivalry with the Englishman left a bad taste in the Brazilian’s mouth.

What irked Senna most was that Morris wasn’t a professional. He was a family man, well into his 20s, with a day job. Senna, meanwhile, had already dedicated his life to motorsport – and didn’t take kindly to being pushed to the limit by a part-timer.

“When I was dicing with Ayrton, I won the Brands round before the Festival. I had a photo of him being really pissed off. He later signed it for me, and said ‘I really f###ing hated that!’” recalls Morris. “He didn’t feel like anybody should be giving him any grief.”

Once they weren’t racing against each other, however, Morris and Senna’s relationship changed.
“We did eventually become friends, but only after the 1981 season had finished and Ayrton had moved on to FF2000.

“The friendship came through Mauricio Gugelmin. He and I, we were great mates. He was very talented too, but a completely different temperament to Ayrton. Even though we were bashing the hell out of each other, Mauricio and I were mates. He wasn’t the sort of guy that would come over and say ‘you f###ing c###’, he was a nice guy.

“He was living with Ayrton, they had a house near Virginia Water in the UK. So I spent a lot of time with Ayrton during 1982; he was doing FF2000, and if the races didn’t clash he would come to our 1600 races with Gugelmin.

“Ayrton was still making his mark then, but people started giving him things. I remember he won a race in a Mercedes somewhere, and was given a 190 2.3 16-valve thing. I still remember he came up to me at Brands when we were racing 1600s, and the joy on his face… ‘Rick, come and look at this. They gave me this. You have to see it’.

“Anyway, I have photos of my son Stevie, who was born in 1981, sitting on Ayrton’s shoulders in the paddock in ’82. Ayrton has a big smile on his face, he liked kids. His wife actually came over with him in ’81, Liliane, but she didn’t like the cold. They divorced soon after. She was a lovely girl, but she was very quiet. And Ayrton wasn’t thinking about his wife, all he thought about was racing. He was very self-centred…”

Was it obvious, even at that stage, just how good he would go on to be?

“Yeah, but you had plenty of these kids coming in,” says Morris. “He was obviously the best of the ones there at the time, but I didn’t realise he was going to become the legend that he was.”

The good old days

The best part of four decades after beginning his career, Morris is still racing. He regularly commutes from the UK to South Africa where he races contemporary Formula Ford, and he recently travelled to Australia to race as part of a 50-car historic FF grid at the Phillip Island Classic.

But he also acknowledges that the motor racing world has changed.

The late 1970s/early 1980s were heady days for junior open-wheeler racing. Categories like Formula Ford didn’t have a control chassis, which meant manufacturers actually had genuine factory teams and employed young drivers.

It was an arms race, but it meant genuine opportunities for young talent to develop without always having to bring a huge budget.

“We used to live with the cars," says Morris. "I spent a lot of time as a works and development driver for Hawke, for PRS, for Reynard, and for Royale… and we were testing a couple of times a week.
“Not that I ever did it full-time; I used to have a job as well, to pay the mortgage. It was a bit different.

“In my days, it was all about talent. You couldn’t buy a better engine, you couldn’t buy a better car. The cars were so simple. The engineering was very basic.

“I started with no money at all; I grew up in a council estate. But the nice thing was, if you made an impact, and you were seen to be potentially good, the manufacturers had the money coming in, the engine builders wanted to lend you engines, so you could make your way.”

Ayrton Senna's legacy is still saving lives 20 years after tragedy of Imola

Brazilian’s death in 1994 stunned sport and led to radical overhaul safety that has benefited all drivers

On the opening lap of the inaugural grand prix in Melbourne’s Albert Park in 1996, Martin Brundle was launched over the rear of two cars on the long straight down to turn three. His bright yellow Jordan was sent barrel rolling into the air and he careered into the gravel upside down at high speed. A few minutes later, after successfully telling Sid Watkins, Formula One’s doctor, the date, Brundle was jogging back through the pits to hop into the spare car, with a thumbs up to the astonished Australian crowd.

As Brundle, now a respected commentator, freely admits: “There is no doubt about it – a few years before and I would have been a dead man.”

He is right. The reason Brundle was able to walk out of his car that day in Australia, nursing just some pain in his ankles, can be traced back to May 1, 1994 and the death of Ayrton Senna.

Ahead of the 20th anniversary this Thursday of Senna’s fatal accident, it is clearer than ever that this was the date that changed everything for Formula One.

Deaths in motor racing had been common enough in the preceding years – Jim Clark, Ronnie Peterson, Gilles Villeneuve were all stars who had perished on the track – but the assumption within the sport was that such tragedies were a result of bad luck and driver misjudgment.

Fast forward to that fateful weekend at Imola, in 1994, and the question gradually shifted from ‘why did Senna crash?’, to ‘why did he die?’ How could Formula One, and Brazil for that matter, lose its greatest son?

When Senna died, there was outrage. Politicians in Italy, the home of Ferrari and perhaps the most F1-obsessed country in the world, called for the sport to be banned. It is arguable that only the loss of Senna could have prompted such a major transformation. His death was a crystallising moment, which enabled the agenda of safety to be truly embraced.

“There was a general complacency in the sport, because no driver had died at a race weekend for 12 years,” Max Mosley, then FIA president, told Telegraph Sport. “People thought we had done enough. It was obvious to us at the FIA that the speed of the cars exceeded the safety precautions in place, but we were constantly rebuffed by the F1 establishment. The mentality had not changed much since the 1960s when it was – ‘if it’s dangerous, slow down’. That, of course, was nonsense.

“Unlike Clark’s death however, Senna’s was a worldwide media event. It provoked a hysteria which forced the old establishment to realise something had to be done. It is a shame it took the death of the sport’s most famous driver, but it was such a high-profile event and prompted such an outpouring of grief that quick action became possible.

“I think Senna’s death allowed those of us in the sport arguing for safety to get changes made. Twenty years on from his crash, the fact no Formula One driver has died since, as well as enormous improvements in road safety, is testament to the scale of the event. That Imola weekend was the catalyst for change on the roads that has literally, without question, saved tens of thousands of lives.”

All this is not to say that the death of Roland Ratzenberger in Imola the day before Senna’s fatal crash would not have triggered a response. But Senna’s demise, after shooting off the dilapidated track’s Tamburello corner at 191mph, ensured an incredibly swift response.

The Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, dormant since F1’s last fatality eight years before, was rapidly re-formed. Corners such as Tamburello were redesigned. A chicane was even installed at the legendary Eau Rouge in Spa for the 1994 race.

In a matter of months, shocked into action by the loss of the three-time world champion, it was determined the size and therefore the power of the engines would be reduced; the size of the front wing and diffuser was reduced to slow the cars down; the height of the sides of the cockpit were increased for better protection, and the front wishbones were reduced to stop wheels becoming loose.

Longer-term, the alterations – agreed upon by a safety group headed by Prof Watkins – were much more fundamental, to road safety as well as Formula One. Although they are often derided, the Hermann Tilke generation of tracks are designed to allow huge run-off areas. The monocoque of the car, where the driver is housed, has gone from being flimsy to almost impregnable. A comparison of Ratzenberger’s crash and that of Robert Kubica, in Montreal 13 years later, illustrates the point.

F1 remains dangerous, but the drivers of today are not faced with the same threat to their life as the drivers of Senna’s era were.

David Coulthard, who straddled both periods and was Senna’s replacement at Williams, says: “The thoughts that might have occurred to other people – is it safe to get in this car? – never occurred to me. I was a 23-year-old making my way, so you don’t think about death. The thought process is simple: It doesn’t happen to you.

“It was a massive wake-up call that it could happen to Senna, the best driver in the world. But the fact that he had been killed by the suspension hitting the helmet – a sort of freak occurrence – in some ways similar to the Felipe Massa accident in 2009, gave some comfort to the other drivers at that time.”

That is the mentality of Formula One drivers. But Senna’s accident gave those who governed the sport the mandate to reform safety. It had become unacceptable, in the public’s perception at least, to die in the name of sport.

For many this week the anniversary will be a reminder of how untimely the Brazilian’s death was, and how much more he could have achieved in the sport, and in life.

Two decades on, it should be remembered his accident not only helped save the life of Martin Brundle, just two years later, along with a number of other Formula One drivers, but tens of thousands on the road. Arguably, that is his most tangible legacy.

Ayrton Senna Brazilian race–car driver

Ayrton Senna, (born March 21, 1960, São Paulo, Brazil—died May 1, 1994, Imola, Italy) Brazilian race-car driver who , was a fierce competitor who was renowned for his ruthless and risky maneuvers on the Grand Prix circuit and dominated the sport with 41 Grand Prix titles and 3 circuit world championships (1988, 1990, and 1991). Senna was revered as a national hero in Brazil, and his death, from massive head injuries suffered when he smashed head-on into a concrete wall at some 300 km/h (186 mph) at the San Marino Grand Prix, plunged the country into mourning. At the age of four, Senna was already behind the wheel of a go-cart and demonstrating a determination to win. He joined the Formula One racing circuit in 1984 as one of the most promising new drivers, and he captured the coveted pole position a record 65 times for having had the fastest race-qualifying times. An enigmatic figure who was deeply religious yet highly aggressive on the racetrack, Senna thrilled spectators and cowed competitors with his fearsome driving. He invited controversy over his long-standing rivalry with Frenchman Alain Prost, with 51 titles the most successful driver; the two collided during the penultimate race of both the 1989 season, when Prost emerged victorious, and the 1990 season, when Senna captured the world crown. He reportedly earned more than $100 million during his career, which included an annual salary of some $10 million. Senna’s death came one day after Austrian rookie Roland Ratzenberger was killed in a similar accident during qualifying trials. Both deaths renewed concerns about recent rule changes. The Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile banned electronics and other drivers’ aids from Formula One cars, a move that many believed made the sport more dangerous.