The Lap of a god

Like all laps, Senna had the perfect start. Almost a near-perfect release. Senna personified speed. At times, he attempted to do things the car was not capable of doing. Perhaps one of the most complex characters of the sports, he carried a sense of entitlement that he belonged in F1, and this unsettled a few of the competitors. It was in the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix that Senna announced his arrival. Driving his Toleman, he carved his way through the field from having started 13th on the grid to climb to the 2nd spot on lap 19. He was denied a maiden victory, but it was one of many races in Monaco. A track where he is lovingly titled ‘The King of Monaco’.

The speed was blinding. To go through the footage of Senna on qualifying tyres in a blistering pace, maneuver around the Monaco track was the meaning of commitment. It made you tremble. In the words of Bernie Ecclestone: “Prost, Senna, Honda…With this lot, you could start a bleedin’ war!” And such was the dominance of McLaren, two of the greatest drivers, and the fiercest rivals. The Professor of strategy, Alain Prost going up against the ruthlessness of Senna. The battle waged for seasons to come, with the 1989 Suzuka being widely remembered for its controversial finish as Senna’s MP4/5 collided with Prost’s car in lap 46. Senna went on to finish the race, only to be disqualified for illegally joining the track. History was set to repeat itself in the 1990 Suzuka Grand Prix, where the Brazilian would wipe out Alain Prost, who was driving for Ferrari, in the first corner and neither would finish the race. The rivalry ended when Prost retired as a four-time Formula One World Champion in 1993.

One has to question: Was the Brazilian truly immortal or just being delusional? Senna almost emulated a being sent down to serve a higher purpose, one that was definitely meant to race. He was a devout Catholic and his greatest rival at McLaren Alain Prost went on to suggest his faith was dangerous to the degree that he believed he couldn’t be killed. In The 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix, the episode had a blend of faith and vigor where Senna pulled off a miracle, driving the last couple of laps in pain with his car stuck in sixth gear, and his hands almost welded to the wheel by muscle spasms. “God gave me the race,” he claimed. Ayrton’s move to Williams was under the assumption that he would be handed a championship-winning machine, but it would not be the case. Ford-powered Benetton and Michael Schumacher gave them a run for their money and it is only fair to say that on the tracks at Aida, Imola, and Interlagos, Ayrton was the one on pole position, not Williams.

Aryton shared a special bond with his one-time team-mate Gerhard Berger and the duo were notoriously famous for their pranks. But in a foreshadowing of this pair, legend has it that Senna had predicted that someone would lose their life at the Tamburello corner at Imola. It would be unthinkable of Berger to imagine he would be at his former teammates’ funeral five years later of the duo’s chat. Imola Grand Prix 1994 will forever be etched in the memories of Formula 1 fans, going down as the blacked day in the motorsport’s history. The sport took the life of one its greats but left behind his legacy which would inspire the generations to come. On April 30th, Ronald Ratzenberger was killed at Imola when his Simtek crashed at the Villeneuve Curva, and marked the first World Championship fatalities since the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix.

During Friday practice, another driver, Rubens Barrichello suffered one of the biggest crashes of his career at the circuit during Friday practice, hitting a kerb at the Variante Bassa corner, launched him into the air and despite his car rolling several times, Barrichello was largely unhurt. Despite being rendered unconscious, he returned to the Saturday briefing with only a broken nose and a cast on his arm. Despite his car rolling several times, and Barrichello being rendered unconscious, the Brazilian was largely unhurt and returned to the meeting on Saturday with only a broken nose and a plaster cast on his arm to show for his crash. It is well documented that the race driver had a troubled state of mind over the weekend. When Senna was asked by world-renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Sid Watkins to not race on Sunday, he simply replied: “I cannot stop Sid. I cannot.”

It is now a well-known fact, that Senna had an Austrian flag on the side of his Williams FW16 — one that he planned to wave in a lap of honor for Ratzenberger after the race. But in an unthinkable incident on May 1st 1994, the Brazilian icon crashed at the Tamburello corner on lap seven, his Williams colliding with the wall at 135mph. The medical team found Ayrton slumped in his cockpit, and he was pronounced dead a few hours later. Then Chief Designer of the FW16 and present Chief Technical Officer of Red Bull Racing, Adrian Newey, still feels a degree of responsibility for the crash. The accident led to years of litigation, with criminal investigation centered on the car’s steering column which had apparently sheered off. It had been modified and repositioned prior to the race, something Newey regrets to this day. In his autobiography How to Build A Car published by Harper Collins, Newey recalled: “The changes were a bad piece of engineering.” However, upon reviewing onboard footage from Michael Schumacher’s car that tailed Senna on track at the time, it was discovered that the steering column hadn’t been responsible for the crash after all.

But this did little to relieve Newey’s sense of responsibility for what had happened. He was quoted saying: “Regardless of the footage, there is no escaping the fact a bad piece of design that should never have been allowed to get on the car”, he explained. “I was one of the senior officers in a team that designed a car in which a great man was killed”, he continued. In regard to the tragedy, Rubens Barrichello was quoted saying “God was good to me, because I had certain amnesia, and for months, I forgot many things.” His Imola crash caused Barrichello to forget a large portion of the tragedy — including his role at Senna’s funeral: “I do not remember carrying Ayrton’s coffin, even though I see the pictures” he said. The incident at Imola proved to be a major turning point for safety in Formula One. Away from the track, Ayrton was known for his charity work and family-run foundations. Although it is kept largely on the hush, his legacy lives through Instituto Ayrton, which helps hundreds of kids in educating and preparing them for the future.

Ayrton set multiple lap records in his career, but he was not going to meet the finish line at Imola in 1994. One can only imagine what would have been had Ayrton not been in the car on that day. But then, it wouldn’t be of Senna to miss out on a race, and certainly, not on a gap.

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