RE: Time for tea? Senna makes his mark

[ellisd82]

Great find guys! Too young myself to even remember this, but great bit of History. So thanks for sharing!

[OdramaSwimLaden]

a11y_m said:

Vocal Minority said:

Without wanting to widdle all over a great story, and not disputing the credentials of a Mr A Senna for a moment, but this always gets blown a smidge out of proportion, as the other drivers were rather startled by how seriously Senna was taking it compared to them...

That's how I've always understood it too: that the majority were out for a bit of fun (BTCC-style door banging) but Senna took it very seriously, as you would if you were aspiring to break into F1. It doesn't take away from his pure talent though, pure genius IMO.

Some bugger had better get me the Senna DVD for Christmas or there'll be hell to pay...

......sorry to spoil it. He dies in the end

[Fabric]

andoverben said:

I have been reading the Senna Book (I forget who it is by, it is in the Loo at home)

Christopher Hilton's "Ayrton Senna, the whole story" by any chance? Also got it as loo reading! Excellent book, I do realise it's entirely subjective, but Prost comes across as quite the whiny Frenchman, to quote the book "blaming everyone but himself" for his incidents. Great read though.

[mrtwisty]

PH delivers.

Thank you, cracking vid.

[rhinochopig]

GTIAlex06 said:

Would love to this kind of thing happen today, although it obviously never would...what a shame.

Agreed. If only there was race for all motorsport drivers / riders where, for example, they drove a series of identical cars in series of heats. Someone should run something like that.

[mrtwisty]

rhinochopig said:

Agreed. If only there was race for all motorsport drivers / riders where, for example, they drove a series of identical cars in series of heats. Someone should run something like that.

But what would you call it...?

Championship of Racers perhaps? Champions in a Race? Race of ...

Nope, can't think of a good enough name, it'll have to remain a dream.

[PascalBuyens]

rockymount said:

Not surprised Senna won as he truly was the ‘rain master’ …… as this vid of him at Donighton Park in 1993 clearly shows

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU8pWyfyDIM

Mind you WARNING !!! DON’T ….. REPEAT DON’T play this vid with the sound ON ……. unless you’re feeling particularly suicidal that is ………..and there was me thinking Bette Midler’s version was crp …….. this however really takes the biscuit ………. “Wind Beneath My Arse”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MAvSZPHSZ4&feature=related

Original comments

[Scooby P1]

mrtwisty said:

PH delivers.

Thank you, cracking vid.

Agreed. That is epic.

[nosuchuser]

Robmarriott said:

M666 EVO said:

It is the one film I am gagging to see at the moment. The missus says no though so I am going to have to send her out for a night... Maybe tomorrow

Make her watch it. My missus who has no interest in motorsport was glued to the TV for the whole extended cut.

Yep, my wife has zero interest in cars or motorsport loved the film.

[SleeperCell]

Not that surprising with hindsight that Senna would do well. I was more impressed at some of those old fogeys who still put in a respectable performance. Admittedly some like Lauda were barely retired but Hulme and Brabham must have been getting on a bit by then, although I believe they still raced in less demanding series. Since we all love random trivia, Hulme actually died of a heart attack in the middle of the 1992 Bathurst Touring car race (in an E30 M3 of all things, eventual rival to the 190E).

[cadoganpier]

I can add a little bit to the story of that race( I think).
In 1999 I raced one of the original 190 Mercedes that where built for the race in question. We ran in the up to 2.5ltr class at the Ring' 24hrs and amazingly won our class. The incredible thing was the car. It was (maybe still is?) owned by a Potatoe farmer from Norfolk called Alastair Dickson and run by his team Wix Racing.
I remember when I first went to see the car it was covered in muck and dust in one of his farm sheds, basically it looked like a barn find, but, he assured me, it ran like clockwork and was quick. Getting into the car I was amazed to see that the thing had 60,000 odd KM on the clock and had never been a road car!. To be honest I wasn't too sure but as the drive was cheap I agreed to have a go. Fast forward to practice for the race.
On my first flying lap the temperature gauge went through the roof and on inspection we discovered the (very rare) head was knackered, from memory it had corroded. The mechanics tried to fix( bodge) it and we crossed everything. I seem to remember doing some very gentle night laps to qualify and hoping for the best, as is always the case the worst happened and pop went the head.
As we didn't have a spare and all the dealers seemed to be shut we pretty much gave up until my German co driver came to the rescue.
I can't remember his second name now, his first was Willi, anyway, this guy was a big cheese at Camel Tobacco and was heavily involved in their motorsport sponsorship effort and he had the number of someone very senior at Mercedes who he was happy to call and try and pull in a favour from. It is worth remembering that at the time Merecedes motorsport where having a really tough time, they had cars flipping at Le Mans and a couple of weeks before Hakkinen had a very public failure at the German GP, Willi convinced his mate at MB that we where odds on to win (given that most the opposition where in Alfa's it wasn't that unreasonable) and that he should help.
A couple of hours later ( it is now about 2 in the morning) Willi gets a call saying a head is on its way to us!. Incredibly his pal had got two mechanics from the motorsport division to go to the Museum in Stuttgart and take the head from the only 2.3 16V he could find which was on display, they also grabbed all the shims they could, dropped the lot in the pannier of a very old BMW bike and legged it to the Ring. These guys then helped the team fit the head and we literally made the start by about 5 mins, my God it sounded dreadful. My recollections of driving the car are varied, it was easy to drive quickly, very neutral handling, crap old ABS brakes, very wobbly ( given its life this is no surprise) and had terrifying bump steer, to make it through the bottom of the foxhole flat you had to basically turn in aiming for the inside barrier then as the suspension compressed the bump steer would correct things for you!, given the state of the cage in the car and its somewhat flexible chassis going off there would have been very bad news. The speedo still worked and it was pulling about 255kph flat chat, which given the fact that the valves where not exactly perfectly adjusted ( second hand shims!)wasn't to bad. Save for some issues with the brakes the thing ran like clockwork for 24hrs. The owner suspected that it might be the highest mileage race car in existence being a veteran of several Willhire & ring 24hr races, I can't imagine anything else that could put up with the abuse.
Ps we got a very nice thank you from Mercedes for the class win and never had to pay a cent for the help but I never find out who drove it back in 84.

[Ahonen]

dinkel said:

Wikipedia: "Senna's best result of the 1984 season came at the Monaco Grand Prix, the first wet weather race of the season. Qualifying 13th on the grid, he made steady progress in climbing through the field, passing Niki Lauda for second on lap 19. He quickly began to cut the gap to race leader Alain Prost, but before he could attack Prost the race was stopped on lap 31 for safety reasons, as the rain had grown even heavier. At the time the race was stopped Senna was catching Prost at 4 seconds per lap.[19] Senna finally passed Prost during the 32nd lap at the end of which the red flag was shown. However according to the rules, the positions counted were those from the last lap completed by every driver, lap 31, at which point Prost was still leading. Senna's second place was his first podium in Formula One, and his performances in rainy conditions became a hallmark of his career."

Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.

Ah yes, that famous Monaco race which Senna wasn't going to win: largely because there was another bloke reeling him in. But lots of people prefer to forget that fact (or simply don't know) because it ruins their fantasy...

Edited by Ahonen on Saturday 26th November 12:32

[tonym911]

Senna round Suzuka in the McLaren, Hunt commentating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMQgoOaqPnw

[chevronb37]

Ahonen said:

dinkel said:

Wikipedia: "Senna's best result of the 1984 season came at the Monaco Grand Prix, the first wet weather race of the season. Qualifying 13th on the grid, he made steady progress in climbing through the field, passing Niki Lauda for second on lap 19. He quickly began to cut the gap to race leader Alain Prost, but before he could attack Prost the race was stopped on lap 31 for safety reasons, as the rain had grown even heavier. At the time the race was stopped Senna was catching Prost at 4 seconds per lap.[19] Senna finally passed Prost during the 32nd lap at the end of which the red flag was shown. However according to the rules, the positions counted were those from the last lap completed by every driver, lap 31, at which point Prost was still leading. Senna's second place was his first podium in Formula One, and his performances in rainy conditions became a hallmark of his career."

Coming from Ronnie Peterson, Lauda and Depailler: to me Senna seemed to be the obvious follow up favourite F1 driver.

Ah yes, that famous Monaco race which Senna wasn't going to win: largely because there was another bloke reeling him in. But lots of people prefer to forget that fact (or simply don't know) because it ruins their fantasy...

Edited by Ahonen on Saturday 26th November 12:32

What if it'd been stopped a few laps earlier? Mansell would've won. Senna or Bellof could just as easily have made a mistake later in the race. I'd far sooner have had a DFV-equiped Tyrrell under those circumstances than a turbocharged Hart powered Toleman, that's for sure! A fascinating tale of "what if...?" and a definite demonstration of the arrival of two massive talents in Grand Prix racing.

[AMG Merc]

Nice I still miss that boy!

For me nothing in F1 since has come close to the excitment and anticipation of Senna and Prost entering a corner together

[jcl]

1954etype said:

I was too until I saw 'Senna'. A real shame that Prost used his relationship with Ballestre to get Senna excluded when he went through the escape road and rejoined the track. Prost was that good that he didn't need to cheat. A bit like when Alonso blocked Hamilton in Hungary in the pits when they were team mates - resulting in Hamilton being unable to put in a final qualifying lap. Shame when great drivers have to resort to these tactics.

Well as Senna came from 3 car lengths back and punted into the side of Prost it was hardly fair that he got to continue on.

Also don't forget that Senna had Honda in his back Pocket. If you read Prosts biography he mentions a number of times where Ayrton had 10mph over him at the end of the straight with the same wing settings and gear ratios.

Senna was great but as Jackie Stewart said to him in that interview (also in the film) "how come you've had so many accidents etc". Same with Schumacher, both controversial careers, Senna admittedly less so but that's why neither are fit to clean Jimmy Clarks shoes. He just f**ked off regardless of the conditions/car and didn't resort to any of that crap those two spoilt brats did.

[RichB]

jcl said:

...neither <Senna or Schumacher> are fit to clean Jimmy Clarks shoes...

Hear, hear!

[fingersprice]

Fittster said:

So he wasn't out qualified by Prost then who got knocked off the track for his troubles?

No he wasn't actually

Assuming your referring to Japan 1990 Senna was on pole but Prost beat him into the first corner (after the pole position was mysteriously moved to the dirty side of the track at the last minute).

As we all know neither driver made it round the corner.....

[offshorematt2]

Bit off topic, but watching the Senna film for the first time the other night and in the footage of his funeral it looked like Prost was a pall bearer. Was that right? Seemed odd after the whole film playing on how much they disliked each other. Was wondering if they had put all that behind following Prost's retirement?

[robsco]

fingersprice said:

Fittster said:

So he wasn't out qualified by Prost then who got knocked off the track for his troubles?

No he wasn't actually

Assuming your referring to Japan 1990 Senna was on pole but Prost beat him into the first corner (after the pole position was mysteriously moved to the dirty side of the track at the last minute).

As we all know neither driver made it round the corner.....

Senna knew exactly what he was going to do into that corner if he lost the lead (which inevitably he was going to with the pole moved to the dirty side). But who can blame him after the debacle of Suzuka the year before?