The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  The categorical denials ended the rumours.

  Senna was also upset about other things. As he prepared to leave São Paulo for the beginning of the European season, he and Xuxa Meneghel had virtually agreed to go their separate ways. He wanted someone to join him at the track, and she wanted someone to fit around her schedule.

  In the 18 months they had been together, Xuxa had dominated his thoughts. He was in love with her, no doubt, as she was with him, but the logistics made them call it a day, leaving them free to pursue other relationships. They agreed it was an impossible relationship. But she would remain his official girlfriend until late 1992. She said: “We were pretty much the same. But I knew that the logistics of one career centred in Brazil and one in Europe made life impossible. I wanted a person like him, and I thought everything he did was a lot, but he was choking me. He gave me so much more then I ever expected, but I needed time. I thought we would meet later. I tried to talk to him at various times, but didn’t. It was meant to be for another life.” Senna said: “Only one time in my life, I thought about having a family, with children and it was with her, with Xuxa.”

  Certainly the Senna family believed she was the one for him. They had adopted her a surrogate daughter-in-law and that relationship was maintained. She had made a deep impression on them and they were rooting for her. They accepted their son’s assurances that it would have to wait until after retirement. His sister Viviane said: “I’m sure that if Ayrton ended his career he would go back to Xuxa.”

  That may have been true, but it was back to the drawing board, as he said about his continuing quest for the perfect woman to marry: “She has to be very, very understanding as I’m not an easy person to live with. I’m not easy on myself and I don’t like people who are not demanding of themselves. She also has to be extremely intelligent. It is no good having a ‘yes’ woman with no intelligence with which to command respect. I’m very romantic and I think real success in life is building up a two-way relationship with another person. Real love, true love, is being at peace with your partner and feeling easy with her. Attraction based on physical beauty only last a few hours a day.”

  Back in Europe to continue the season, Senna took pole at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola and led, but a puncture after just four laps scuppered his chances. Prost finished fourth. At Monte Carlo, despite a loss of power in the closing laps, Senna took pole and victory – by just a second from Alesi, while Prost’s gearbox failed when he was running second. Senna led every lap.

  It was pole and victory in Montreal, and Prost finished fifth. Senna, his depressions fully shaken off, said: “Having won three races out of five, having led five races out of five is something that shows you’ve got potential.” Early-season predictions were being borne out and Berger was proving his closest rival: Senna had 31 points to Prost’s 14, but Berger was on his tail with 23. It was a flash in the pan, though, as Berger would never come closer.

  Mexico City looked as if it would be more of the same. Prost qualified 13th and was 15th at the first corner as Senna charged into the lead from third on the grid. Senna led the first 61 of the 69 laps until a dramatic puncture put him out of the race. As a result, Prost led home Mansell to a Ferrari one-two. Senna’s championship lead over Prost was cut from 17 to eight points. The real challenger had put his marker down.

  As Senna established his supremacy over new team-mate Berger, they found they got along like a house on fire. It was a first for Senna to have a genuine relationship with a team-mate. In fact Senna found Berger a breath of fresh air after his tribulations with Prost. He said: “We work together. Together, we do a similar job. We have similar feelings, common feelings, similar points of view about different things.”

  But he criticised Berger’s initial approach: “When he started, he was not used to working that hard. He was a spoiled driver coming from Ferrari at that time, and then he found the McLaren environment a completely different one. He soon realised that if he wanted to compete and improve himself he had to work hard with engineers and the personnel. I think he had a very open mind, then, to look around how the engineers worked, how the team and mechanics and everyone. He changed a lot, I think, and he has improved a lot. You can see the results, you can see the performance. He has definitely improved a lot, he is really competitive.”

  At Paul Ricard, Prost had the honour of taking Ferrari’s 100th Formula One victory while a slow tyre change left Senna in third. The championship gap was cut to three points. Prost won at Silverstone, with Senna in third, but the race was overshadowed by Mansell’s shock decision to retire at the end of the season after months of trouble at Ferrari. Almost unnoticed, Prost took the championship lead by two points.

  Senna was not surprised about Mansell’s troubles with Prost, and even less surprised when Mansell’s retirement plans proved short-lived.

  Senna fought back at Hockenheim, taking pole and victory as Prost finished only fourth, regaining the championship lead by four points. At the Hungaroring, Thierry Boutsen, amid rumours that he would be out of a Williams drive in favour of Senna for 1991, took pole and led every single lap – try as he might, Senna could not find a way past. He finished second and Prost retired with gearbox failure. Senna went 10 points in front and grinned: “I never remember in the past two years being 10 points ahead in the championship at this stage of the season, after the Hungarian Grand Prix. It is a totally different kind of championship this year and we are driving different cars. I thought Ferrari would be very strong here, but this is a beautiful result for me to be second and take six points.”

  The rumour mill ground to a halt in the week preceding the Belgian Grand Prix, when Prost first announced that he would be exercising his option to stay with Ferrari for 1991 and Senna then revealed he had signed a new McLaren contract for 1991, worth just under $16 million, with an optional second year. Ron Dennis admitted the negotiations had been bruising: “He is a hard and totally inflexible negotiator who will use all the methods at his disposal to maximise his position.”

  Frank Williams told the press that talks between him and Senna had been ‘just about planes’. Williams was not yet in the $16 million-a-year class. But it appeared Senna had opted consciously to stay at McLaren, feeling the McLaren-Honda combination gave him the best chance of a championship in 1991. He was right about that, but it proved a terrible mistake in the long term as he lost his chance of joining Williams Renault, which would prove to have the fastest car for the next seven years. It almost certainly cost him two world championships. Within two years he would also be begging Williams to give him a drive. Senna’s decision left the way open for Frank Williams to persuade Nigel Mansell out of retirement on a two-year contract worth $12 million a year.

  Senna took pole and victory again at Spa, ahead of Prost, and they finished in the same order at Monza, for Senna to pull out a lead of 16 points, with four races remaining.

  Up to then it had been a quiet, incident-free year between Prost and Senna, and believing he had the upper hand, Senna felt magnanimous. In fact Senna believed he was in the best car and the championship was in the bag. With that in mind he began to show Prost a conciliatory hand. Remarkably, the pair shook hands and declared their feud over. Prost generously said: “I will enjoy our fight for the title, whoever wins it, much more if we can understand each other. We are both professionals and what happened last year really doesn’t matter any more. If we both accept it that way, it will be much better.” Senna continued in the same vein: “We are true professionals. What matters now is this year. I don’t want to think about what happened last year any more. Not that it was not important then, but now we are here. If he is ready in his heart to prepare to accept this fact I’ll accept to shake his hand. We have to race this championship. It will be a tough battle and I hope we can do it better if we are on better terms.” It was a total about face with the old rivalries and tensions forgotten. But the shallowness of the public statements would be shown by the shortness of the calm. />
  Senna admitted to journalists that he had not forgotten, and had not forgiven either. The truce would last precisely until the next incident, which wasn’t long coming.

  In Estoril, Mansell won ahead of Senna, then Prost, allowing the Brazilian to increase his title lead to 18 points. Under the best-of-11 scoring system, to win the title Prost would have to win all three of the remaining races and hope that Senna could not score more than a few points. It seemed impossible, but Senna was cautious. “As far as the championship is concerned I will wait until it is mathematically beyond doubt before thinking seriously about it,” he said.

  Friday’s qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez was marred by a horrifying accident that befell Martin Donnelly. The Irishman’s Lotus was torn apart after hitting a barrier at high speed. It was the latest in a spate of injuries in the 1990 season and Senna was deeply affected by it. It was his first serious brush with tragedy in Formula One. He and Pierluigi Martini were the only drivers to stop at the scene, where Donnelly’s horribly twisted body lay in the middle of the Jerez track. Most people were sure the Lotus driver, whose car was demolished, could not have survived; yet Senna felt compelled to stand there, watching rescue crews work over Donnelly. He said: “I went to the place where he was lying on the track. When I saw the immediate consequences of the accident it was very difficult to cope and maintain my mental balance. I thought about not running anymore in qualifying. I had some minutes on my own in the motorhome. They were special moments which helped me gather myself. But afterwards I didn’t know how fast I could go. Or how slow.”

  Of course he went faster than ever, and won yet another pole position, but he found such bravery came at an emotional price. “As a racing driver there are some things you have to go through, to cope with. Sometimes they are not human, yet you go through it and do them just because of the feelings that you get by driving, that you don’t get in another profession. Some of the things are not pleasant, but in order to have some of the nice things you have to face them. You leave a lot of things behind when you follow a passion.”

  One thing Senna never left behind was his essential humanity and his natural concern for his fellow man. His compassion extended to other drivers who suffered, and he was notably sensitive to the plight of peers who might be in trouble. He was one of the few drivers to visit Martin Donnelly (who eventually recovered, though he never raced again) in hospital. The pole position was the 50th of his career. But on Sunday Prost won, while Senna retired with a holed radiator. Senna now had 78 points to Prost’s 69, and from the next race they would both have to drop scores. Senna stood to lose four points once scores were dropped, while Prost’s lowest score was just two. When it all panned out, all Senna had to do to win the title in the next race was to finish ahead of Prost, whereas all Prost had to do to keep his championship alive was to win. But the next race was at Suzuka, theatre of previous showdowns.

  Senna travelled to Japan with Mauricio Gugelmin and Gerhard Berger. Gugelmin was there to see his friend win the world championship for the second time. During a trip on the famous Japanese ‘bullet train’, there were plenty of high jinks. Senna decided to gain revenge for previous practical jokes at his expense, and put up Gugelmin to fill Berger’s shoes with shaving foam.

  Berger would later attempt to take his revenge. An hour before the race started, he asked Josef Leberer to prepare a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and offer it to Gugelmin before the race. Berger crushed four sleeping pills and mixed them into the orange, the idea being to knock out Gugelmin so he would miss the race. A suspicious Gugelmin didn’t drink it. He said: “Can you imagine it? The cars roaring by at the track and I snoring in the cabin.”

  It provided some light relief. As soon as they arrived at the track, Senna was thrust into a series of press conference and media interviews. Senna denied that he was affected by arriving at the scene of his 1989 championship-deciding collision with Prost a year earlier. They were, after all, friends now – they had shaken hands to prove it – and there had since been no more trouble between them. “I have not thought about last year or the collision,” Senna said. “It is in the past. I thought I was the winner but it is gone and it is just an experience now.” Forty-eight hours later, he had an entirely different opinion.

  His first task was to establish which side of the track would be pole. The pole-position saga was into its third year. Senna said on the eve of the race: “Myself and Gerhard went to officials to change pole position place because at the wrong place, it was in the wrong place there. And the officials said ‘Yes, that’s no problem, we will put pole position on the outside.’”

  Reassured, he went out to get pole. Despite losing half an hour of qualifying time on Friday after he spun out on the circuit, he managed to take it by just 0.232 seconds from Prost.

  He believed that it had been agreed that pole position would this year be moved to the more favourable side of the track, as he had wanted in 1989; but once he had secured the top spot, officials gave him the bad news. He was incensed and even Prost thought the decision was wrong. Inevitably Balestre got the blame. He said: “I did the fantastic job to be on pole. It was important to be on pole for the race. Then what happened? Balestre gave an order. We told them ‘we agreed before the race meeting, and you know that the pole position should be on the left side.’ It was an order from Balestre, because I know from inside. And this is really shit, you know. And I tell myself ‘OK, you try to work clean, you try to do your job properly; and you get fucked all the time by stupid people. If on Sunday, at the start, because I’m in the wrong place, Prost jumps the start and beats me off the line, at the first corner I’m going for it. And he had better not turn in ahead of me, because he is not going to make it.”

  And that is exactly how it happened.

  As the lights went out Prost, starting from the cleaner side of the track, got the jump on Senna on pole. As the field rushed down to the sweeping 150mph first corner, Prost moved onto the racing line in front of Senna. Senna did not yield and went for the inside line. Prost naturally shut the door, but Senna kept coming. The pair touched at speed and spun wildly into the gravel trap where their cars were beached in a cloud of dust. Both drivers were out of the race on the spot. Senna was world champion.

  To most observers it looked deliberate, an act of blatant revenge by Senna for the injustice he felt he had been done at Suzuka a year earlier. But he denied it – he even blamed Prost – although a year later he would have some very different views on the incident.

  Prost was immediately on the attack: “He did it on purpose because he saw that if I made a good start, that my car was better, so he had no chance to win the race. So he pushed me out. This makes him champion. That is very good for him, but it is more than unsporting. It is disgusting. I have no problems with losing the championship. I have lost many. But not this way. It is so bad from the sporting point of view. I hate it and I hate this kind of situation. He has completely destroyed everything again. I hope that everyone can see he has not been honest. I never expected what he did – I thought he was one of the human race and fair on the track. But he was not. He just did not brake and he did it on purpose. I am not prepared to fight against irresponsible people who are not afraid to die.”

  Senna was immediately on the defensive: “The first corner was always going to be critical, especially after the officials decided the pole could not be moved to the outside as I wanted. We had officially requested it on Wednesday as we had earlier in the year in Mexico, Germany and Portugal. But the offer was refused. If pole had been on the outside I am sure there would not have been the accident. I went for the inside and he did not open the door and I could not avoid making touch and we both went off. He knows I always go for a gap. I cannot be responsible for his actions. He closed the door, not me. As usual, he has his points of view. But he has tried to destroy me and he will not. I know what I can do and I don’t give a damn what he [Prost] says.”

  The
drivers’ respective team bosses were inevitably unanimous in their support of their own drivers. Ferrari team manager Cesare Fiorio said: “It is a scandal they didn’t stop the race. It should never have been allowed to go on. Prost was in front and had the right to turn in. I am very surprised the world champion did something like that.” Ron Dennis, meanwhile, shrugged and smiled and said: “It is rough justice, but the accident would never have happened if the officials had moved the pole over to the other side of the track.”

  Later in the evening, Senna was more introspective and appeared to genuinely regret what had happened: “I really wished it didn’t happen but it’s just that it happened exactly as it had to happen. He took the start; he went on the jump on me, and I went for the first corner. He turned in and I hit him. And we were both off, and it was a shit end to the championship. It was not good for me, it was not good for Formula One. It was the result of the wrong decisions, and partiality from the people that were inside then, making some decisions. I won the championship, and so what? It was really a bad example for everyone: This was the most exciting championship as far as I am concerned, because it’s not only one team dominating. It was really a hell of a championship.”

  Prost got hold of the helicopter video coverage that he said proved he had acted correctly.

  At the press conference after the championship was won, Senna found that journalists that covered Formula One were again hostile to him and the majority would have much preferred to see Prost triumph.

  One asked him why he was always such a miserable SOB. He replied: “I never smile much, because that’s my way to be. But I am very happy inside. You people don’t know me at all. And not knowing me, you cannot have the right feelings for it. I think I give a lot of my dedication to my profession. I work very hard, with the technicians. And we all won this championship together, step by step, race after race. And not in one race. We didn’t win the championship here, we won the championship throughout the season, making the right decisions and the right choices at critical moments. That’s why you win a championship. And not like last year.”