The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  It seemed as if McLaren had made his decision for him on 10th February, when the team announced Michael Andretti and Mika Häkkinen as its drivers for the coming season. Ron Dennis had taken the psychological advantage and Senna had his decision made for him. Immediately after the McLaren anouncement he knew what he wanted and agreed to drive for the team in 1993. He ruled out the possibility of driving in America. To others it seemed that the Penske test and the idea of driving in CART in 1993 had been nothing more than a clever ruse to kick McLaren into line, but Emerson Fittipaldi thinks there was more to it than that.

  As he says: “He wanted to drive for Roger in 1993 in the Indianapolis 500. That was partly because Nigel was there. He was extremely enthusiastic about the possibility of driving Indianapolis and a few months after the test he called Roger to check if there was still a drive available. It was possible because he was only driving for McLaren on a race-by-race basis. But Roger didn’t want to have three cars in the race. For me it would have been a dream to start against Nigel and Ayrton in the same race. It would have been a fantastic experience.”

  Had eventual 1993 Indy 500 winner Fittipaldi’s dream come true, Senna would have lined up on the grid for one of the greatest Indy 500s ever. He would have joined not just Fittipaldi and Mansell, but also Nelson Piquet, Mario Andretti and a host of other CART and Formula One stars.

  But it was not to be, although many of those involved still fondly think of what might have been. Nigel Beresford says: “I’ve still got all the run sheets. I usually just throw them away, but I wouldn’t sling those out with the history they’ve got attached to them. It’s funny to remember it now. We were there on this Mickey Mouse track next to a main road out in the desert and the greatest driver in the world was driving round this overgrown go-kart track with people in pick-up trucks leaning over the fence, very probably not aware of what they were seeing. It was very strange.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Senna’s Polar Passion

  A colossus in qualifying

  Ayrton Senna didn’t live long enough to hold many outright Formula One driving records. He won neither the most world championships nor the most races. But one record he did hold was for the most pole positions from the 161 starts he made. He achieved pole in 40 per cent of his starts, clocking up a total of 65. It is such an exceptional record, few think it will ever be broken. Michael Schumacher is the next best, but he is way behind with 37. Senna holds many of the qualifying records: the most pole positions, the most successive pole positions (eight), the most pole positions at the same circuit (eight at Imola). His team-mates never ever came close enough to the legendary Brazilian to offer him a real challenge, and he qualified behind his team-mates only 18 times out of 161 races.

  Senna believed that he had never ever driven a perfect lap, as he said: “A fast lap requires a high level of sensitivity between body and mind. It is the combination of the two that gives the performance. But I have never done a perfect lap, because I know, in looking back, that there was always room for improvement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one-10th, or a hundredth, or a few 10ths: you always find room for it. On 90 per cent of occasions you go faster on your second set of tyres than on your first, because of the information in your mind from the first run. It doesn’t matter if the first one was already very fast. If you use properly the information, and apply all the things I described before, 99 per cent sure, you will go faster than before.”

  His first pole position came at Estoril in 1985 and was one of his finest moments, as he still recalled years later: “I always wanted to be in pole position for a Grand Prix. And when I got it, at Estoril in 1985, it was an amazing feeling. Then I just keep trying the same.” He said every pole gave him a personal pleasure.

  The spine-tingling spectacle of Ayrton Senna on a qualifying lap provided some of the most thrilling moments in the history of motorsport. There has never been a faster driver over a single lap, nor has anyone felt or thought so deeply. His passion for pole position was palpable. No other driver put more into it, nor has anyone ever been able to explain it as well as the brilliant Brazilian, for whom the pursuit of pole was also an intellectual exercise.

  So great was Senna’s depth of feeling, his pure passion for pole, that just listening to him speak about his qualifying experiences was mesmerising. When he talked about his most memorable lap, the one that left the most indelible impression on his exceptional mind, his eyes shone with a faraway look and his voice quivered with intensity.

  McLaren team member Tyler Alexander was by Senna’s side for most of those pole attempts, as he recalls: “Senna always wanted to be quicker, not necessarily because somebody else had gone faster – just because he wanted to be quicker every time he went out. In the garage we began to notice the thing he did with his belts just before he went out to go quicker than ever – usually on the last or second-to-last run. After one of the guys did up his belts, Senna would reach down and give them an extra pull to somehow make himself smaller in the car. We picked up on that and it became something we would all just stand back and watch. Our guy would pull the lap straps as tight as possible. Senna would tug at them a couple of times and by the third or fourth pull: whoops – watch out, here we go. Everyone thought he was going to get pole – and he certainly went out with the intention of getting it – but he still had to do it. He never said ‘I’m going to go out and get on pole’, it was just ‘this is what I’ve got to do and I’m going to go and try to do it’.”

  Former Team Lotus mechanics Kenny Szymanski and Clive Hicks remember the days when Senna would sit in an armchair, mentally driving the Monte Carlo circuit using an invisible steering wheel, gear lever, brake, clutch and throttle. Senna admitted he was mesmerised by getting pole at every race, to the point of obsession, as he said: “It was Monte Carlo ‘88, the last qualifying session. I was already on pole and I was going faster and faster. One lap after the other, quicker and quicker and quicker. I was, at one stage, just on pole, then by half a second and then by one second – and yet I kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team-mate with the same car. And I suddenly realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously.”

  Senna was qualifying for his third race in his first season with McLaren Honda, where Alain Prost ruled supreme. The Brazilian had won the 1987 Monaco Grand Prix (with Lotus) but prior to that Prost had won this most supreme test of driving skill three years in succession. Now, uppermost in Senna’s mind, on the circuit where overtaking is near impossible, was the need to outqualify his French team-mate. To accomplish this, Senna summoned all his considerable powers, then found even more, as he revealed: “When I am competing against the watch and against other competitors, the feeling of expectation, of getting it done, doing the best and being the best, gives me a kind of power that in some moments when I am driving actually detaches me completely from anything else as I am doing it... corner after corner, lap after lap. This is what happened in Monte Carlo.”

  Senna was astonishingly fast in Monte Carlo that day in 1988. Almost stupefyingly fast – 1.427 seconds quicker than Prost, who was second on the grid – that even Prost was moved to say: “Fantastic! There’s no other word for it.” The Frenchman suspected Senna’s exceptional performance was rooted in their rivalry, that Senna’s need to prove himself quickest was similar to the way Prost had felt a few years earlier when he took extra risks to beat the then established star in the McLaren team, Niki Lauda.”In those circumstances,” says Prost, “you take chances like you never will again.” But Senna took those chances, again and again, to establish his record of 65 poles.

  Senna admitted he had gone too far that day in Monaco. He was already on pole by a considerable margin yet, as if in the grip of a superior force, he was unable to apply the mental brakes. Amazingly it was done on race tyres and not special qualifying rubber. Qualifying was over two days then, and there were no lap restrictions as now. He said: “In qualifying, we used race tyre
s, not qualifying tyres, so I could do many laps.”

  As he sped ever quicker through the principality’s treacherous guardrail-lined streets, where the tiniest error could mean disaster, Senna was taken on a wild ride through a surrealistic tunnel into the great unknown. In his description of what followed, Senna struggled to contain an other-worldly experience within physical parameters that could be understood.”I was kind of driving by instinct,” he said, “only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel, not only the tunnel under the hotel, but the whole circuit for me was a tunnel. I was just going and going and going and going – more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit, but still I was able to find even more.”

  It was like a dream sequence, with the driver somehow detached from the act of physically handling the car and becoming a passenger along for the ride. It was a dream that at first brought euphoria as if Senna was intoxicated by the exuberance of his own velocity. Then, abruptly, the dangerous reality of his perilous situation took on a nightmarish quality that snapped him out of his trance-like state: “Suddenly, something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and I realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. Immediately my reaction was to back off, slow down. I drove back slowly to the pits and I didn’t want to go out any more that day.”

  Since he devoted so much of himself to understanding every facet of driving fast, this experience humbled Senna. He had pushed too far, lost control and broken through a barrier of comprehension. He was lost, confused and worried by feelings of uncomfortable vulnerability he had previously not known.”It frightened me because I realised I was well beyond my conscious understanding. It happens rarely but I keep these experiences very much alive in me because it is something that is important for self-preservation.”

  Senna was never the reckless, unthinking madman that some of his critics – including Prost – claimed made him a danger to himself and to his peers. He was fully aware of the perils of his profession and while he chose to meet them head-on he was not afraid to admit he was fearful of them: “The danger of getting hurt or getting killed is there because any racing driver lives very close to it all the time. It is important to know what fear is because it will keep you more switched on, more alert. On many occasions it will determine your limits.”

  Yet the phenomenon of probing his limits fascinated Senna and he found ways to use even the fear factor to extend the boundaries of possibility. His constant philosophical inquiries into the relationship between thought and deed in a racing car had much to do with his seemingly superhuman speed. The danger factor that added an extra dimension to those watching one of his breathtaking qualifying laps was also an attraction to the man behind the wheel, as he confessed: “Because we are in a close relationship with the experience of fear and danger, we learn how to live with it better than other people. In the process of learning to live with it you have extraordinary feelings and emotions when you get near to an accident. There is the feeling of ‘Oh! I have just almost gone over the limit’. It is fascinating and even attractive in a way. But it is a challenge for you to control it and not to exceed those things. So the feeling of living in that narrow band, of overdoing it and being too easy, is very small. The challenge to stay within that band is very much a motivation.”

  Senna’s quest to fully explore the ‘narrow band’ resulted in personal revelations that were a source of ever-greater inspiration. Since his insights gained from yet more speed were never-ending his motivation never peaked, as he once explained: “The motivating factor is the discoveries that I keep having every time I am driving. When I push, I go and find something else. I go again and I find something more. That is perhaps the most fascinating motivating factor for me. You are like an explorer finding a different world. You have this desire to go into places you have never been before. The situation is extremely absorbing. And perhaps, because I have experienced on many occasions the feeling of finding new things – even if I thought ‘OK, that is my maximum’ – then suddenly I find something extra. It is the challenge of doing better all the time. That process is something almost non-stop, in terms of excitement and motivation.”

  While Senna never stopped extending the frontiers of speed, the deep thought that matched – sometimes exceeded – the intense physical effort he put into his driving left Senna exhausted. “I do try very hard to understand everything and anything that happens around me. Sometimes I think I know some of the reasons why I do the things the way I do in the car. And sometimes I think I don’t know why. There are some moments that seem to be only the natural instinct that is in me. Whether I have been born with it or whether this feeling has grown in me more than other people, I don’t know. But it is inside me and it takes over with a great amount of space and intensity. And it takes a lot of energy. At the end of every session in the car I feel very tired because I just give everything I have. It drains me completely.”

  In Brazil in 1991, in front of his home crowd in São Paulo, yet another scintillating qualifying lap secured Senna the 54th pole of his career. He then sped to victory in the race and passed Jackie Stewart on the all-time list of Formula One winners. Senna’s 28th win, which at the time was second to Prost’s record of 44, meant he had won exactly one quarter of the Formula One races he had entered. Yet it was the pole lap that weekend that Senna remembered most: “My heart was going hard, but my mind was cool. The perception and the reaction to such a lap is so great and it happens instantly. It is a mixture of natural instinct, macho bravery and all the technicalities it takes to do it. A billion things go through your mind and body. It all happens so amazingly fast, it is like a mystical feeling that is focused on an inner point so far away your eyes cannot see and your mind cannot project.”

  Laps such as this produced the maximum sensual involvement that Senna sought. In the profusion of stimuli he encountered on an all-out lap there were occasions when he reached a state of hypersensitivity that enabled him to separate and better enjoy many of the factors that contribute to the sheer visceral thrill he got from pure speed: “There are times when your sensitivity is higher, when your ability to feel the experience and react to the things you feel in the car is almost infinite. You can sense the car touching the track, you can smell the brakes. You can hear very clearly the engine’s sound. You can feel very well the vibrations that are happening around your body, from the steering wheel or the chassis, or the turbulence from the air that touches part of your body. They are all happening at the same moment, and yet you can separate each of them in such a clear way that makes everything so fantastic and so challenging to fully understand and react to.”

  At Suzuka in October 1989 Senna attempted to explain how he got pole position: “The prefect lap is achieved when the driving becomes automatic because your brain controls the throttle, it knows your braking ability, your gear-change points. It depends on your eyesight before a corner, on your judgment of your speed into a corner. Sometimes you’re not even looking at the rev counter when you change a gear, but using only your feeling, your ear, which tells you how to be on the right revs. This is vital, because in a high-speed corner, if you look at your revs, for a split second you will not be as committed to your driving as you should. So your ear then plays an important part of it. It’s not easy to I think it is a matter of putting in everything that I have and everything that I am still finding that I can have.”

  Senna said his experiences in the car sharpened his senses and heightened the emotions that gave him so much satisfaction: “Life would be very boring without feelings, without emotions. And there are some feelings that only drivers can experience. It is a fortunate and unique position to be in, but it is stressful at the same time. Either getting pole, winning, or breaking a record, losing, going through a corner at a speed that a few seconds before you didn’t think you could, either failing, feeling lucky, feeling anger, enthusiasm, stress or pain – only we can experience the deep levels of such feelings. Nobody else can, consid
ering that in our profession we deal with ego a lot, with danger, with our health, continuously, second after second, not just day after day or month after month or year after year. Our life goes by in seconds, even milliseconds.”

  Ever conscious of the ticking clock, Senna also thought about when his time might run out. Before the 1994 season began he had this to say: “If I am going to live, I want to live fully and very intensely because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially. So my fear is that I might get badly hurt. I would not want to be in a wheelchair. I would not like to be in a hospital suffering from whatever injury it was. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant.”

  But the last word goes to the witness of most of Senna’s poles, Tyler Alexander: “There was this old saying going around then that Alain Prost was the best Formula One driver around. The only problem was that Ayrton Senna was quicker.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Senna’s Quest to Win

  The groundwork of victory

  Winning was no accident for Ayrton Senna – it’s what his whole life was about right to the end. In his last Grand Prix in Imola on 1st May 1994, he was leading the field from pole position when he died.

  Many of Ayrton Senna’s 41 Grand Prix victories amounted to comprehensive driving lessons that remain textbook examples of how to win at the pinnacle of motorsport. Only death stopped him challenging Alain Prost’s 51-win record and possibly putting it beyond the reach of Michael Schumacher or any other successor.