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Motorsport fans around the world today pause to remember the death of Ayrton Senna during the San Marino GP at the Imola circuit. One day after the fatal crash of Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, the legendary Brazilian died after a restart in the dangerous Tamburello corner. Juan Manuel Fangio in the fifties the best of all time? Jim Clark the best of all time? Jackie Stewart the best of all time? Niki Lauda the best of all time? Michael Schumacher the best of all time? Max Verstappen the best of all time? Ayrton Senna the best of all time? No, they are the best of a certain era. And the parameters of each era are completely different. Was Ayrton Senna the best of all time? For many, perhaps. His analytical approach in a way changed the image of the sport in the eighties.

Ayrton Senna always concentrated, Lotus won the victories. 30 years ago today.

Text and Photos: Willem J. Staat

May 1, 1994 Time stood still for a moment. Ayrton Senna’s legacy is bigger than just motorsport
Did you happen to see Sting Ray Robb’s crash at Alabama Motorsports Park in Indycar on TV and social media last Sunday? Its cause was identical to that of Ayrton Senna. Robb delivered a full-speed killing blow into the fence. Robb survived. Cause? A broken steering column just like Ayrton Senna’s. There was one difference. The steering column of Senna’s Williams FW16 was poorly constructed and also poorly modified. After 13 years, the investigative committee responsible for this came to this conclusion. In those very last fatal seconds, Senna managed to slow down his car.

Shortly afterwards he fell into a coma and died at 6.40 pm local time in the Maggiore hospital in Bologna. A state funeral took place six days later. After switching from McLaren to Williams, Ayrton never felt comfortable in the FW16. He had no confidence in that car whatsoever. Senna had to feel one with that car. That feeling was completely missing. After the accident with Ratzenberger, Ayrton actually did not want to start anymore. But as always, the driver’s instinct comes to the fore. He decided to still start with the Austrian flag in his pocket if he won…

The red flag at Hockenheim 1982. The match in which everyone understood that Senna was better than the rest and that there was no doubt that he would go very far.

In the support program of the Rheinpokal F2 Racing at Hockenheim 1982, the Formula Ford 2000s piled up. It was also the match in which everyone understood how good Senna was and that he would go far with the Rushen Green team. Senna didn’t just crush the competition he simply crushed everyone that season. Participating in the British F3 Championship with the West Surrey Racing team with Dick Bennetts as team owner was just an intermediate step towards F1. The Brazilian also crushed the competition there with his Ralt R1 Toyota.

The 1984 Monaco GP with the Toleman team meant the breakthrough in Formula 1. Colin Chapman quickly stole Senna from Toleman. There was even a conflict about this prior to the Dutch GP and Senna even had to sit on the reserve bench for a match. At Lotus came the successes and then the legendary McLaren years. With Lotus, Ayrton won his first GP in Portugal in 1985.

Suzuka 1989 the conflict with Prost naturally remains a special moment. But as Alain Prost once put it, when you have two drivers of the same caliber, such conflicts are simply inevitable. Ultimately, Prost and Senna smoked the peace pipe during that famous karting race in Bercy at the end of 1983.

Together with the late Lotus engineer Gerard Ducarouge, he understood better than anyone that Senna had enormously shifted the benchmark.

About his switch from McLaren to Williams, Senna said in the French Auto Hebdo: “I feel like a little child, my motivation is enormous.” That mood would soon change. Ayrton started to lose confidence after just a few races and started to worry and clearly no longer felt at ease. In the pre-digital era, Ayrton simply felt one with his car. Now you can use computers to find out almost everything that is going wrong in the car. Ayrton had that “Fingerspitzegefühl” (as our southern neighbors express it so beautifully) to the extreme. He was even able to indicate which part in the engine had failed.