Ayrton Senna

Since there are a few F1 spectators here, I'm curious to know whether there are any present who also think that Ayrton Senna actually wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread? The tendency seems to be towards St. Ayrton, who can do no wrong. Now Senna was a great driver, undoubtedly one of THE greats, but the greatest? Of the drivers whom I've had the privilege of seeing (Fangio was gone before the television era and Moss's career was over as it started), the most talented I saw were the two Great Scots, Clark and Stewart.

St. Ayrton was also, it seemed to me, an unpleasant boor at times, ramming Prost deliberately out of the Japanese GP to ensure winning the championship and coming to blows with Eddie Irvine for the grievious offence of unlapping himself at the end of one race (how dare he? - Eddie, with typical Northern Irish eloquence, told him to ****off). This behaviour is now concealed behind euphemisms "determined", "dedicated", etc. And in the end he was just too determined and paid for it. (The BBC Motorsport website has an interesting piece derived from the Williams telemetry on what the car was doing at the time of the crash).

 

Seconded. I'm not much for hero worship anyway, but Senna? He was very, very good, but I actually have greater sympathy for Alain Prost.

Could you imagine Senna staying with Ferrari so long, even when they were not winning anything and instead broke down with the regularity of, say, your average McLaren? Senna would have blown his top after two seasons max and left in a huge cloud of dust.

I'd argue that Michael Schumacher combines the best elements of both Senna and Prost: awesome natural talent, dedication, fanatical attention to detail, excellent physical fitness, and an ability to make the whole team work for him.

That he also shows mild forms of some of Senna's less pleasant character traits prevents me from really liking him as a person, but apparently, those who know him personally and are not in competition with him seem to think he's a real nice guy.

 

As good as Senna was, I don't think he was the greatest. I think it's simply impossible to label any single driver the greatest. You've no doubt heard various stories about Fangio's ability to read the road and car control but how would he have coped with the Turbo era or the current crop of cars with electronic driver aids. No-one knows.

Some drivers are better with very high powered cars, some are good when there is less grip, others excel where smoothness is required and so on.

I genuinely believe that if you had another driver with Senna's bloody-mindedness neither would have finsihed many races. He wouldn't have been called the greatest then. I think there is some merit in what Damon Hill recently wrote about Senna. I.e. he had to take some of the blame for the crash that killed him. Senna admitted deliberately crashing into Prost, negated his agreement with Prost not to race against team-mate, yet he was never called unsporting like MS has been.

Don't get me wrong, Senna was an excellent driver, but he was not god, he made mistakes, fewer than others, he was human.

I don't think any driver can be labeled greatest of all.

 

I'm pretty much with Markus. It's a source of constant irritation to me that Senna got away with so much of his "rough" driving (not least deliberately punting Prost off at Suzuka '90) whereas Schumacher gets constantly hammered for it by so many people and the British motorsport press in particular. Somehow they seem to think that Senna's charisma and latin flair made it acceptable for him where it isn't for Schumacher. Double standards certainly. Ron Dennis's recent interview about Senna where he mentions that Senna felt that Schumacher was "prepared to win at all costs" was such a cheap shot. The founder of the "win at all costs" school was surely Senna himself, from whom Schumacher learnt all his "rough" driving tactics IMO.

Apart from the personal tragedy of Senna's death, the tragedy for F1 is the seasons of Senna vs. Schumacher battles we were all denied

Michael.

 

Schumacher and the British motorsport press - don't get me started. If Schumacher was British, he would be hailed as the next step up from the Messias. As he's German, well ...

 

Way off the mark there Marcus.

I think he's disliked by some fans for taking out Damon, not because he's German. Senna took out a Frenchman

 

Good point, Dev, but I see the Telegraph has now taken to calling Schumacher the Red Baron. Seems too support my argument, I would think.

 

One crude measure I have of measuring greatness is the ability to do something "impossible", such as make low-powered or underperforming machinery perform out of its class.

Some examples:

Fangio - 1957 German Grand Prix - coming from behind and beating everyone.

Moss - the 1961 Monaco win in an underpowered Lotus against the all-conquering Ferraris. Richie Ginther has the fastest lap for that race, but Moss matched the time on the following lap.

Clark - 196? Nurburgring 1000km - demolishing the field in a Lotus sports car running what was basically a Ford Anglia engine. Until the Lotus broke, Clark was leaving them at 30 sec per lap. The Lotus was banned from the Le Mans 24 Hours as being "contrary to the spirit of the regulations"! Also the remarkable performance in the Italian GP in coming from nearly a lap down to lead (shades of Fangio above) and then run out of fuel with the finish in sight.

Stewart - Monaco, 1966? - bringing a Tasman Trophy BRM (much less powerful than a F1) and giving everyone else the fright of their lives.

Senna - the memorable near-win at Monaco in streaming rain in the Toleman - had the race not been stopped, he would have been in with a chance of winning. (The Senna Hagiographic Society would have you believe that the race authorities did this to allow Prost to win. However, even if he'd caught up, Prost would, I'm sure, have made the car JUST wide enough to keep him at bay, as Senna did in the memorable duel with Mansell in the latter's championship year).

Schumacher - that first Ferrari win in the rain in Spain(?) in an evil-handling Ferrari (even Schumacher described it as "difficult") running on 9 cylinders.

But I can never recall anyone making a better overtaking manoeuvre than Mansell did on Senna in Hungary, when Mansell was with Ferrari - as Senna went for a back-marker, Mansell went for Senna and there were three cars abreast on the track. It took Senna completely by surprise and Mansell went on to win.

Anyone think of any other "impossibles"?

 

P.S. On the subject of Michael Schumacher, people have short memories. They seem to forget the times when the rivals were more powerful and faster, and it was only Schumacher's stunning ability that made the car competitive. The true measure of the car was found in the team mate's performance. And that first championship-winning Bennetton-Cosworth was 'way down on power compared with the contemporary Williams-Renault. Schumacher's claim to greatness is indisputable.

 

seems like we all agree then. I have to say i was only young when watching senna and mansell etc, but i really miss the way that nigel would allways 'make' something happen in the given circumstances and did some of the most exciting overtaking manouvers ever.

Senna's death has made too many people see his career through rose tinted spectacles. There is no doubting he was one of the greats though. Also, what about when F1 drivers have raced in other series. This doesn't seem to happen at all, but the likes of Jim clark driving a lotus cortina at sebring etc and Jackie stewart driving Capri's etc with jocken rindt. They were great all round drivers. i would love too see how some of todays, and the pasts grid compared in standardised race cars such as the porsche GT3 cup. Granted, its very different to f1, but it would make quite a spectacle, much like when BMW M1's were a support series in the 80's and people like piquite (can't spell) raced.

 

No arguments there from me, but the thread was about Senna

Mind you, I'm biased towards Ferrari so...

Talking about great drivers in general, do you remember Giles Villeneuve opposite locking his ill-handling Ferrari for lap after lap in French GP (I think)? Ronnie Peterson outqualifying Mario Andretti on race tyres when Andretti was on qualifying rubber?

 

Ayrton was for me the greatest.

I met him a few times whilst at McLaren. In particular when he drove the Honda / McLaren active ride car prior to us considering racing it at Monza in 92.

He was a great motivator and had phenomenal knowledge of the car.

I think his best effort was at the Donnington G.P. in 93 where he overtook 5 cars on the first lap and lapped the entire field by halfway through the race including Prost (lapped twice) who was going to be World Champion that year.

Yes he had faults like all the drivers. But out of the cockpit he used a lot of his fortune to help others much less fortunate than himself in Bazil. An enormous number of youngsters have benefited from this.

Ian