The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  The reaction in France and Italy was explosive. Balestre, who had watched the race on television in Paris, complained: “It is a scandal that a world championship should be decided on such a collision and I leave everyone to be their own judge of who is to blame. I am sure all motor racing fans throughout the world will feel as frustrated as I do after such an appalling end to the world championship. I am the FISA president, not a judge. Last year, race stewards disqualified Senna because he cut short in a chicane. This time, they told me on the telephone that there were no elements to allow Senna’s disqualification. In any case, I do think that Senna deserved this world title for his achievements since the beginning of the season. But I regret he did not win it in style.”

  Even the French sports minister, Roger Bambuck, intervened: “The world championship has not been worthy of the investments placed in it and Balestre may if he wishes, and I wouldn’t criticise him if he does, not award any title this year. I am not entitled to prompt FISA to do it. FISA is an independent body. But if Balestre does it, it will be appreciated.” There was even some scaremongering at Ferrari. Cesare Romiti, managing director of Fiat, which owned Ferrari, declared: “Ferrari would be forced to take some drastic and painful decisions, perhaps even to abandon Formula One. We are not prepared to put in so much capital and man hours building better cars just to see them shunted off the track at the first bend.”

  Adelaide, the final race of the season, was the 500th world championship Grand Prix and was supposed to be a special occasion, but it was completely overshadowed by what had happened at Suzuka. No one could talk about anything else. Prost was still bitter: “He is bad for the sport. If it ever came to the point where I had to do the same things to win the world championship, I would have to think about whether to stay in the sport.” “In the end, he makes me laugh,” retorted Senna.

  During race weekend Senna had a huge public row with former world champion, Jackie Stewart on a live show on Australia’s Channel 9. Stewart believed the incident with Prost in Suzuka had been Senna’s fault. They vigorously disagreed and at the end Senna told Stewart he would never appear on television with him again.

  For the race Senna took pole, but the grudge match everyone had been expecting failed to materialise. In the race, Senna spun out while Prost finished third. Most of the action occurred off track, where Prost refused to attend press conferences, the drivers’ briefing and the celebratory photograph of past world champions. The photograph was a one-off opportunity with so many champions present, including Juan Manuel Fangio, Denny Hulme and James Hunt, plus Senna himself. It was an opportunity missed: a few years later they were all dead. The organisers threatened draconian punishments for the Frenchman. Senna must have smiled to himself at how the situation had been reversed since 1989.

  But he knew it had been another hard season. The McLaren Honda was gradually seeing its dominance whittled away, but his will to compete had increased after the opening race at Phoenix, where he admitted he had been very low and uncertain what the future held. He said: “At the end of last year I had a tremendously hard time in my mind. Psychologically I was hurt. I went to Phoenix with no desire to race, and I found myself racing just by my instincts. I still won the race in such conditions. After that, to go to Brazil it made me feel better to discover the right feelings for racing. With such a warm crowd in Brazil, I found my heart again in racing. I was able to fight back to eventually win the championship. So in that aspect it was a championship that was won more by inner strength than anything. I am young and full of life and full of time to race, and I love my racing so much. In 1990 I have raced on many occasions with my heart, and some occasions with my mind, and on other occasions with the best combination of the two. To be champion under those circumstances is very rewarding.”

  His career was certainly becoming very rewarding and he bought his second home in Brazil, which he intended to be a family ranch. The property would take three-and-a-half years to complete the plans he had for it – to make lakes and go-kart tracks and turn it into a rural playground. Rather than his own home, he intended this to be a family home which they could all share. The 200-hectare cattle ranch was called Fazenda Dois Lagos, at Tatui, some 120 kilometres outside São Paulo.

  It was a paradise where he would recuperate rather than go to for pleasure, like the beach house at Angra. As well as a home it would remain a proper working farm, with 50 pigs and 50 cattle, and fields full of vegetables growing. When it was complete, he would be able to enjoy go-kart races with his nephews on the private circuit, tennis and long sleeps in the 10 bedrooms that would all be rearranged to have views of the lake and access to the central jacuzzi he planned. The renovations he planned were budgeted to cost $3.16 million.

  Behind the purchase of the farm was his unfulfilled dream of settling down with the wife of his choice and starting a family. Over the years he constantly spoke to journalists about his quest for the perfect woman, and how he had never found her. He said: “When one makes a non-stop trip around the world for professional reasons, it is absolutely necessary to be able to return to one’s roots, stay in touch and avoid losing oneself.”

  The farm was also what he called his ‘reference point’ for his family. He explained: “The members of my family are my life: they are my point of reference. It’s always important to come back to a reference point when you go all over the world. Otherwise you may lose your way.”

  He continued: “I wouldn’t be here as a racing driver, with so much success, if I didn’t have a good family, special people around me throughout my life, that really led me in the right direction. People who share with me the very good moments, but also the very bad moments. It is very important for me to have that side of my life separate from the racing, because racing is really difficult to put together. My biggest problem in motor racing is having to be away from Brazil, where I have my family and friends. If you have the right conditions, you can have a very nice life in Brazil, and I like my home in São Paulo very much.”

  Senna looked ahead to his planned new paradise, to when his niece and nephew would be old enough to enjoy them: “I think at the right moment I will find the right woman and I will make a new family, an extension of my own family, and I will have my own children. Right now I have my nephew, I have my niece, and I enjoy being with them very much, to share a lot of my time with them when I am in Brazil. I love them, and of course they love me, we have fun and we share a good time. We are all children, aren’t we. The difference between the man and the children is only the toys. As you grow up you start to have more things to think, more things to worry about and you lose it. So it is important when you have the opportunity to have the place to go back a little bit like a child, so you can recycle your mind a little bit. Just slow down and enjoy life, like children do. They do not think about tomorrow, they do not think about next year or next month, they think about right now. They just see a game and they try to play that game right now. It doesn’t matter an hour ahead, they do not think an hour ahead, so they enjoy completely life and its full potential.”

  The farm would also give him the safe opportunity to indulge in his favourite weekend pastime, flying his miniature model aeroplanes.

  He enjoyed this with such a passion that seemed often to transcend even physical sport, and sometimes even driving, as he said: “It takes your mind completely away from anything else because it absorbs your mind, your concentration, so it is relaxing in a way to forget any racing cars or interviews or things like this.”

  He used to indulge his passion with an old Brazilian school friend called Celso di Santi. Santi recalled that Senna had extremely precise reflexes. He said: “In order to fly [safely], the aeromodelist must have extremely precise reflexes. He has to be exacting, very meticulous and an extremely careful individual. All these virtues, if they may be called that, were possessed by Ayrton”

  Santi said that even with many months of inactivity whilst he was in Europe, Senna could return to Brazil and imme
diately on his very first flight perform manoeuvres: “He flew with consummate perfection, something that is not common.”

  Santi recalls how they used to perform manoeuvres with two planes and once they clashed in the sky. As he recalled: “His plane struck mine aloft. The wing dropped off and my plane plummeted like a missile. But my plane’s propeller had sheared off a bit of one of his plane’s wings and part of its fuselage. Yet he succeeded in landing his half-twisted aircraft. This was something that made him happy.”

  His ongoing relationship with Santi reflected the shyness of his nature. Hardly any of his friends in Brazil were new friends. They were all from his childhood, before he was famous. Despite the shyness of his nature he was like a kid, especially when he hung around with old friends. He spent a lot of time making jokes and kidding people. Santi remembers him as amusing and fun to be with.

  Alfredo Popesco was another old friend from his youth. He remembers that fame never changed Senna. He said: “He remained always the same person, a humble and sincere friend, at a time when he was already a three-time world champion, if he saw us eating pizza he would park his Honda NSX and stroll over to nibble things out of our plates, the way he always had. He was the friend who had gone abroad for a while and had come home from his trip. He was eager to join us in everything that we did to follow our routine, to dine out in a restaurant or enjoy some other leisure activities. He had no bodyguards and made no show of being a celebrity.”

  At the end of 1990 Senna invested in a 16-storey office building located in the Edificio Vari suburb of São Paulo. It marked the start of his serious business ambitions. The office would take 18 months to refurbish and have a helicopter deck installed on the roof. It would be occupied by Ayrton Senna Promotions Ltd and other companies in his empire, which were run day to day by his cousin Fabio Machedo. He also bought a 17th-floor apartment for his brother Leonardo and him to share in São Paulo. It was mainly occupied by Leonardo but also by Senna when staying in the city overnight.

  He proudly showed off his new office block to journalists: “It is my new office, it is going to be my new office and the top of it is especially being built for the helicopter we have three levels of the building just for our activities.” In the end his activities took over seven floors. Ironically all his business ideas were coming to fruition in the spring of 1994 and that year his companies would earn $4 million profit aside from his racing activities.

  Around this time he also conceived the Senna official logo: a stylised double ‘s’ in a distinctive maroon colour. The logo had another purpose: as a trademark enforcer for Senna-endorsed products. It was inspired by the esses section of corners at his home circuit of Interlagos in São Paulo. Senna could see how personal drivers’ merchandise was starting to develop, especially in the American NASCAR saloon car series. He wanted his own mark and what became known as the Senna ‘s’ would be skilfully promoted by him from 1991 onwards.

  Whenever he could he turned down his overalls to his waist which revealed a t-shirt with the distinctive logo perfectly displayed. Later Michael Schumacher would prove, with far less flair and skill than Senna brought to the design of merchandise, that he was right. Even so after his death Senna t-shirts were sold in the hundreds of thousands around the world for premium prices, earning millions for his foundation.

  He returned to Europe just one more time in 1990, to attend the FISA season awards ceremony in Paris. It proved especially emotional as Honda’s patriarch, Soichiro Honda, became the second individual, after Enzo Ferrari, to receive a special FISA award. The old man and the young man were immensely close, and Soichiro Honda whispered in Senna’s ear at the ceremony: “We’ll make the best engine for next year again.” The old man brought tears to Senna’s eyes.

  CHAPTER 16

  Afternoon of a Hero

  Witnessing tragedy for the first time

  Although it may be argued that he made dirty-driving manoeuvres legitimate fare in Formula One, and inspired Michael Schumacher in the belief that winning was all that counted, there was always much to admire in Ayrton Senna, both as a driver and as a man. Never were these two aspects of his charismatic character more visible than one weekend in Spain in 1990, when Martin Donnelly hovered on the edge of life after his Lotus crashed heavily after suspension failure. In the aftermath of the accident, the cruel edge of the sport was met with unflinching heroism and, courtesy of Senna, a dark weekend was lifted by the sheer power of the human spirit.

  In September 1990 Ayrton Senna came close to tragedy for the first time in his Formula One career. It was 13:52 on Friday 28th September. Martin Donnelly’s Formula One career ended in the time it took his Lamborghini V12-engined Lotus 102 to disintegrate after it ran into the barriers. Spectators at the last right-hand corner of the Circuito Jerez de la Frontera in Spain’s sherry region, just before the left-hand hairpin that ends the lap, are afforded a view of the preceding unnamed right-hander.

  Jean Alesi, driving Ken Tyrrell’s 019, had been setting the pace with times in the high 1m 19secs. Spectators became aware of one of the garish yellow Camel-sponsored Lotuses doing something it should not. Viewing at that spot is akin to being at the entry to the pits at Magny-Cours where, if you are looking back down the pitwall, you can be tricked into thinking a car is heading straight for the barriers when in fact it is entering the pitlane. But this time it was no optical illusion. Onlookers just had time to register there was no run-off area, where the barrier curved slightly out of view on the entry to the corner, when the Lotus disappeared in a cloud of fragments.

  Those who were there hold the memory of the absolute silence that suddenly stilled the scream of the Lamborghini V12 engine. As the dust cleared, it became apparent that it was Martin Donnelly who was lying in the middle of the track. Spectators did not believe that the orange-and-blue-helmeted figure could possibly have survived.

  Journalist David Tremayne was one of those standing at the corner. He said later it was the most horrible thing he had ever witnessed. That momentary lack of noise was quickly replaced by bedlam as spectators began screaming at the sight. TV monitors captured Donnelly’s inert form, the remains of his seat strapped to him like a skydiver’s parachute that had failed to open. Nobody could remember the last time a Formula One driver had been thrown from his car but, beyond the engine and gearbox assembly, there was no car. The Lotus had disintegrated into little pieces. Ironically, that complete deformation probably saved his life.

  Minardi driver Pierluigi Martini brought his car to rest on the track in front of Donnelly’s body as a form of protection. The Ulsterman’s team-mate Derek Warwick rushed to the scene and organised the marshals. Donnelly was lucky. The era of Professor Sid Watkins and his team had begun and the medics were quickly on the scene.

  Ayrton Senna was in the McLaren garage at the time of the accident and appreciated immediately how serious it was. Senna rushed out there, having felt a compulsive need to attend. Part of him saw a fellow driver in distress, another part felt an intense need to learn more about such situations. Perhaps yet another part felt the need to face up to them. He lacked knowledge of them, therefore he needed to learn. Impassively, Senna watched Watkins tend to Donnelly who, astonishingly, was alive against all the odds of surviving the most violent non-fatal accident of modern-day Formula One.

  Donnelly had sustained serious leg fractures and concussion and would be in a coma for weeks. But as Senna leaned over him momentarily, he had shown signs of recognising the Brazilian before lapsing into unconsciousness. Senna realised there was at least hope. Warwick, meantime, returned to the Lotus pit to tell Donnelly’s fiancée, Diane McWhirter, that he was alive and hopefully going to be okay. Warwick admits now he was lying: “At the time it was complete bullshit,” he admits, “but I knew I had to keep her spirits up. As it turned out I was right, but when I left the scene I didn’t reckon Martin had a chance.”

  As is the way of Formula One, as doctors tended to Donnelly in the medical centre, qualifying resum
ed. Once stable, Donnelly was airlifted by helicopter to Seville’s Virgen del Rioco Hospital, 70 kilometres to the north of the circuit. Meanwhile, most drivers made only token efforts in the remaining eight minutes of the session, shaken by severity of the accident and a sudden realisation of the circuit’s manifest dangers.

  But not Senna. He had seen the carnage first hand and he was astonishingly frank about his feelings. Such moments were what made him so charismatic. “It was a very sad moment for all of us,” he said when the session had ended. “I went to the place where he was on the ground. When I saw the consequences of such an incident, I went away for some private moments by myself. It was very, very difficult to cope and to maintain a balance. I thought about not running any more that day, but I had to understand it, absorb it and to go forward from that. I had some quiet moments in the motorhome and I was able to go through some very special moments there, to see inside myself. I gathered my thoughts and went back out. I did an incredible time. It was my tribute to Donnelly. But no one understood.”

  Senna had climbed back into his McLaren Honda and lapped in 1m 18.900secs, almost a second faster than anyone else. In fact the lap was so fast, the time almost remained good enough for pole position the following day. Some felt it was a callous thing to have done, but it was far from that. It took cold, raw courage to do that. Senna was never admired more than that day.

  Afterwards he retreated to one of the McLaren trucks and just sat inside, holding his head in his hands. He stayed like that for many minutes before finally taking off his famous yellow helmet. Then he went to the medical centre again, to see Donnelly. “I don’t remember any of that, of course,” Donnelly says today, his lilting Irish voice still rendered a throaty whisper by the accident that he would not have survived only a handful of years earlier. “I don’t remember recognising Ayrton when I was on the track, or in the medical centre. In fact I don’t remember the accident at all. All I could ever remember was sunbathing in Portugal a few days before Di and I went to Spain, and getting sunburnt. But the Prof told me Ayrton took an extraordinarily keen interest in my welfare and in all the procedures the medics went through. A lot of others did too, of course, but Ayrton was in constant touch with the Prof. I was touched when I found out about it all later. Ayrton was quite a guy like that.”