The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  The precedent of a top driver refusing a team-mate was forgotten by the media after Senna moved to Team Lotus and in 1986 would not allow Derek Warwick to join the team. His reasoning was that Lotus was not up to the task of providing two equally competitive cars for two top drivers and the sport’s insiders agreed with him. But the British media did not and since Warwick was a ‘thoroughly decent bloke’, Senna was called everything from a coward unwilling to face competition to a ruthless manipulator of other people’s lives.

  Mercifully, Prost and Senna eventually grew tired of fighting and after the Frenchman retired at the end of the 1993 season they finally shook hands and resolved to try and forget their differences.

  The last time they met on the track was in the 1993 Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide. It was a momentous event for Prost who, with Williams, had already clinched his fourth world championship and made his decision to retire from the sport; and for Senna, who would the following year replace Prost at Williams after six seasons with McLaren.

  At Adelaide Senna scored his 41st and last Formula One victory, a record second only to that of the man who stood beside him on the victory podium. Prost finished second in his final Grand Prix, thus retiring with 51 wins – the most successful of all Formula One drivers by that criterion. Then another kind of history was made as the two protagonists, who had dominated the sport for so long, gave in to their emotions. Their deeply-felt sense of occasion moved them to overcome their mutual animosity and stage a dramatic and emotional post-race reconciliation.

  Prost extended a hand of friendship to Senna, a gesture that seemed to sweep away all those years of bitterness. A misty-eyed Senna hauled Prost up onto the top step of the podium to share the limelight, and embraced him warmly. Their peace pact was sealed with champagne, which they playfully showered over each other before discussing their feelings.

  Senna was asked what he really thought of his rival now that their celebrated feud was relegated to racing history. “I think our attitude on the podium speaks for itself,” he replied. “It reflected my feelings and, I believe, his feelings too.”

  And did Prost think they could ever become close friends? “I think only life will tell that. If you want to speak about the future you must also speak about the past and we don’t want to do that. It’s best that we remember only the good times we had.”

  Gerhard Berger, Senna’s team-mate at McLaren, has his own clear-cut ideas about why the Senna-Prost relationship was so full of conflict. “If you have someone like Ayrton or Schumacher as your team-mate then there are different ways you can handle it. At that time Ayrton was clearly the best and everyone knew that. Alain was in the same car and knew he didn’t have a chance of beating Ayrton in speed terms, so he realised quite quickly that pace couldn’t compensate. At that point he had the chance to say ‘Okay, I’ll find my own level and work at that, and get the team working with me as well’. But he refused to accept the situation so it all became political – he found fault with everything, and didn’t hesitate to allocate blame. It caused a lot of aggravation and that was a problem for Ayrton, as he knew he was the best and that Alain was simply finding fault. It was clear there was going to be a big explosion.”

  Tragically, Senna’s future was short-lived and few felt worse about that than Prost. Just prior to the ill-fated 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Prost, who at the time was a member of the media, met Senna privately and they agreed to formally end their long-standing animosity. Prost recalled: “We had the warmest conversation I can ever remember. For the first time I felt he really wanted to be friends.” Senna gave a message on live TV for the man he called a ‘Formula One pensioner’: “I miss you Alain”. Two hours before he died, Ayrton said to the TV cameras: “Greetings to my friend Alain. I miss you, you know.”

  A few hours later, Alain Prost was one of millions of people who wept when Ayrton Senna was killed.

  Senna once said: “All it takes to change people’s view of a subject is to listen to the other side. Only then do you get the complete story.” And now, as investigations proceed into the full extent of his remarkable life and achievements, Ayrton Senna is being praised more highly than he ever was when he was alive. When it is finally realised how truly extraordinary he was as a man and a driver, he will surely be accorded the full honour that sadly was missing during his lifetime. Perhaps this will be Senna’s most important legacy to Formula One: by his remarkable example, to have created a greater awareness and understanding of genius so that it can be more easily recognised and appreciated, should anyone of such stature ever come along in the future of the sport.

  Ron Dennis is sanguine about the feud as it fades in the memory. He says he learnt a lot from it. It was one of the main reasons why Dennis kept the reasonably amicable partnership between Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard intact for so long – because of his experience with the most notorious of all team-mate feuds: the one between Senna and Prost.

  History showed that Senna gave Prost full credit for his achievements. On television he was asked to rate the world’s best-ever drivers. He rated Prost the third best: “I would say Fangio was number one. Unfortunately I come from a different time, so I didn’t have a chance to see him really driving. For me he is the undisputed number one. In the 1980s and 1990s... Niki Lauda was another outstanding driver. And Alain Prost is the next one. The four championships he has achieved are real, they are reality. No one can dispute that.”

  CHAPTER 18

  1991: Title by Default

  A World Championship to forget

  Ayrton Senna left the 1990 season behind him a world championship richer, but with his reputation in tatters. His standing with journalists was at its lowest and there was no love lost on either side. The press corps that follows Formula One around includes roughly 300 journalists and most were horrified at Senna’s actions at the first corner at Suzuka, when he rammed Alain Prost’s Ferrari off the track to take the title. It shocked even his most ardent supporters.

  It was the unpleasant flipside of his single-minded determination to succeed – no one really knew how far he would go in pursuit of perfection. Forcing rivals to run wide and disobeying gentlemen’s agreements was one thing; deliberately causing a potentially dangerous high-speed accident was another. Senna had made the transition from rogue to villain, and with the defence of his crown at stake in 1991, it looked as if things weren’t going to improve.

  Senna was out of contract at the beginning of 1991 and was unwilling to sign a new three-year deal with Ron Dennis. He realised that 1991 was going to be a tough year. Although McLaren had walked to victory against no opposition in 1988 and 1989, he had had to work immensely hard in 1990 and expected more of the same in 1991. He said: “It was a consequence of being too successful. McLaren had won so much, particularly with Honda – it is hard enough to get to the top, but even harder to stay there.”

  He sensed correctly that the three-year McLaren Honda dominance was coming to an end and that a period of Williams Renault supremacy was in the offing. If it was going to be a hard season he wanted paying plenty. And he wanted to be ready to make a hasty exit to Williams whenever the time came. He also sensed that Honda was not as keen as it had been and might not be around for much longer. He realised McLaren would suffer if Honda withdrew. But at the time it was still the top contender, so tortuous negotiations started with Ron Dennis for a new contract and lasted several weeks. Senna wanted $20 million and Dennis wanted to pay him nearer $12 million, the same as Frank Williams was paying Nigel Mansell for his return to the team from Ferrari. Dennis sensed that Senna had nowhere else to go and that for the moment he had the best car.

  Senna was still sensitive to the trick that Dennis had pulled on him when they could not agree on the finances of his first contract in 1988. Then Dennis had suggested they toss for the extra $500,000 that separated them. Dennis had given Senna the impression that the actual amount they were tossing for was $1.5 million because it was a three-year deal but
that was not the case. Senna didn’t like being caught out like that and it rankled.

  He did not altogether trust Dennis and was determined to make him pay this time. In the end they settled on $15 million for a one-year deal. Senna would partner Gerhard Berger for a second year. He found Berger put him under huge pressure in qualifying and he liked that, as his Austrian team-mate kept him honest but rarely bettered him. Senna thought Berger a far faster driver than Prost but without the killer instinct that he and the Frenchman both possessed in spades. There was another key difference between him and Berger. If offered $1 million or a Grand Prix victory, Berger would inevitably take the money. Senna would not.

  McLaren team chief Ron Dennis admitted he was bruised by the negotiations with Senna. “He is a hard and totally inflexible negotiator who will use all the methods at his disposal to maximise his position,” he said. It was a careful choice of words.

  In fact Senna was much more concerned about the technical situation. He realised that McLaren Honda’s dominance of 1988, 1989 and even 1990 was gone. He resolved to be a lot harder with the team to make up the difference and seize a third championship. Honda duly delivered with the new engine. And Senna was very hard with McLaren and Honda engineers in technical meetings. As he admitted: “I was giving my personal opinion, my honest feelings, face to face, objectively. And they couldn’t disagree with many of the things because Gerhard had similar feelings, similar expressions. Therefore they understood, they realised. But they also needed some help from us, to get the message all the way through the system, not only to the test teams or the development teams at the race circuits but also the development teams back at the factories who did not come to the race circuit – they needed to get the message as well so that the whole group could pull strongly in one direction. There are two ways you can send a message – one that is frustrating and demotivating and the other being positive about it. I believe we did it the right way because we got everyone together, more than ever. And the results show it.”

  The new McLaren MP4/6 made its first appearance on 27th February – just 12 days before the first race of the season. Ron Dennis blamed a ‘technical restructuring’ at the team for the delay but it was more likely due to hold-ups with the engine. Honda had produced a new V12 engine for 1991 to counter what it saw as an upcoming challenge from Renault’s new V10. The old V10 was palmed off for the Tyrrell team to use.

  There was clear tension in the air at the launch.

  When Senna took to the track at Estoril, he realised the car was a good one, although he had his doubts about the new Honda V12 engine. Honda engineers countered that the engine wasn’t suited to the Portuguese track and would run much better in Phoenix, the venue for the first race of the season.

  If Senna was worried about 1991, his concerns were not lessened when he saw the new Williams Honda FW14. It was bristling with innovation and electronics that made the McLaren seem agricultural in comparison. The combination of veteran technical director Patrick Head and young designer Adrian Newey had produced a concept that was totally new, between the aerodynamics, the transmission and the engine. If it worked, Senna knew it would put the team well ahead of everyone else. The McLaren strategy was different. It was a more conventional concept of a racing car: the transmission, the aerodynamics, the suspension, the chassis, everything. Only the engine was new and innovative.

  Whatever Senna’s worries, they seemed to be unfounded at the United States Grand Prix. Despite complaining of gearbox and balance problems in the race, he had a dominant weekend, taking pole position by well over a second and winning by more than 16 seconds from Alain Prost’s Ferrari. The threat from Ferrari, Williams Renault and his McLaren team-mate Gerhard Berger had failed to materialise and for Senna it all seemed too easy. Notably the Williams duo of Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese were among several retirements, as the team struggled to get to grips with its revolutionary new semi-automatic gearbox.

  The race marked Senna’s 27th Grand Prix victory, equalling Jackie Stewart’s record for the second-highest number of wins in the history of Formula One.

  The next race was in Brazil. In seven attempts, Senna had never won on home soil but he had come tantalisingly close. In his favour, after a long stay in Rio, the race had returned to the Autodromo Carlos Pace at Interlagos in his native city of São Paulo.

  The Thursday preceding the race was Senna’s 31st birthday and celebrations resulted in a cream cake fight breaking out in the McLaren garage between him and Gerhard Berger, with Ron Dennis watching. On Saturday he inevitably took pole, although he left his fast lap until the closing minutes of the session. The crowd was ecstatic. Come race day he started well and immediately began to pull away from the Williams Renaults of Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese. Until lap 50 of the 71-lap race he looked invincible.

  But on lap 50 he lost fourth gear and was faced with the problem of having to shift directly from third to fifth. Soon he also experienced trouble with the other gears as they started to jump out of position and he was forced to steer with his left hand while he held the gearstick in place with his right.

  Mansell was rapidly homing in on the Brazilian and Senna’s problems showed no sign of abating. Then to his good fortune, Mansell spun on lap 60 after experiencing gearbox problems of his own. Patrese was 40 seconds behind with 11 laps left, so if Senna could keep the car in its current condition he would be able to make it safely home.

  But the race was far from over. With seven laps to go the gearbox almost failed completely. Senna’s lap times began to plummet and he started to lose six or seven seconds a lap. With his arm already aching from holding the gearstick in place, he found the only gear that was functional – sixth – and stayed there. Although he ran the risk of stalling if the revs dropped too low in the slow corners, he dared not risk changing gear.

  Unknown to Senna, Patrese was also having problems with his semi-automatic gearbox. The Brazilian managed to bring down the times so that he was losing only a couple of seconds a lap to the Italian, but he knew he was still not safe and the car could give up at any moment, denying him his much-wanted home victory. With three laps to go it began to rain and it became all the more difficult to control the car. Senna could see Patrese in his mirrors. Ever the religious man, he said a prayer and hoped for the best. He did not want to be cheated of his home victory now.

  The engine died just after Senna took the chequered flag. He was in immense pain from cramp induced by the extreme effort of controlling the car and he could not climb out of the cockpit. All the same he was elated and the fans went wild. Eventually Wilson Fittipaldi helped him from the car and he was greeted by his family, friends and team. On the podium, he looked close to collapse but he savoured the victory. When he tried to hold the winner’s trophy aloft he could not manage it and had to be helped by Ron Dennis.

  At the post-race press conference, Senna was overwhelmed as he said: “I finished the race with nothing left at all. Physically I was exhausted but God gave me this race and I am very happy.” Even following this great drive his detractors voiced their views, but to little avail. To some, his declaration that God had helped him to victory was awkward and embarrassing, even arrogant, but Senna had very deeply-rooted beliefs. Nelson Piquet even doubted that Senna’s achievement was possible, but in-car television footage proved him wrong. It was one of Senna’s greatest triumphs, as his 28th victory moved him into territory thus far only charted by Prost.

  The next race was the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. On a wet weekend Senna took victory and the 55th pole position of his career. He suffered oil pressure problems in the closing stages of the race and was running with a dry set-up early on, but he still looked unbeatable. Even better for him, it seemed that the predicted Ferrari threat would not materialise.

  After running him close in 1990 against the odds, the political Prost was in full flow against the political Ferrari. Prost had already disposed of Nigel Mansell and the continuing in-fighting was disturbing
the team’s efforts as Prost attempted to oust team manager Cesare Fiorio. At Imola the Frenchman had embarrassingly spun out of the race on the warm-up lap. His team-mate Jean Alesi had also spun out on lap two. Williams Renault was struggling as well: the team’s only finish had been Patrese’s second place in Brazil.

  Things were never going to be difficult for Senna at the next race – at Monte Carlo, his best track. It was another pole position and another victory, this time by over 18 seconds from Mansell, who finished his first race of the season. The only other man on the same lap was Alesi.

  No one had ever won the first four races of the season before and to cap it off, Senna had also clocked four pole positions. With 10 points awarded for a win for the first time, he was leading the championship by 29 points from Alain Prost. He had also led all but nine laps of the season. On the downside, he had suffered mechanical problems in three of the races, but they were nothing compared to the problems that had beset Williams and Ferrari. It was also a tribute to the new Honda V12 engine that it managed the unheard-of feat of four opening victories.

  The next race was the Canadian Grand Prix at Montreal. To the surprise of everyone, Senna was off the pace all weekend. He qualified in third place behind the Williams Renaults, bringing to an end his run of seven straight top qualifying spots. In the race he was running no higher than third when electrical problems on lap 25 caused his display unit to fail and he was out. It was the first time since the Australian Grand Prix in November 1987 that he had gone through a race weekend without topping any session or leading any laps.