Canadian Grand Prix, 16th June 1985

Lotus were quickest in qualifying, with Elio De Angelis outpacing Ayrton Senna. The Ferraris of Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson were on the second row.
At the start, the Lotus duo pulled away, but reliability problems soon sidelined Senna. De Angelis however continued on his way, although Alboreto was in striking distance. The man from Milan closed on the man from Rome and overtook him, passing him around the outside.
Alboreto was now safely in the lead, while behind him Johansson livened up proceedings, making the most of a drop in performance on De Angelis’ Lotus to take second place, almost closing right up to his team mate.
The Ferrari 156/85 thus secured a 1-2, with Alboreto swooping into the title lead thanks to his second win for the Suderia. It was win number 90 for the Maranello marque and was also the last F1 race that Lotus would have both of their cars qualify on the front row of the grid.

Acelera Ayrton, Acelera

First posted 1st May, 2012

"He was the best driver who ever lived"

- Niki Lauda

"His skills, craft, subtlety, and courage were of such magnitude that he dwarfed his generation of drivers"

- Ron Dennis

"Ayrton was, and still is, the best Formula 1 driver I've ever seen"

- Bernie Ecclestone

"Actually, he was an even greater man outside the car than he was in it"

- Frank Williams

"Racing is in his blood."

- Senna on his prodigy, Rubens Barrichello

"He established his own limits.When he reached those limits he wanted to beat them and establish new ones.I never knew how fast he could go, I had an understanding but I didn't know."

- Alain Prost

"Difficult to talk about."

- Michael Schumacher, on being shown a picture of Senna's helmet in a inteview with F1 Racing magazine in 2001

"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 one second... and I kept going. Suddenly, I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my teammate with the same car. And I suddenly realized that I was no longer driving the car consciously.
I was kind of driving it by instinct, 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, going - more, and more, and more, and more. I was way over the limit, but still able to find even more. Then, suddenly, something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and I realized that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. Immediately my reaction was to back off, slow down. I drove slowly to the pits and I didn't want to go out any more that day.
It frightened me because I realized 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, commenting after qualifying at the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix

"From that moment (the race win) he just continued to rise until he got to where he was only equalled, in my opinion, by Fangio."

 - Stirling Moss, after driving in a Race Of Champions (at the then-new Nurburgring F1 track) race in 1984 with him; Senna won the race by a handy margin. The grid included Denny Hulme, James Hunt, Niki Lauda, Carlos Reutemann, Phil Hill, Keke Rosberg, Jacques Laffite, Jody Scheckter, Jack Brabham, Alain Prost and John Watson. At the time, Senna had only driven three races in F1

"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and your experience as well, you can fly very high."

- Senna, interview for Racing Is In My Blood, 1991

"As a teammate, I realised he was quick on street circuits, quick on quick circuits, quick in the wet, quick in the dry, good in the race, good in qualifying."

“He had this special charisma that you cannot describe.”

- Gerhard Berger

"He might have been the greatest driver of all time. There was not a weakness in Ayrton Senna."

- Michael Andretti, Senna's Mclaren team-mate in 1993 for 13 races 

"If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs me my life, I hope it is in one go. I would not like to be in a wheelchair. I would not like to be in a hospital suffering from whatever injury it was. If I’m going to live, I want to live fully, very intensely, because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially."

- Senna

Accelera Ayrton, accelera; sua legenda viverá para sempre.

A Date With Destiny, Revisited

Long time fans of this blog will no doubt remember our Senna Week last year. We're very proud of what we achieved and very flattered with the feedback we received, the whole experience sparked an idea in Amazo-san's fertile brain; the results you see below. It's basically the photos we used from that fateful day in May 1994 at Imola, set to two pieces of music that we feel suit them perfectly.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we have and as much as the 'Zo did making it.

Looking Up To A Hero

Monaco GP, May 31st, 1987

Lotus 99T. The first of his six wins at the famous street circuit.

Portuguese GP, Estoril, 21st April 1985

Lotus 97T. Senna's first pole position and first victory in F1.

Monaco GP, June 3rd, 1984

For the 1984 season Senna debuted in F1 in the lowly Toleman team. At the sixth round - a rain soaked Monaco no less - Senna would prove that the TG184 (designed by Rory Byrne and Pat Symonds, who would later go on to fame with Ferrari and Renault respectively) wasn't quite the lame duck it was made out to be.
Alain Prost was on pole with Nigel Mansell joining him alongside. After a 45-minute rain delay, (the track was so wet that the drivers requested that the officials water down the tunnel section because the soaking wet cars would be more difficult to drive on a dry surface with wet tyres) Senna started a lowly 13th place. On lap 9, Mansell passed Prost to take the lead, but crashed out six laps later on the run up to Casino Square after slipping on a painted white line and damaging the car on the armco. By then Senna was third, behind the two McLarens. On lap 19, Senna passed Niki Lauda for second, and just to add insult to injury, would suffer the ignominy of going off five laps later; proof that even F1 legends were struggling with the atrocious conditions. At this point, Prost was still 30 seconds ahead, but Senna was rapidly catching him, despite his inferior Toleman. On lap 29 and again on lap 31 Prost waved to the stewards of the race to indicate that he felt the race should be stopped. The red flag to stop the race was shown at the end of the 32nd lap after clerk of the course Jacky Ickx decided that conditions were too poor for the race to continue. Senna passed Prost's slowing McLaren before the finish line, but according to the rules, the positions counted are those from the last lap completed by every driver - in this case lap 31, at which point Prost was still in the lead.

As an aside, the stoppage was controversial; many felt it benefited Prost, driving a car with a Porsche-designed engine, as Ickx was under contract with Porsche as a group C sportscar driver. Ickx was suspended from his race control duties as he had not consulted with the stewards before making the decision. Because the race had not been allowed to continue beyond 75% race distance, half points were been awarded; had it gone beyond 75%, Prost could have had 6 points from a 2nd place instead of 4.5 points from the win. Prost would eventually go on to lose the championship to Niki Lauda by half a point.
But this is not to take away from the sheer brilliance of Senna; to take the TG184 and potentially win the race with it, which to translate to 2012 would be like taking a HRT or Marussia to the giddy heights of a podium finish. As James Hunt prophetically stated in his race commentary about Senna: "He's got a big future."

How right you were, Mr Hunt.

The Legend Begins - The Race Of Champions, 12th May 1984

Ayrton Senna's legend is complete now, but everyone's reputation has to start somewhere. In his case it probably started at the 1984 Race Of Champions.
The irony is, he should not have even been competing - he wasn't an F1 champion at that time, and had only competed in three F1 races. He was, however the reigning Formula 3 champion, although including him in a race with F1 household names was maybe stretching credibility a touch. However the organiser of the event, Gerd Kremer of Mercedes, knew Ayrton from his F3 days, and when Emmerson Fittipaldi declined to take part in the event due to commitments at Indianapolis, Kremer used his position to get Senna into the event.

Interestingly, this was also the start of the legendary rivalry - the first time Prost and Senna met. Prost actually picked Senna up from the airport and drove him 2 hours to the circuit, no doubt chatting a little on the way. For all that would come later between these two, it seems somehow fitting that they got to know each other sitting side by side in a car.
The saloon car race at the Nürburgring was meant to be a casual affair, a christening for the new Nurburgring F1 circuit; quite why the organisers thought this would be the case is not known, but the christening would soon turn into nothing less than a baptism of fire. Some of the greatest F1 drivers of all time, all in identical Mercedes 190E 2.3-16's, sounds like a recipe for nothing other than a four-wheeled version of a bare knuckle boxing match.

There were some incredible names competing that day - Prost, Alan Jones, John Surtees, Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, Phil Hill, Denny Hulme, Niki Lauda, James Hunt, Keke Rosberg, Jodie Scheckter, John Watson, Klaus Ludwig and Manfred Schute, amongst others. Prost qualified on pole, only just edging out Senna. But when the race came, it was raining so the track was very wet; little did the other drivers know that thses were the sort of conditions that Senna excelled in. He quickly took the lead from Prost, albeit by forcing the Frenchman off the circuit; a portent of things to come and an incident that surely cast the die between these two. Senna then disappeared off into the distance, which to be fair was a feat probably made easier not all the drivers taking the event particularly seriously - especially James Hunt - but make no mistake Senna, thrashed everyone that day. He took the Mercedes by the scruff of the neck, squeezed every ounce of performance out of it and won the race ahead of Lauda.

It was an absolute driving masterclass by a young snot-nosed rookie that most of the drivers there had never even heard of; well they certainly remembered him afterwards. To quote Stirling Moss:

"From that moment he just continued to rise until he got to where he was only equalled, in my opinion, by Fangio".

h

Flaming Brilliance