The heritage of Ayrton Senna

Δημήτρης Παπαδόπουλοςστις 01.05.2015

The 1st of May is always a day to remember Ayrton Senna. We are now on 21 years after the tragic event at Imola in 1994, but the legacy of Senna carries on. This time we won’t go into any analysis, or things that have never been revealed. We at GoCar.gr picked up the phone and spoke to people who worked with him or knew him at the track. What has Ayrton left as a heritage? So let’s hear from them.

The photo on top of this article is from Gerard Sunal, picturing Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill and Richard West at midday of 1^st of May 1994

Jo Leberer (Ayrton’s Physiotherapist)

“I worked 7 years with him so there is plenty to tell. I could speak for hours, days maybe about him. He got a lot of strength from his family who did support him a lot and this was very very important. I have now my own family and I tell them about this man. For me he was one of the greatest sportsmen in history. His transition from a hard working, hard fighting, selfish, and confident young driver to a great personality was quite remarkable. After that he understood what the real meaning of life was. He was there for values, for responsibility, for strength, for hope, for honesty and for individual freedom. This is was we need these days also. He gave so much to Brazil, he was a national hero. And people still looking for someone like him”

Neil Trundle (Ayrton’s Chief Mechanic at McLaren)

“I wish he were still alive; I really miss him. If we could turn back the clock, we would. And we never know what happened – in the accident; to the car. That’s another frustration. He will always be an inspiration to the people of Brazil, where his work – through his foundation – still continues to help Brazil’s young people. And he left without knowing he’d be renowned as the greatest racing driver there’s ever been. He was a personable guy, he communicated his innermost feelings well. And you remember guys like Ayrton, Jim Clark with greater intensity because they were taken from us when they were still at the top of their game.”

Richard West (Director of Marketing and Sponsorship for Williams between 1993 and 1996)

“To me Ayrton was the finest human being I have ever worked with. His drive for perfection, his manner when dealing with commercial requirements verses his driving commitments and the way in which he conducted himself during our negotiations to drive for the Rothmans Williams Renault Team, (which we concluded in September 1993 for the 1994 season) was faultless.He had an attention to detail that surpassed even that of his old team boss Ron Dennis. Ayrton was a perfectionist in everything he did and he expected the same of everyone who worked with him but when talking in private, he had a much softer, human side which had to be experienced to be understood. He simply burned with passion, commitment, love of his Mother Country and his friends and family – he was to me an inspiration and hardly a day passes when I do not think of him and our final hours together at Imola”

Sir Frank Williams (Williams Martini Racing Team Principal)

“Ayrton was a charming person and very intelligent and deep inside he was tough. He knew what he wanted, he knew who in the company could deliver it, and he went after those guys and got them onside. He got the best out of everybody, that’s what he was good at. On the race track he was extraordinarily special. I’ve been quoted before and I’ll resay it, he certainly was on the way to becoming the president of Brazil. I think he had politics in mind and I think if he had done so, he’d have probably walked it, the route to the presidency. I repeat: immense brain power, charm, charisma and determination like you can’t believe, all the things that made him a true World Champion.”

Adrian Newey (Chief Technical Officer at RBR)

“I find that a difficult question to answer as I think his greatest contributions were still ahead of him. The fact that he is still the most talked about and revered driver 21 years on speaks volumes in itself.”

Beatris Assumpcao Head (Personal Press Officer/Director of Communications)

“For me, Ayrton’s biggest legacy is an infinitely safer F1. But of course, he was the 1st driver to include physical training as seriously as nutrition in his preparations. And also the first to have a personal Press Officer/Director of Communications”.

Michael Schmidt (German Journalist at Auto Motor und Sport)

“I am happy, that I was already around at the time, when Senna was driving. But not only because of him. More so, because we saw with Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet an era, which probably never will repeat. Four great drivers, everybody a different character and a different racing driver, all in animosity with each other. Senna was the magician, Piquet the playboy, Prost the professor and Mansell the fighter. Senna and Mansell drove aggressive, Prost and Piquet were more calculating and technical. If you take a summary of all disciplines, Senna was the best. I would say he lines up with Juan-Manuel Fangio in the 50s, Jim Clark in the 60s, Jackie Stewart in the 70s, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso after his death. The special thing about Senna was not only, that he was super quick and probably the best qualifier ever. He won races, which were not to win. All great drivers do that, but he to a bigger degree. And he was ruthless in overtakings. Therefore he also was more involved in collisions than others. As a person he had a special charisma, but he also knew how to play it. He was keen to be seen as somebody super natural. In some ways he disappointed me. He divided the people into the ones, which followed him blindly and the one, who did not. There was nothing in between. Also the journalists. Which was not very clever. I had a very good relationship with him till 1987. Then it got worse, because he found out, that I was close to Piquet and Prost too. I found it a bit childish from him. At the end from 1993 onwards it got better again. I think with age he started to realize, that life is easier to take a more relaxed view. And he probably started to understand, that some of the criticism on him was well founded. He had to blame himself for not getting the seat at Williams in 1993, not Prost. Senna was too arrogant to see the true picture. He thought that he was so good, that he just had to lift his finger and say where he wants to drive, and then all team principals would offer him a seat. The reality was, that Frank Williams could not offer him the cockpit. Because he had to take Prost in order to keep Renault and elf. And Prost did not want to drive with Senna. It was all so clear, but Ayrton did not want to see the background behind Franks decision. Like a child, who has lost his toy, he started to blame Prost being a coward. I remember, that Riccardo Patrese told me back then: Senna would have done exactly the same, if he had been in Prosts position. But all in all, Senna was one of the all-time greats. I saw every Grand Prix of him. So I was lucky.”

Peter Windsor (Former Williams and Ferrari manager, award-winning journalist)

“I knew him best when he was racing in Formula Ford 2000 and then in Formula 3. He was very meticulous, very organized, and obviously very confident in his own ability, but he was also aware of the things that could go wrong. He was a very ‘rounded’ person in that he could see the glass both half-empty and half-full. He was not the cleanest driver, in terms of track craft, I’ve ever seen. He brake-tested Martin Brundle a couple of times in Formula 3 and then again in F1 at Spa with Nigel Mansell. Then there were all those Prost incidents. This wasn’t the way a Stirling Moss, Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart would have done it but I think I rationalized it at the time by thinking that Ayrton invariably thought that he was not only quicker than anyone around him but also quicker than the car he was driving. That was why he crashed so heavily in the F3 car at Cadwell Park; that, I think, is why he went through Tamburello flat in 1994 when the tyres were still not up to pressure.

“I was always slightly unsure about the multi-blips he used to make with the throttle when he was awaiting the right moment to apply full power, but by the time he made it to F1 I think this was so much a part of his style that he was never going to change it. Besides, it worked quite well with turbo engines. I used to love listening to his gearchanging – to his downshifting, particularly. He was always spot-on with revs and clutch – a bit like Michele Alboreto or Carlos Reutemann. I once asked him why he liked to go down through every gear, from sixth to first, for the La Source hairpin at Spa and he said that the concept of “missing a gear” – eg, going from fourth to second as many of the other drivers did at the time – made him shudder. “It would be like a pianist playing a wrong note,” he said. “I like to be completely part of the car, completely in harmony with the car.”

“Ayrton I knew was never interested in being cool or fashionable, never interested in the glamour side of the sport. He was fascinated by driving racing cars, purely and simply. I guess that makes him very different from many of the young drivers of today. For all that, fans of today’s generation still admire him, I think, because they have the chance to see him on YouTube and on DVDs - something that is not really the case, for example, with Varzi, Nuvolari, Moss, Clark – or any of the other great drivers of former eras. With the drivers against whom he raced hardest - Prost and Mansell - he was of course frequently too aggressive but in some respects this possibly adds to his current allure. It’s linked to him standing up to the big powerbrokers in F1 – as Gilles Villeneuve did. Nothing phased him, regardless of how much money was at stake. He would always do his thing.

Leo Turrini (Italian Journalist)

“The issue regarding Senna is that the things were far beyond wins and championships. Although I was a journalist I still remember his fighting spirit and his desire to get the absolute best. He was like ‘never give up’ and fight to get the most out of it.”

Jacky Eeckelart (F1 Engineer and Technical Director)

“I remember Ayrton quoting that unfortunately you need to spend a lot of money at the start of your career to prove your talent...still through”

And as Giorgio Ascanelli (Ayrtons race engineer) told, the best words to describe him as the same as Bruce McLaren wrote in his book “From the cockpit” as epitaph to Timmy Mayer and that fits well for Ayrton : “To do something well is so worthwhile that to die trying to do it better cannot be foolhardy. It would be a waste of life to do nothing with one's ability, for I feel that life is measured in achievement, not in years alone”