Senna - 30 years later

[Petrus1983]

Seems unbelievable that it's 30 years since that very awful Imola weekend. One thing that's in my mind though is in the last 3 decades we've had Schumacher, Häkkinen, Vettel, Hamilton - all champions, all brilliant racers, but no one else has ever grasped the pure talent that Senna had. Also poignant to remember he did everything whilst only ever making 34 - so wouldn't even be retirement age today. Sid Watkins tried to convince him not to race - I wonder where we'd be now if he'd listened. RIP to a genuine motorsport legend.

[CocoUK]

1992 Monaco
I was stood in my kitchen, with my mother, staring at our tiny 14” television, cheering and willing Our Nige to find a way past Ayrton. Absolutely captivating and a wonderful memory to have.

I’ve never quite fully understood why his passing, and indeed his life, has had such an affect on me. Beyond my family and friends, I doubt another soul shall.

I’m looking forward to reading many more experiences of this incredible man.

[fttm]

Echo both the above posts , those moments in F1 are lodged in my brain forever . I was at the Williams factory on the Monday morning through work , can't describe it tbh .

[Petrus1983]

CocoUK said:

I’ve never quite fully understood why his passing, and indeed his life, has had such an affect on me. Beyond my family and friends, I doubt another soul shall.

I remember the scenes from his funeral (and have rewatched it since) - the country came to a standstill.

[StevieBee]

CocoUK said:

I’ve never quite fully understood why his passing, and indeed his life, has had such an affect on me.

Odd, isn't it? I'm the same.

What's strange is that I wasn't particularly a fan of his at the time.

I met him once. As in, properly met. Was running a small art publishing business and had arranged for him to sign a series of prints via McLaren and had to go to Tyre Testing to sort the details. Both he and Ron Dennis came across as nice, decent people both as interested in me as I was in them which is my standard gauge of character regardless of who I meet.

Had he survived, I'm not certain he would have remained in the sport for much longer. By the mid 90s, the cars were starting to become much more predictable beasts and the races more strategic and chess-like. He had this odd throttle modulation style and an ability to take a car beyond the limit of adhesion and back again in fractions of seconds which the incoming generations of cars didn't need - or could accommodate. I think he would have bored quite quickly.

[Sandpit Steve]

Petrus1983 said:

CocoUK said:

I’ve never quite fully understood why his passing, and indeed his life, has had such an affect on me. Beyond my family and friends, I doubt another soul shall.

I remember the scenes from his funeral (and have rewatched it since) - the country came to a standstill.

Indeed, it had a profound effect on me as well, in a way that no-one else has either. Perhaps it was the timing, I was 16 and had been lucky not to have seen a death in the family as a young adult. Ayrton was the first, there one day and not the next, and I’d seen the accident live, thankfully on the BBC rather than Eurosport, the national broadcaster making the sensible decision to cut away from the images on the World Feed, but with Murray commentating from them and getting across the gravity of the situation.

I recall speaking to one of my old teachers a decade or so later, and he observed that the deaths of Senna and Kurt Cobain, less than a month apart, had a noticeable effect on the atmosphere at the school.

I still can’t watch the Top Gear tribute from Clarkson without ending up in floods of tears, and I sit in my office this morning with more than a tear in my eye…



Rest In Peace.

[Petrus1983]

StevieBee said:

Odd, isn't it? I'm the same.



Had he survived, I'm not certain he would have remained in the sport for much longer. By the mid 90s, the cars were starting to become much more predictable beasts and the races more strategic and chess-like. He had this odd throttle modulation style and an ability to take a car beyond the limit of adhesion and back again in fractions of seconds which the incoming generations of cars didn't need - or could accommodate. I think he would have bored quite quickly.

Had he survived I'm sure he wouldn't have gone to the next race. After Barrichello had his big accident on the Friday, then the horrendous accident of Ratzenberger on the Saturday I feel that as he flew away from Imola he'd decide he'd achieved a lot - he was spiritual and had already been discussing it with people.

[HocusPocus]

RIP. Senna's Monaco onboard footage sticks in my mind as something else...imagine what it would be like being in his zone, wow!

How tragic such a unique racing talent was lost at that terrible weekend in Imola.

[Castrol for a knave]

CocoUK said:

1992 Monaco
I was stood in my kitchen, with my mother, staring at our tiny 14” television, cheering and willing Our Nige to find a way past Ayrton. Absolutely captivating and a wonderful memory to have.

I’ve never quite fully understood why his passing, and indeed his life, has had such an affect on me. Beyond my family and friends, I doubt another soul shall.

I’m looking forward to reading many more experiences of this incredible man.

I was with Sid Watkin's former PA the day he was killed, watching it in a pub in the Lakes.

She knew him well and was heartbroken, as was I. She tells a few stories about him, but mainly that he was quite shy off track, and when at Sid's office, like a little boy seeing the headmaster. They were both very fond of each other and she adored him.

I often think there are 2 sides to Senna, the public bravado and sheer will, that makes someone a champion, and the real person, the introspective one, who idolised Jim Clark and just wanted to be the complete driver, like Jim .

[Koln-RS]

Monaco ‘84 in the Toleman or Donington Park ‘93 are still etched in my memory

[paulguitar]

Koln-RS said:

Monaco ‘84 in the Toleman or Donington Park ‘93 are still etched in my memory

I was at Donington in 1993. It was an amazing experience. It was miserably wet and cold but I don't really remember that, I remember Ayrton 4th on the grid and coming around for the second lap leading, and I remember him waving the flag on the cooldown lap and the look of absolutely pure joy in his eyes.

[Petrus1983]

StevieBee said:

I met him once. As in, properly met. Was running a small art publishing business and had arranged for him to sign a series of prints via McLaren

Just remembered I had this - any link to you?

[TO73074E]

I remember the weekend in 1994 quite vividly even though I was quite young. The whole race weekend was horrible with so many accidents culminating in Senna's crash and it could have been even worse. I can't believe Barrichello walked away from his practice shunt relatively unscathed.

There is a really nice article on the BBC website today about Sid Watkins and Ayrton Senna. It seemed like they had a really close, father / son relationship.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articles/c1ejpl7k2lqo

[StevieBee]

Petrus1983 said:

StevieBee said:

I met him once. As in, properly met. Was running a small art publishing business and had arranged for him to sign a series of prints via McLaren

Just remembered I had this - any link to you?

No. That's a Colin Carter I think. Excellent artist. Our artist was Wayne Vickery and couple of American chaps.

There were a couple of others doing the rounds that we got to know. Arthur Benjamins was one whose name springs to mind.

The Senna / Dennis story is quite interesting. We'd reached an agreement for him (Senna) to sign a limited edition run of 200 prints. This was arranged via McLaren. The fee was £6k which was to be paid to a charity of Senna's choosing. I was invited to the Tyre Test as Senna wanted to approve the proof and also arrange a time for signing. I turned up at the factory two weeks later as arranged only to be met by some American chap from IMG to whom Senna had recently signed a management deal with. He informed me that the fee for Senna to sign them was not going to be £6k but £50k. Being very young an naive we didn't have anything in writing other than a fax and I rather suspect that it would have made no difference anyway. So, no signing.

The following day, I get a call from Ron Dennis' secretary who apologised on his behalf stating that it's all legal and contractual and there's nothing they could do. But, Ron offered to sign the prints instead. Fee was £2k paid to a local Children's hospice in Guildford.

I snuck into another Tyre Test later in the year and bumped into Dennis. I thanked him. He explained the difficulties in dealing with management companies like IMG but also was interested in what we were doing, how the business was going.

For both the reasons, I hold Ron Dennis in greater esteem than many.

Was interesting times. Even got to visit Mansell at his home on the Isle of Man.

Would have been a successful business too but we got royally screwed over by a picture framing chain. But that's another story.

[Mr Penguin]

The "other" driver who always gets forgotten, as do the near misses that weekend.

Edited by Mr Penguin on Wednesday 1st May 10:34

[paulguitar]

Mr Penguin][youtube said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpB12PW5ICY
[/youtube]
The "other" driver who always gets forgotten, as do the near misses that weekend.

I don't think he gets forgotten at all—just the opposite.

[8Ace]

paulguitar said:

Mr Penguin][youtube said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpB12PW5ICY
[/youtube]
The "other" driver who always gets forgotten, as do the near misses that weekend.

I don't think he gets forgotten at all—just the opposite.

I agree. In fact I agree to the extent that if Senna's crash had not happened, he really would have been forgotten. He was a brand new driver that nobody really was aware of at the time. This doesn't make it any less tragic - the circumstances of his struggle to enter F1 are fascinating and his resilience and fortitude to get there is inspiring, but these facts are only really known or cared about by F1 geeks like us.

[Jim H]

I appreciate this is the Senna thread, and I apologise for the crossover.

I used to read Autosport and F1 News religiously back then. I’d say it was from one of those publications which I learned that Roland was really passionate about the whole history of F1 and the drivers of previous generations. Which is why it was such a joy for him to realise his dream.

I’m sure I read that Roland had once approached Jacques to ask, and talk about Gilles (Villenueve). Roland greatly admired Gilles. Jacques was rather taken aback at this as most of his compatriots had totally avoided the subject altogether.

It actually touched him (Jacques) that someone, a competitor - would be interested - and remember.

And such a bitter irony that Roland lost his life at the Villenueve kink.

[SoulGlo]

BBC News in 1994.



I still have this tribute recorded on VHS by the Beeb released in 1994. Narrated by Steve Ryder and uses a piece from the Terminator 2 music score in parts. With contributions from Martin Brundle, John Watson, Murray Walker, Ron Dennis, Gerhard Berger it's one of the best tributes IMO along with that Top Gear special by Clarkson.

https://youtu.be/qkntOOvR240?si=O8_74eeBZOIb2awa

[DanG355]

The Senna/Prost/Mansell/Berger era was when I was young and first started watching F1. Although Mansell was the one I wanted to win, I was in awe of Senna and his driving. He just seemed to make the car dance and move around in a way the other drivers didn’t.

I watched all the races mentioned above live on TV and these are each still etched into my memory.

Looking back now, we have had great drivers who maybe would be as fast in their prime - Max, Lewis and of course Schumacher. Some would argue these were the greater drivers, but to me Senna could do things with a car and have a connection with it that nobody else has before or since.

He was also a complex character with deep religion and yet beyond the excellent film Senna, there are stories of him being given post-race drinks by Berger before he went and punched Eddie Irvine, the way he was prepared to run Prost off the road at very high speed to win a championship and his difficult relationship with the racing authorities.

An icon, adored in Brazil as much as Pele, he was and still is loved by many of us.