The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Those around him felt that Senna might have liked to continue racing, to wait longer to see if sponsorship materialised, but concern from his father and wife persuaded him that a return to Brazil would be better than scrimping and saving far from home for a career that might never take off. There is a very fine line between fame and obscurity. Many young drivers have had successful first racing seasons only to fade from memory when the funds dried up or they found other things to occupy their minds. Ayrton Senna was very, very close to becoming one of them and it is impossible to guess to what extent that might have changed the sport of today.

  Senna’s desire to race always burned strongly and it is this that made him turn his back on retirement and the happy farm in Brazil. He was determined, in a world where determination could count for more than talent. His peers were not always so dogged. His rival of 1981, Rick Morris, was talented but he decided to buy a house rather than continue to spend his money racing. Senna would not let anything stand in his way. Had he accepted obscurity, he would almost certainly have still been alive today.

  But the desire to race that coursed through his veins had not diminished. He had a decision to make: “When I got back to Brazil, my father needed help in some of his businesses, and he wasn’t convinced that I wanted to be a professional driver. He thought he could persuade me. I had won 13 races out of the 18 I had started and by September had enough points in both championships to be sure of being champion, but I gave up in the end because he needed me. I came home to help the business. By then I was a bit disappointed with racing. I wanted to be self-sufficient in sponsorship, so I decided to take a break. I stayed at home until February 1982, not thinking about motor racing. I tried to give it up, because it was important to my family. But I realised that I could not give up. So when February came I knew I could not be at home when the season was about to start in Europe.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Return of the Prodigal Son

  Indecision as the best-laid plans go wrong

  During 1981 Ron Dennis had noticed Ayrton Senna as he dominated Formula Ford. It was Dennis’s first season in Formula One in charge of McLaren and he was looking for drivers for the future. He resolved to make Senna an offer if he ever returned to England. But at the time his return was in severe doubt.

  When Senna went back to Brazil with his wife Liliane, as far he was concerned that was that. He would bow to his father’s wishes and commit to the family business. After all, he was the eldest son: it was his duty.

  There was also a nagging doubt as to whether his adventures in Europe would come to anything. He was not sure he had got what it takes to win at the highest level, and that was all he was interested in. If he didn’t think he could graduate to Formula One and dominate, he didn’t want to waste his time in Europe.

  He had already sacrificed competing in the 1981 Formula Ford Festival, which showed his lack of commitment to a motor racing career. He also had qualms about spending his father’s money on motor racing. And then there was Liliane. He wanted to make a go of his marriage.

  It took five long months for him to realise where his future lay. By the time February came, he was convinced racing had won out and he knew where he had to be. It was not São Paulo.

  But he had one major problem – money. He had little sponsorship except for some personal support from Banerj Bank. The 1982 season would cost £30,000, which meant his father would have to pay.

  It was a difficult decision to make. As Senna said later: “When I decided to come over in 1981, it was the first time my father had not supported me completely. He did once I had signed the contract, but it was not quite the same. I also had no sponsors in 1981, and I knew that if I was going to go as a professional then I would have to go by myself, not depending on my family. My motor racing meant everything to me. I had to give it 100 per cent in order to establish myself, and I found I couldn’t give that if I was married.”

  He told Liliane and his father the news. His father accepted it and promised more money. Liliane told him the marriage was over if he went back to England, and he accepted that.

  Milton da Silva was no autocrat: he loved his son and only wanted the best for him. He saw that he was unhappy and gave him the choice. He agreed to give him the £30,000 he needed and Senna promised to pay him back as soon as he could.

  With the decision made he immediately called Ralph Firman at Van Diemen’s factory in England to see about a drive. Senna said: “I phoned Ralph and said ‘What about Formula Ford 2000?’ He said he could make arrangements for me with a private team and I said ‘OK, let’s do it’.”

  By coincidence the private team Firman mentioned was Rushen Green. So in February 1982, Senna returned to England to take up Dennis Rushen on an offer he had made the previous year.

  The two men already knew each other well. On 3rd May 1981 Dennis Rushen, owner of the Rushen Green Formula Ford 2000 team, had just seen Senna drive for the very first time, at the Snetterton circuit in Norfolk. He was competing in a works Van Diemen in a Formula Ford 1600 race, the junior Formula Ford series. Rushen remembers: “I wasn’t paying that much attention to the race. It had started off dry and I was just walking to my car. I noticed there was this little yellow-and-black car in the lead and then the rain started. The next time they came past me he was in the lead by half a lap!”

  Rushen was impressed with the man who would later become his close friend. As he recalls: “When he stopped I went over to meet him. I introduced myself and explained who I was. I was so impressed that I told him if he wanted to race in two-litre the following year, I could do him a good deal. I offered him £10,000.”

  At the time, a Formula Ford 2000 season could cost as much as £40,000 for a young driver. Rushen’s wasn’t a serious offer, more a token of how highly he rated the Brazilian. But Senna did not forget it.

  Nine months later he signed a late deal to drive for Rushen Green Racing for 1982. In the intervening period he had won two Formula Ford 1600 titles, retired from racing, gone back to Brazil to work for his father, separated from his wife and returned to Britain to continue racing. A lot had happened to the young racer, then just shy of his 22nd birthday.

  Senna tried to keep Rushen to his original offer but in the end they agreed that he would pay £30,000 instead of £40,000 for the Pace British and Euroseries Formula Ford 2000 championships.

  There is still an apocryphal story circulating that says Rushen was forced by Senna to accept the original offer of £10,000, and it has passed into motor racing folklore. Van Diemen boss Ralph Firman laughs out loud at the story, and Rushen denies it outright. Both insist the real sum was around £30,000 – still a good deal.

  Rushen remembers: “History shows that he went back home, but then he got rid of his wife and came back. We had been in contact in the winter through Ralph Firman, who wanted him to return. Very late, just before the start of the season, he said he had decided to come back. He said ‘Yeah, I do want to do this after all’. We sat down with Ralph Firman over dinner to discuss the deal. Ayrton suddenly piped up and said ‘Dennis said I could have the whole lot for £10,000’. Ralph was stunned. He had remembered our conversation from all those months before. He was quite astute even then. But we couldn’t possibly do it for £10,000.”

  Senna had funding from his father that would cover the year and also sponsorship from Brazilian bank Banerj and Pool jeans. But he had nowhere to live so he phoned fellow Brazilian Mauricio Gugelmin, who was competing in Formula Ford 1600 that year as Senna’s replacement at the works Van Diemen team. He had been recommended by Senna, just as Senna had been recommended by Brazilian Chico Serra the year before. Gugelmin was living with his wife Stella at a house in Eaton, Norwich, where they paid £160 a month in rent, and was more than happy to lodge his friend. Stella was more tolerant of racing than Senna’s wife Liliane had been, and the couple are still together today. Visitors to the house remember a happy atmosphere.

  With the season rapidly approaching, Senna only on
ce got to try out the car, a Van Diemen RF82, before he had to race. The major difference between the 1600 and 2000 Formula Ford cars was that the 2000s had wings and slick tyres. Dennis Rushen recalls Senna’s attitude to the innovations: “We went to test at Brands Hatch and he said to me ‘Right Dennis, teach me about wings’. So I showed him the wing and he went out and within a few laps he was on the pace. He came back into the pits and said ‘Yeah, I understand that now’.”

  In 1982, Formula Ford 2000 was not the major junior championship in Britain or Europe, although the Euroseries had the advantage of being the support race for four of the Grand Prix events that season. In other words it was good publicity, and by the end of the year Senna had attracted the attention of many past, present and future Formula One team bosses, characters as famous and diverse as Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Wilson Fittipaldi, Bernie Ecclestone and Eddie Jordan. He was aided by the efforts of Keith Sutton, who was putting out press releases and photographs to all the top people in the sport long before it became common practice for up-and-coming drivers. Senna even received firm offers, but had resisted all attempts by the bosses to put him under their thumbs. He was his own man and wanted – needed – to be in Formula One on his own terms. He had so much faith in his own ability that he did not want to take the first offer that came along, no matter how good it seemed.

  Senna had turned down offers from European Formula Two and British Formula Three for that season, including the established Swiss Formula Two team Maurer Motorsport. Formula Ford 2000 was not the only option open to him, and it was not the highest rung on the ladder, but there is little doubt that Senna made the right choice. His team-mate would be Kenny Andrews.

  It is not unfair to the drivers to say that the standard of Formula Ford 2000 at that time was lower than in the other two series. From the contestants in the 1982 British and European championships, only one driver besides Senna made it to Formula One: Volker Weidler, a German who never pre-qualified for a Grand Prix in seven attempts. It was a long way from the late-1980s Euroseries heyday, when Michael Schumacher, Mika Häkkinen, David Coulthard, Rubens Barrichello, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Mika Salo were all competing for honours. The majority of drivers in the European rounds were Scandinavian and Benelux gentlemen racers. In contrast, in the British Formula Three championship, Martin Brundle, Roberto Moreno and Tommy Byrne all made it to the top level, as did the entire championship top 10 and more, including Thierry Boutsen, Stefan Bellof, Stefan Johansson and Alessandro Nannini, from the European Formula Two series. Senna won 77 per cent of the races he competed in that year, and would no doubt have struggled to achieve that in one of the other championships.

  To put it into context, 77 per cent was phenomenal. It was to be the highest win-to-start ratios of Senna’s career. In Formula One the best he managed was 50 per cent in 1988. Such a performance is not unheard of in the British junior formulas, but it is special all the same. His total for the Pace British Formula Ford 2000 championship alone was 83 per cent, with 15 wins out of 18. All in all, it totted up to 23 wins out of 30 attempts. He finished 26 of the races and his percentage from this total was 88 per cent.

  It began at Brands Hatch on 7th March, with the first round of the Pace British Formula Ford 2000 championship. Senna took pole, clocked the fastest lap and won the race by 9.8 seconds. Then, on Saturday 27th March, he took pole, fastest lap and victory at Oulton Park, then the same again over 100 miles away at Silverstone the following day. A week later he was off to Donington Park, and it was the same old whitewash. Senna’s mechanic at the time, Swede Petter Dahl, said later: “He had three goals for every race: take pole position, set fastest lap and win.” Anything less was failure.

  The next race was just a few days after Donington, at Snetterton on Good Friday. It was business as usual, with Senna taking pole and pulling away into the distance as other clumsier drivers got caught in a pile-up way behind him. As he came past the pits and over the debris to begin his second lap, however, he slowed dramatically: first his team-mate Kenny Andrews got past, and then other cars. Senna was soon down in seventh and it looked as if he would be forced to return to the pits. Unknown to his crew, a shard of debris had sliced through his front brake line and he was driving the car with only rear brakes.

  Suddenly, though, Senna started to speed up again. One by one he began the painstaking work of picking off the six cars in front of him. He had figured out that by switching his adjustable anti-roll bar to full soft setting and throwing the car around the corners as if it was a kart he could drive almost as fast as normal.

  When Andrews saw Senna 15 seconds behind him on the track he was sure he had won the race. But Senna, naturally setting the fastest lap on the way, soon caught his team-mate and made his way past. He won the race by 12.6 seconds.

  The Rushen Green team members were naturally perplexed by the incident, although they got a clue to the answer when the Brazilian had some trouble stopping at the end of the race and skidded to a halt about 400 metres after the other cars. When he explained that he had no brakes, they were at first sceptical. Then they examined the car and found that the front brake line was sheared and the front brake discs cold.

  Dennis Rushen remembers the race well. As he says: “It was a strange race. I was watching from the pitwall and when I noticed him slow I knew that something was wrong. When he told us what had happened afterwards we all just looked at the car and couldn’t believe it. He had no front brakes at all! And he wasn’t big-headed about it, he was very matter-of-fact.

  “After the race we had a meeting in the truck. Kenny Andrews asked him what he could do to improve and Ayrton told him he should brake later. He said ‘I was braking later than you into the corners and I had no brakes’!”

  On Easter Monday, Senna went to Silverstone. It was pole position, fastest lap and victory again.

  Senna was so far ahead of his competitors it hardly seemed worth his while. Was it easy for him? Once the season was over he said: “In 1981 everything was new. I was driving against people with one, two, three years’ experience in Formula Ford. That’s a big, big difference, but we still got there. It was the same in 1982. Yes, Calvin Fish was the only one who really put the pressure on me, but at times I think his car was better than mine.”

  Of course Senna was using the word ‘pressure’ comparatively. On all but a few occasions the best Fish could manage was second. It would have sounded arrogant if the facts had not backed it up: six races, six pole positions, six fastest laps, six victories.

  Senna could even be modest about the whole affair. He said later: “I must say that I had very good equipment and support. You wouldn’t believe the effort Ralph Firman put in for me in 1981, and it was the same in 1982 with Dennis Rushen. They both gave me very competitive cars and after that it was down to me.”

  The following weekend Senna took part in the first round of the EFDA Formula Ford 2000 Euroseries at Zolder in Belgium. There were new European drivers to compete against but he was still the favourite. His reputation had spread and his fellow competitors were eyeing him nervously. They were doubtless even more nervous when he took pole position by a second.

  But this time it was not to be. His Ford engine let go on the third lap, before he had even had a chance to set his customary fastest lap, and the race victory went to Dutchman Cor Euser. It was the first time Senna had lost that season. All the same, the offers were flooding in from people who had recognised his talent, although he refused them all, even ex-Daytona 24-hour winner Toine Hezemins, who offered him £50,000 for the chance to promote him. Senna was going to do things his own way.

  He put his Euroseries record straight on the familiar territory of Donington two weeks later. It was pole position, fastest lap and victory once again. The following day he was at Mallory Park for the next round of the British championship. He lost out on pole position for the first time that year and had to settle for second, but still took fastest lap and victory.

  The next race, on 9th May,
was another Euroseries round at Zolder, the support race for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. It was a turning point for Senna and for Formula One.

  It was the weekend that Gilles Villeneuve was killed. The Ferrari star plunged into the catch fencing in qualifying while desperately trying to beat the time of team-mate Didier Pironi. Villeneuve was a popular man with those who knew him and the fans. He was the biggest legend to die in a Formula One car until almost exactly 12 years later, with Senna’s own death at Imola.

  The race weekend fell under a shadow. Although the Formula Ford event was a sideshow, a Rushen Green mechanic had seen the aftermath of the crash. It was awkward for the drivers and a major milestone, as many of them, like Senna, were competing at their first Grand Prix.

  The event provided a chance for the drivers to be noticed on the international stage, and Senna had the advantage that his fame had gone before him. He was easily the biggest thing in the series. He confided to Rushen that he had been offered contracts by McLaren and Toleman but could not accept them. Both involved a subsidised season in Formula Three followed by an option for Formula One the following year. Senna wanted a firm guarantee that he would get a Formula One drive before he agreed to limit his choices. It took a lot of courage to turn down offers of that calibre, and a great deal of self-belief.

  Senna later recalled why he turned down the offer from his future mentor Ron Dennis – one that most Formula Ford drivers would have given anything for. He said: “Ron Dennis was not the first Formula One manager to offer me an opportunity in Formula One. He offered me a Formula Three programme, a test contract in Formula One, good money and nothing to worry about. There was the possibility of a full-time Formula One place with McLaren in 1984. But I was not sure. I did not know Ron. I had read a lot about Formula One and talked to a lot of people but I was a bit worried about it. I preferred to organise my own Formula Three programme and go from there. I did not turn down Ron: I told him that I preferred to make the choice of Formula Three team myself. I felt that I was in a better position to choose than he was, because I knew the people involved. He did not understand that. But it is the reason I did not go with him. And I still believe that decision was correct at the time.”