This morning I woke up with Senna on my mind. For most people today is Workers Day or Labour Day depending on where in the world you are. For Formula One fans, today is the day we lost one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time – Ayrton Senna da Silva.
Today is the day that memories of Senna will dominate social media timelines around the globe. A day we will never forget. I, for one, will never forget the day we lost the legend that is Senna. And I say I, in first person, because today I’m not just an F1 Writer, today it’s personal. I write as an F1 fan.
I was 16 years old. Doing one of my favourite things in the world – watching Formula One with my Dad. The horrible crash and the huge RACE STOPPED letters across the screen. The absolute silence that rang through our house. Just waiting for him to move. “Move, Senna, MOVE!” But he never did.
I remember how excruciatingly long it took the medical team to get to him. How long it took them to get him out of the car. It felt like hours. Still no movement! “C’mon Ayrton, MOVE!” And then the chopper that took him away.
I remember the way Murray Walker had us jumping around with excitement as he always did one moment, and sombre, morbid, the next. “This is a sad, sad day for Formula One,” he said. And it was. Ayrton Senna was gone. And way too soon.
We never got to see all of him. We never got to see the best of him even – despite the fact that he was, by far, the best of his time. For me, I’ll always rue the fact that we never got to see that ultimate Senna vs Schumacher rivalry.
But today is not a day as morbid as the one 19 years ago. Today we remember, and celebrate, Senna’s amazing life and career.
Born 21 March 1960 in Sao Paulo, Senna was the son of a wealthy Brazilian landowner and factory owner Milton da Silva and his wife Neide Senna da Silva.
He started his motorsport career in karting, moving on to open-wheel racing in 1981, and winning the British Formula 3 championship in 1983. He made his F1 debut with Toleman-Hart in 1984 after which he moved to Lotus-Renault in 1985, winning six Grand Prix races over the next three seasons.
In 1988, Senna joined the fiery Frenchman Alain Prost at McLaren-Honda where one of Formula One’s greatest rivalries started. Between them, they won 15 of the 16 Grand Prix races that year and Senna claimed his first Formula One World Championship. Prost went on to win the championship in 1989, and Senna took his second and third championships in 1990 and 1991. Their rivalry was simply unmatched. Both the 1989 and the 1990 World Championship won by Prost and Senna respectively, were were decided by collisions between the pair at the Japanese Grand Prix races.
In 1992, McLaren-Honda lost ground to the Williams-Renault combination who had started their domination of Formula One. Nevertheless, Senna managed to finish the 1993 season in second place, winning five races.
In 1994 he moved to Williams. He had negotiated an amazing deal for the time – Senna was paid $1 million for each race with $20 million for the season.
It was at this point in his career that we got a taste of what could have been one of the most amazing F1 rivalries of all time. Senna vs Schumacher.
Rule changes for the 1994 season included the banning of traction control, active suspension and ABS. Williams-Renault had been amazingly dominant during the 1992 and 1993 Formula One seasons but pre-season testing in 1994 showed that the new Williams FW16 had very little of the superiority it’s two predecessors had enjoyed.
Suddenly Senna found himself battling a new rival – Michael Schumacher in his Benetton B194. Early on in the season Senna spoke of his discomfort with the car saying he was struggling with the handling. “I have a very negative feeling about driving the car and driving it on the limit and so on … Some of that is down to the lack of electronic change. Also, the car has its own characteristics which I’m not fully confident in yet.”
But his most haunting words and the prophecy for what would be his tragic season followed, “It’s going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I’ll risk saying that we’ll be lucky if something really serious doesn’t happen.”
Senna had his worst start to an F1 season that year. He retired from both the first race in Brazil and the second at Aida, and Schumacher went on to win both races.
Schumacher went to Imola 20 points ahead in the Formula One World Championship and Senna declared that this was where his season would start. He placed his car on pole for the 65th and final time despite being unhappy with his car.
During the afternoon qualifying session Rubens Barichello had been involved in a serious accident. His Jordan became airborne at the final chicane and he slammed into the fence and tyres. Barichello suffered a broken nose and arm resulting in him being unable to take part in the race. Barichello remembered Senna being the first person he saw after regaining consciousness.
That Saturday, rookie driver Roland Ratzenberger was killed when the front wing of his Simtek-Ford broke while going flat out through the super-fast Villeneuve bend. His car was sent straight into a concrete wall. Senna was tearful despite only having met Ratzenberger the day before.
When he never got enough information about his injured colleagues, Senna climbed over the fence of the Medical Centre after going to see Ratzenberger’s crash site. He had commandeered an FIA official’s car to get to the site but the FIA chose not to take any disciplinary action.
His final morning was spent meeting with his fellow drivers to discuss re-establishing the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association in an effort to increase safety for drivers in Formula One. Nobody could have known what would unfold that day.
The race started in a shambles. Senna retained the lead from Schumacher but the race was interrupted by a huge accident at the start line involving JJ Lehto and Pedro Lamy.
The race restarted on Lap 6 and Senna immediately set a quick lap. But as he entered the high-speed Tamburello corner on Lap 7 his car left the track at about 330km/h, hitting the concrete wall at about 217km/h. Telemetry showed an application of the brakes for about 2 seconds.
Senna was extracted from his car by Professor Sid Watkins and the medical team who initially treated him alongside his car. At that point Senna still had a weak heartbeat but had lost a lot of blood. He was airlifted to hospital where he was declared dead.
Nobody really knows what happened. Why his car went on straight into that wall. It is believed that the right suspension stabbed back into the cockpit, striking Senna on the right hand side of his helmet and causing fatal brain injuries.
An amazing career, and an amazing life. The man was a true legend, and one who shaped my love for Formula One. May he never be forgotten.
Ayrton Senna da Silva. 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994 and beyond.
With Alonso now moving to McLaren, where his 2007 tenure with the team ended in a very unamicable manner, but Briatore said: “Time heals everything.”
