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Touchline • Issue 18 • 19
His rise to the top was
swift. After a brief stint with
Toleman, he was picked up
by Lotus-Renault in 1985.
He won his second ever race
for the team in Portugal,
and managed more pole
positions that season than
any other driver. Successes
piled up for the Brazilian,
for while his car was not the
most reliable, he continually
challenged the more
established teams with his
aggressive and instinctive
driving. By the end of 1987,
he was ready to move on,
having come third in the
rankings.
Senna’s years with McLaren
were golden years for racing.
It was here that he became
one of sport’s greatest
competitors, where he wore
the iconic red and white suit,
and where he developed his
epic rivalry with Frenchman
Alain Prost.
When the two came together,
Prost was already a two-
time winner. Both men
were single minded in their
pursuit of glory and it is
no surprise that they quickly turned from friendly rivals to
enemies. In their first year together, they worked for the good
of the team and Senna just managed to come out on top to
win his first championship. A clue to Senna’s character came
in 1989, when, no longer content to play the side-kick, he
started becoming more combative. Prost responded, and the
cold war turned hot after a series of small collisions that
culminated in the penultimate race of the season. After a
crash that saw Prost out of the race, Senna carried on. He was
later disqualified, much to his rage.
Senna and Prost continued to snipe about each other in the
press and push each other further on the track. It had become
the greatest sporting rivalry of its day, and created plenty of
headlines, raising the profile of the sport still further. Another
collision in 1990, again in Japan, handed the championship to
Senna, but it underlined the bad blood between the two and
the era ended to some extent when Prost moved to Ferrari.
This left Senna with an open field in 1991 and he won the
championship easily. But innovations over at Williams were
about to change everything; in fact, it could be argued,
leading to his death.
By 1992, the technology of the Williams car had been
advanced far in excess of the McLaren. It featured
computerised suspension so the car adjusted itself to the
track, which took much of the skill out of the drive. Senna
finished that season fourth, much to his disgust. His will to
win could not suffer through being pushed back because of
his team, so he made moves to defect to Williams. He was
thwarted by Prost once again, who had joined Williams and
had made one contract request: that he would never be team
mates with Senna again.
After two miserable years, Prost’s retirement enabled Senna
to move over to Williams, which now easily had the best car
in the world. Allied with the best driver, it looked like Senna
would go on to dominate the circuit for years to come. But
then the racing federation declared that it was banning the
on-board computer technologies that had made the Williams
virtually unbeatable. Without them, the car was unbalanced
and hard to handle.
Senna knew this and was very vocal about the inferiority of
the car. He suspected that Michael Schumacher’s Benetton
was still using some of the banned technology, and the two
had come to blows one year earlier. Then, in his first year at
Williams, he tried to round a corner in San Marino and lost his
life.
His career defines him. The wins and the controversy both go
a long way to explaining who he was. His will to win knew
no limits, and the pettiness he manifested at times was a
combination of naivety and intolerance of politics. He had
high standards for himself and a heightened sense of fairness
that could be at odds with the political nature of the sport.
His importance to sport and beyond it is evident with the
accolades he has received post-mortem.
For Brazilians, he was a figure of hope. In the late 80s
and early 90s, Brazil was struggling with an oppressive,
incompetent government, endemic poverty and high rates of
crime. Senna proved himself on the global stage and brought
them a great deal of pride during a difficult time. He was a
proud Brazilian, famous for holding aloft a Brazilian flag on
his laps of honour after winning races. When he was alive, he
was a saint. On his death, he became a martyr.
Ayrton Senna lifted himself above sport itself.