The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  “I don’t mind admitting that at the start of 1982 I felt under one hell of a lot of pressure,” Brundle recalls. “There I was with the plum BP drive and there was everyone else who’d missed out saying: ‘Why did he get the drive? He’s only a tin-top racer’. I decided I wasn’t going to let anyone upset me and I made up my mind to approach the season brimming with confidence.”

  Byrne was dominant, and Brundle kept clashing with another rising Brit, Dave Scott. He fought up to second in the opening race, but his satisfaction, like his confidence, didn’t last long. “Les Thacker of BP called me into his office the following day – I thought to say congratulations. Instead he gave me the biggest bollocking of my life. That came as a real shock, as I thought I’d done quite well.” The bollocking appeared to work: by season-end he was the fastest man out there, having won at Oulton Park and Thruxton and set five pole positions. But then came 1983.

  The only mistake Senna made in the first nine rounds of the 1983 British Formula Three championship was one quick spin in practice for the first race, at Silverstone. Otherwise his West Surrey Racing Ralt RT3 was dominant. Brundle, in his Eddie Jordan Racing RT3, was his closest challenger, only once being beaten for the runner-up slot. Sometimes he led off the line, but always Senna was in command by the end of the lap. A lesser driver would have collapsed psychologically, but Brundle had done a lot of learning. At times he felt having Senna around was the worst thing that could have happened to his career, but gradually he changed that mindset.

  “I did wish to God he wasn’t racing against me,” he says. “Then I started to realise that without Ayrton I’d simply be the guy who was doing what was expected of him, with my Formula Three experience. I think we’ve all got to admit that ‘the man’ is something special, so when I beat him it’s going to mean a lot more.”

  Brundle, for all those consecutive defeats, had no doubt that he would win through. It was that resolve that first began to attract the attention that would eventually catapult him into the big league.

  The first cracks in Senna’s armour appeared when the British series combined with the European Formula Three championship, at Silverstone in June. Both the West Surrey Racing and Eddie Jordan Racing camps opted to run the European-spec Yokohama tyres, rather than Avons as contenders for the British series. Brundle won the race overall. Senna, blaming a graining tyre, spun twice trying to keep up. A week later, at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire, Brundle won easily after Senna crashed his Ralt in practice. On home ground at Snetterton in Norfolk, Brundle won again, after Senna crashed trying to pass him with two laps to go. “He was quicker out of Sear but I was on the left-hand side of the road and there was only half a car width to my left. He chose to take it, expecting me to lift off. But I didn’t. We touched, and I saw the rivets on the underside of his car as it went skywards! Then he stayed on the gas and tried to t-bone me at the Esses.” The incident typified the ruthless determination that would become part of the Senna legend. “People said I looked sheepish afterwards, but that wasn’t because I’d had him off – it was because most of the witnesses they drew from the crowd were my mates or relatives. Snetterton really wasn’t the place to protest against me. We’re all related to each other in Norfolk!”

  Brundle went on to win at Donington, where Senna dogged his every move, then the duo clashed at Oulton Park when a rash overtaking move by Senna saw him park on top of Brundle’s car. The series exploded into a battle that went down to the last race. At Thruxton Senna beat Brundle, and the title was his. But both had by then attracted the eyes of Formula One team-owners.

  The difference between Senna and Brundle was that, from the beginning, Senna had a clear vision of his Grand Prix future, and how to achieve his goal of becoming world champion. Already he was discerning and had total confidence in his ability – and his value. On the other hand, Brundle was pleased to be in with a chance of a Formula One drive, any drive. Ultimately Senna opted for Toleman, which was an interesting choice. The team was not an outright winner, but showed much promise. Senna rightly assessed its potential, and that of learning the business of Formula One in such a team. Joining a leading team would have led to high expectations and pressure. At Toleman, he reasoned, he would exceed expectations. Meanwhile Brundle parlayed persistent pestering of Ken Tyrrell and impressive subsequent tests in both England and Brazil early in 1984 into a full-time Formula One ride with the Tyrrell team.

  On their debut in Brazil, Senna qualified the turbo-charged Toleman-Hart 16th. Brundle was 18th, in the normally aspirated Tyrrell-Cosworth. Both outqualified their team-mates. They ran together for a while, but Senna fell back on lap eight with failing boost pressure and retired. Brundle sped to an excellent fifth place. In South Africa, which greatly favoured the turbos, Senna qualified 13th and finished a heat-exhausted sixth, despite losing his nosecone; Brundle qualified 25th and finished 11th. Kyalami highlighted Senna’s physical frailty, as he was dehydrated and engulfed by cramps after the race, and promptly christened ‘the wimp’ by his team. But his impressive race performance counteracted any negative impressions. Belgium saw Senna qualify 19th and Brundle 22nd but both were upstaged by Brundle’s team-mate Stefan Bellof as the German beat Senna to seventh while Brundle lost a wheel. In Imola, to his intense chagrin, Senna failed to qualify after tyre dramas, but Brundle was only 11th with fuel-feed problems as Bellof finished fifth. In France, equipped with Michelin tyres instead of the troublesome Pirellis that Toleman started the year with, Senna qualified 13th but blew a turbo, while Brundle qualified 23rd and finished 12th.

  It was in Monaco that Senna’s Formula One legend truly began. In qualifying Brundle charged the Armco heavily, inverted his car exiting Tabac and narrowly escaped injury. But on race day it was Senna and Bellof who made the headlines. In appalling conditions they were closing on Alain Prost’s leading McLaren when clerk of the course Jacky Ickx stopped the race prematurely. Few doubted that given another few laps Senna would have scored his first Grand Prix victory, though some forgot Bellof was actually catching him. Senna had displayed the first glimpse of brilliance that would set him apart. A turbo in the wet was a difficult animal, so he drove his turbo Toleman like a normally aspirated car, changing up through the gears just before the turbo hit boost. In discussion with the team before the start, he had also reasoned it would be a long time before the rain stopped so he decided to start with a very light fuel load. With Michelin he was also on the right rain tyre.

  None of this was good for Brundle, who had not made the race in Monte Carlo. Nor did Canada help. Senna qualified ninth and finished seventh, right behind Nigel Mansell, while Brundle qualified ahead of Bellof, back in 21st, and finished 10th. But the next tracks, Detroit and Dallas, favoured the under-powered Tyrrells.

  Senna qualified seventh in Detroit, Brundle 11th, more than a second faster than Bellof. While Senna crashed out of the race, Brundle took an excellent second place behind Nelson Piquet’s turbo-charged Brabham-BMW. Launching a determined challenge in the closing laps, he finished less than a second behind. It was a mature, impressive performance. Maybe things were changing.

  Then came Dallas, where the career paths diverged dramatically.

  Senna continued to impress with his speed in qualifying around the concrete wall-lined circuit. Brundle was learning the new track Friday morning when his Tyrrell suddenly twitched out of control, slamming into one concrete wall before bouncing into another. The front of the chassis was severely damaged – and so were Brundle’s legs. His Formula One career would never be the same again.

  “That accident spoiled my momentum big time,” he says. “I was on crutches for six months and lost my fitness level. I was always compromised after that. I could do some aerobic stuff, but no jogging. For the first couple of years after the shunt my feet didn’t work properly. I had some curious offs and incidents because of that. My feet wouldn’t do what I wanted them to.”

  He was lucky compared to Johnny Herbert, who damaged both feet, whereas Brundle s
uffered worse damage to the left. “The right one is stiff, but the left one barely moves. If I was like Johnny I would have been in serious trouble,” he says. “At Le Mans, you know, I can’t articulate my right foot enough if the brake is higher than the throttle, but my team-mates prefer uneven pedals. It’s little things like that, knock-on effects. When left-foot braking came into Formula One I couldn’t do it. I can’t even press a road car brake properly sometimes. I’m on or off like a switch, there’s no finesse.”

  In time he recovered, rejoining Tyrrell for full seasons in 1985 and 1986 before switching to Zakspeed’s turbo for 1987. In 1988 he turned his back on Formula One to lead Jaguar’s sportscar programme, becoming world champion. He returned to Formula One with Brabham in 1989 before leaving again for sportscars in 1990, and rejoined Brabham again for 1991. By then people no longer regarded him as ‘The Man Who Nearly Beat Senna’.

  By then 1983 was a distant memory, and a story was going around that seemingly offering a logical explanation why Brundle had run Senna so close, when ever since the Brazilian had been head and shoulders above. “Eddie Jordan had a single-drive camshaft update on Martin’s Toyota engine whereas Ayrton had an older engine with twin-drive,” West Surrey Racing boss Dick Bennetts suggests. “We were a bit off the ball there, until Ayrton got one of the single-drive engines for the final race and won by a country mile.”

  Brundle smiles at the thought. “It’s funny, isn’t it? I met up with Ron Tauranac in Monaco this year; his memory is staggering. He told me he had always been meaning to apologise to me since Thruxton 1983, when without thinking he just dished out update kits for the RT3. Dickie and Ayrton got the new sidepods, I got the pushrod front suspension. Ron reckoned the pods were worth more with their greater downforce, and that’s why Ayrton had that easy win. I don’t remember any big deal about engines, but it rings a bell Ayrton making a fuss, driving there and back to Novamotors in Italy to see his new engine tested on the dyno and then bringing it home with him before Thruxton.” Again the Brazilian’s desire to win knew no limits.

  As Senna’s career progressed, his desire to improve never diminished. No stone was left unturned. When he realised his performance could be improved by his physical fitness, and understood the importance of blood oxygen levels, he sought professional advice on how to increase his oxygen intake through prescribed aerobic exercise.

  In 1992 Brundle finally managed to re-establish momentum, joining Benetton to partner Michael Schumacher. But even then it took him time to find his feet. “It was a different world, like starting again,” he admits. “It was the first time for me in Formula One when every race I had the chance of a podium or maybe even a win, though we had only our normal Benetton Fords against Williams Renaults with full active suspension and bells-and-whistles semi-automatic gearshifting. I had to learn to cope with the pressure.”

  When he finally got going, he beat Schumacher at Imola, where the German spun chasing him, and should have won in Canada after passing Michael and catching eventual winner Gerhard Berger. Faulty bolts in the differential let him down. He was very quick at Silverstone and revived old memories as he battled with Senna for third place until he was baulked momentarily by Damon Hill (he still finished third when Senna retired). And on the day Schumacher won at Spa, it could easily have been the Englishman who celebrated a maiden win. “My fault, that one,” he admits. “I should have pitted for slicks when I knew it was the right time, a lap sooner than I did.” With Senna-like instinct Schumacher made the right decision, pitted and won. “That killed the momentum again,” says Brundle.

  By September it was announced he would drive alongside Prost at Williams, but for reasons he still cannot understand the drive went to Damon Hill instead. His career never recovered, despite spells with Ligier in 1993, McLaren in 1994 with Häkkinen, and later with Rubens Barrichello at Jordan before he finally quit at the end of 1996.

  Today, Martin Brundle is a very sharp, streetwise Formula One commentator. Never one of life’s whingers, he tells it like it is. Looking back at why his career path ultimately diverged so dramatically from Senna’s, he is characteristically tough on himself. “The 1983 season certainly elevated me, and Ayrton and I each had someone of value to beat. That year Eddie and I did 22 races on £87,000. I look back on it now with a mixture of wonderment and frustration. In the same equipment as them I beat Ayrton, Michael and Mika on my day, but that’s the crucial bit – on my day. I couldn’t deliver all the time. Now when I see all the facilities around David Coulthard, I realise why I never delivered my full potential. It wasn’t because of my driving ability. Until I broke my legs, I was back in the office every Monday morning after a race running our car dealerships, laughable when you think about it. But I did manage to give those three guys a run for their money at times, the three guys who dominated my era of Formula One. There’s an expression I’ve heard: ‘when the spotlight comes on, some people wilt and others draw energy’. I suppose that I wilted.”

  Brundle never did that. But what he often needed was to hit rock bottom. He did it in 1983 after being defeated by Senna in those nine consecutive races, and again early in 1992 after a run-in with Jean Alesi during practice at Imola, when he admitted he went back to his hotel room and cried.

  “In the big years I seemed to need that,” he says. “Some of my best drives were comebacks. In 1989 at Monaco, when I was heading for third and the battery went. Silverstone in the Ross Brawn Jaguar in 1991 when the throttle cable snapped and I lost seven minutes, but lapped Michael and co in their Sauber-Merc three times and Keke in the Peugeot five times and had to be lifted out of the car afterwards. Maybe I was normally too cautious, or just too tight. I don’t know. But at the end of the day Ayrton won a lot of world championships, and it’s not as if I narrowly missed out on a lot of them, is it?”

  CHAPTER 7

  A Day of Dreams

  Senna’s first test in a Formula One car

  In July 1983 Ayrton Senna drove a Formula One car for the very first time. It was a Williams. That was poignant, as 11 years later his last drive would also be in a Williams. At the time, no one attached much significance to a day of testing at Donington Park after the 1983 British Grand Prix. It was just another test of another new young driver, witnessed by a dozen or so people.

  But it would later come to be a cherished memory for those spectators. Luckily, photographers and television cameras recorded every detail of Tuesday 19th July 1983, the day Ayrton Senna first drove a Formula One car. It was warm and sunny at Donington Park, the Leicestershire track built to Formula One standards but which had never held a Formula One race.

  Today, the idea of a test session at Donington is unlikely, but it had been earned by Senna who had won the Formula Three support race for the British Grand Prix a few days before. Being Senna, he had won it from pole and driven the fastest lap on the way. Nowadays, a start-to-finish victory, and a 10th win out of the 13 races of the F3 season so far, would have got him an immediate Formula One drive. In those days it was only enough to earn him a test session all of his own with the world champion team Williams. In today’s environment young Senna’s name would have been on a Williams contract before he sat in the car. But back then the competition for young drivers was nowhere near as intense. The average age of the Formula One grid in 1983 was 30. By 2001 it was 27.

  Despite Senna being an obvious star of the future, the test attracted little attention. Frank Williams was presiding. But he had no idea of the significance. It would later turn out to be a day of ironies. Senna would start his Formula One career in a Williams and end it in a Williams, 11 years apart. Surprisingly, very few people remember much about the day, other than the fact that Senna took a Williams around Donington faster than anyone had before. The test session might never have taken place at all had the young Senna, travelling to Zandvoort to compete in the European Formula Ford 2000 support race to the Dutch Grand Prix the year before, not sat next to Frank Williams on the flight.

  Pete
r Collins, then team manager at Williams, remembers it clearly: “When Frank arrived at the circuit he said to me, ‘Oh I sat next to some young Brazilian driver, Ayrton Senna da Silva. Do you know him?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know him. He’s racing here.’”

  Senna won the race that weekend and went on to take the European championship, winning six races of the nine races and qualifying on pole eight times.

  Frank Williams remembers: “Ayrton was a very pushy and determined young man who was always phoning saying ‘come on, let me have a go’. He had won most of the F3 races in 1983 and it was clear that he would probably go a long, long way, but no one really knows these things. Patrick Head and I discussed it and decided to test him. Patrick and I thought even if we couldn’t use him for 1984 because of existing contracts extending into that year, it would be interesting to help him in his career and he might remember that later on. That is why we tested him. He was an impressive young man and I was very curious as to how he would go in a 500 horsepower machine. He was very determined and the ferocity of how he pursued Patrick and I for a test was impressive. He was persistent. He knew what he wanted, where to go and how to get it.

  “On top of the results that he was piling up almost every weekend he was a very motivated young man but very different to his colleagues of a similar age. He was living in the Reading area at that time, which meant he was only about five or eight miles from my home, so my wife and I took him out for dinner half a dozen times in 1983 to try to make him feel a little bit more at home in that part of the world, and in our conversations, which tend to make my wife a little bit bored because they were only about motor racing, it came across how intense he was about his career.”

  Eventually Williams grudgingly agreed to the test and a date was set right after the British Grand Prix.