Ayrton Senna - Ten Years On
by David Finlay (1 May 2004)
There is no such thing as the perfect racing driver. There can perhaps be no such thing as the perfect racing driver, since the desire to take part in this sport and certainly the determination required to succeed in it at a high level, may require one or more significant personality flaws.
Look closely enough at any of motor racing's greatest drivers and you'll find these flaws. With Ayrton Senna, who died on 1 May 1994, you don't have to look especially closely, but the flaws do not detract from the greatness. Instead, they make up the reasons why he is, and will no doubt always be, considered one of the finest of all time.
Anecdotal evidence from people who knew him - for example, motor racing's medical expert Sid Watkins, who was a close friend - suggests that Senna was a charming man in private. As a racing driver he was completely ruthless, as Martin Brundle found out when the two of them fought for the British Formula 3 Championship in the early 1980s. Brundle knew (and Senna needed him to know) that if he didn't get out of the way when Senna tried to pass him, both cars would crash out of the race, a point which was proved on several occasions.
Senna won the Championship, though it was a close-run thing, and from then on Brundle was never really a threat to him. The biggest threat he ever faced for the rest of his life was Alain Prost, though to begin with it was Senna who did the threatening. Prost was already established as one of the finest drivers of his day when Senna - at this point still a relative newcomer to the Grand Prix world, though with some amazing performances for Toleman and Lotus already on his record - joined him at McLaren in 1988.
Prost's most famous nickname throughout his career was The Professor, but it's less well remembered that at one time he was also known as The Terrorist. He could play the psychological game brilliantly. In order to overcome what must have been an almost overwhelming fear of losing (or, rather, of not winning) Senna had to play it better still, humiliating the older and more successful man by showing him that he was no longer the best. Sometimes the results of this were beautiful, at other times they were very ugly.
They were particularly beautiful during Senna's qualifying laps at Monaco. The journalist Joe Saward described these events in chilling terms which I do not have to hand but can hardly forget. Watching some of the drivers on their hot laps, Saward wrote, was like watching someone walking on a tightrope without a safety net. In Senna's case, not only did he not have the net, he didn't even seem to have the tightrope.
Senna could get his McLaren round Monaco far quicker than other drivers, even Prost, could get their own cars. This wasn't necessarily a case of him being technically the best driver. Motor racing is put to shame by other sports in its unwillingness to focus on the technical ability of its participants, and that was as true in the late 1980s as it was before and has been since. It is therefore hardly worth asking whether Senna was better at driving cars quickly than Prost was.
It's more important to consider the comfort zone. Formula 1 cars are very fast almost regardless of what you do with them, and many drivers who have reached that level seem to relax into the fact that they are going very fast, forgetting that they could go faster still if they drove better. Subconsciously, they retreat into the comfort zone.
The first of two steps out of the comfort zone is to drive the car faster than it wants to go. In underpowered cars this is relatively easy, but it becomes considerably harder as power outputs increase. It's possible to build quite a good career out of driving fast cars within their limits, and I dare say it is not unprecedented to win at least one World Championship that way. Assuming you can stay on the track most of the time, it is nonetheless far more effective if you take the car beyond what most other drivers would consider to be its maximum.
Step two is a lot more difficult to achieve, and Senna was one of the shining of examples that it could be done. This is to drive faster than you want to go. It happened most famously at Monaco, when Senna - as he admitted much later - began to reach levels of commitment that he did not quite understand. Forget all the nonsense that is talked about defying the laws of physics; remember, on the other hand, the courage required to stretch yourself to such an extent in such a dangerous environment. Despite all the hype, you don't have to be brave to drive a racing car if that's what you enjoy doing, but to step into the fearful unknown as Senna did requires abnormal courage.
Despite all this, Alain Prost still would not accept being beaten. This was why the game turned ugly. When the 1989 World Championship reached its final round at Suzuka, Prost would win the title if Senna failed to finish. Beyond all argument, Prost drove Senna off the track at the final chicane and became champion. One year later the positions were reversed. Beyond all argument, Senna this time drove Prost off the track by failing to lift for the first corner. Two successive Championships had been ruined by a rivalry which was beginning to turn the sport into a sham.
Prost had left McLaren for Ferrari by the time of the 1990 fiasco, and since Ferrari was nothing like the force it now is, Prost was no longer a threat. When he moved to Williams, which had far and away the best car, he became too great a threat, and won the title almost unopposed by his former team-mate. Senna's greatest battles now were with Nigel Mansell - his equal in determination at least - and once again there were beautiful moments and ugly moments, if not quite to the same extent as before.
The last great rivalry should have been with Michael Schumacher, who was to Senna what Senna had been to Prost six years earlier. The potential for yet more battles was cut short at Imola ten years ago. Before the race started there had already been two appalling accidents. Rubens Barrichello was lucky to survive the first one, but soon after it the young Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger became the first driver since Ricardo Paletti in 1982 to die at a Grand Prix meeting.
As Sid Watkins has since explained, Senna was deeply upset by this, to the point where Watkins felt it was time he should retire. But Senna, now struggling with his career after joining Williams in a year when its chassis was nowhere near the best in the field, prepared himself to compete once more. The legend came to an end as Senna - a long way out of the comfort zone as always, fearful of losing as always - fought to stay ahead of Schumacher's much better car, which would probably have won the race anyway.
(All pictures courtesy Honda F1 Press Office.)
