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A year and eight days before the accident that had cost him his life, on a warm and sunny spring morning, Ayrton Senna was surrounded by reporters in the Imola paddock.
About five minutes after leaving his McLaren after his first practice for the 1993 San Marino Grand Prix, the Brazilian held his place, explaining his late arrival in Italy this morning on a night flight from his home in Sao Paulo. Paulo.
Senna, a red jumpsuit around his shoulders and tied around his waist, was surrounded. The questions did not stop to arise and, over time, one of the young reporters who diligently listened to his first grand prize in a professional capacity was to learn at one's expense one of the perils of a media scramble.
Standing behind Senna, holding a dictaphone on the driver's shoulder, the reporter's arm began to get tired and sore.
What to do? Too stuck to swap his arms, he could not take it off, otherwise the interview would be lost. But the discomfort was growing. Finally, he made a decision. With dread, he put his arm, as lightly as possible, on the shoulder of the greatest superstar that Formula 1 had ever had – probably never had.
Senna was not to know that the reporter knew that he should not do it, he felt very bad about it. He could have flinched, moved, or opposed this invasion of his personal space. A number of current F1 drivers would certainly have it.
But he does not have it. He ignored it, as if it did not happen. stayed motionless yogi, tolerant of rudeness, seemingly unconscious of her, until questions were asked, then politely thanked everyone and headed into the McLaren truck.
This journalist was this writer. And that morning, Senna gave a glimpse of the kind, sweet and kind side of a man who, at other times, could be the personification of steel, cruelty, Aggressiveness and blind and unquenchable desire.
The darkness and the light
Why did Senna talk unusually to the media after the first practice? It shows another side of him.
McLaren was using the engines of Ford customers after the withdrawal of its Honda partner at the end of 1992. And Senna, frustrated with the lack of power over the Renault engine of the Williams, a car and engine he coveted, would have driven on an agreement race by race.
He had already brilliantly won two of the first three races, but he knew that Williams would eventually reach his pace, and that his title hopes would be erased unless something could be done with his engine.
The badertion was that he did not agree to run to Imola until the eleventh hour, hence the late flight, and that he used his interview as a means of protesting against the injustice that arose from all this. .
The subtext for this was how could he, Senna, be in this position?
What he really wanted was a Williams-Renault. In the middle of 1992, he even offered to drive for free, but they had already signed a contract with Alain Prost, whose contract included a "non Senna" clause.
In the absence of this, Senna wanted the engine of the Ford factory and was doing everything in his power to try to get it – but that was a contract reserved for Benetton.
Senna was doing politics, using her status to lobby to improve her position. But inside of that, there was a sense of entitlement. Same state of mind as three years earlier, during the Japanese Grand Prix, he had pushed him to deliberately push the Ferrari of his rival, Prost, at the first corner, at 160 mph, because he was upset by the organizers' refusal to move his pole. position on the cleaner side of the track.
Two weeks after that, Senna gave the interview in which he produced what has become an iconic line: "We are competing to win and if you're not looking for a gap anymore, you're no longer a driver of race."
This has been cited time and again over the years as an illustration of Senna's extremely pure racing philosophy. But people forget that Senna was hiding when he said it. Interviewer Jackie Stewart – a three-time champion who could not be fired – was pushing him into the Prost incident and Senna did not like that. The fact was there was no gap – and Senna knew it.
A year later, he confessed to deliberately hitting Prost, in retaliation for the events that took place in Suzuka a year earlier, in 1989, when he stole motor sport boss Jean-Marie Balestre's victory in dubious circumstances. following a collision with Prost. sealed the world title for the Frenchman.
It was the darker side of Senna: a man who would go to extremes and sometimes displayed a dubious morality to get what he wanted, what he felt he deserved.
The appeal of complexity
That was the thing about Senna. His attraction, his global fascination, lies not only in his stunning talent, but also in the depth and complexity of his personality. Yes, he was one of the greatest racing drivers the world has ever seen. Maybe the biggest. But he was so much more than that.
He possessed a charism so convincing that he could silence a room. It could be magnetic to listen to. Immensely intelligent, he was a philosopher eager to give an idea of the dangers of his job, of his own sense of mortality and how it affected him.
"You do something that no one else can do," he said once. "(But) at the same time when you are considered the best, the fastest and someone who can not be touched, you are extremely fragile.Because in a split second, he is gone .
"These two extremes are feelings that you do not experience every day, all of which contribute – how can I say? – to getting to know each other more and more deeply. moving forward."
No other racing driver has ever spoken so, of this subject, with such eloquence.
Death also plays its role in iconography. When Senna was killed in Imola in 1994, his helmet pierced by a hanging arm hit the wall of the corner Tamburello. At 34, he was frozen in time. Age had added some wrinkles around his dark eyes, but had not clouded his movie star looks. And his conduct was as incomparable as ever.
Great training
A little less than two weeks before the medal medal of this sweet morning of Emilia-Romagna in 1993, Senna had undoubtedly led his best race.
This writer was there too, spectator this time, in the icy rain that reigned at the Donington Park chicane, waiting for the cars to come back in the first round of the Grand Prix of Europe.
As always during a British F1 race at that time, the commentary of the circuit was almost inaudible. There was no internet or smart phones to broadcast instant information. I did not have a radio. But as the sound of cars entering their first lap began, a buzz began to cross the crowd. Something special was happening.
When cars started appearing and going around the chicane, Senna, who had started in fourth, was second in second place and, in the back of Prost's leader Williams, was clearly on the brink. to take the first place.
Senna had just made one of the biggest opening towers ever seen and after that, then disappeared and gave the impression that others should not be bothered.
Senna has often done so. There are too many good reasons to mention them all. But he distinguished himself very early as something really special.
He should have won his sixth race, the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix. In a Toleman midfielder, he grabbed Prost McLaren's main hand over his fist in the pouring rain. He was right behind when the race was canceled halfway.
The following year, his first victory in the Grand Prix of Portugal in 1985 was one of the biggest races in the rain of history, with a minute ahead of the Ferrari from Michele Alboreto and at least one lap ahead of all the others.
That year, his Lotus was not the fastest car, but Senna won seven pole positions in 16 races.
He won his first title after being moved to McLaren in 1988 with another superb command, coming back to Suzuka Japan after losing 14 points following a poor start, catching up and overtaking Prost, now his teammate, in the drizzle. rain.
And then there is Brazil 1991, when he resisted Ricciardo Patrese's fastest Williams with smooth tires in a rain shower at the end of the race despite a car stuck in sixth gear.
At the end of the race, Senna was so exhausted that he could not get out of the car without help. On the podium, he could barely lift the trophy to pay tribute to adorable Brazilian fans, who worshiped him as a sort of demi-god.
At the limit – and beyond
He was a man who was undoubtedly more interested in his sport and who gave more of himself in the tireless pursuit of success than anyone else in history.
The transparency of what it meant to him was another part of Senna's powerful calling, but in the end it could have been his loss.
We will probably never know exactly why he went to Imola on May 1, 1994. His steering column broke in the crash. Has it broken before? His Williams team said no, and their technical chiefs, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey, were finally acquitted at the end of a long and difficult legal process in Italy.
They have always maintained that the accident was caused by a combination of factors, including the stall of the broadcaster, depriving his car of forces, while Senna pbaded over the track at the turn 190 km / h Tamburello, taking a tighter line than the previous round, with low tires under pressure after a safety car, trying to stay ahead of Michael Schumacher's fastest Benetton. Damon Hill, his teammate at the time, said that he thought he had also seen all the data of his car.
Senna died thinking that Schumacher's car was illegal at the beginning of this year. Illegal software may have been found, but no evidence of its use has been found. In any case, Benetton was certainly faster. Senna had however placed the tough and unpredictable Williams FW16 in pole position for the first three races of the year.
Head and Newey have always maintained that these posts were those of Senna, not of the car. His average advantage over Hill in those qualifiers was 0.922 seconds. In the first race of the season in Brazil, trying in vain to stay with Schumacher, Senna had pbaded Hill shortly after half distance.
Until the end, he pushed the limits, forcing cars faster than anyone could move them forward, realizing things that should not have been possible, but that he had somehow put to the day.
That is why, 25 years later, his spirit and memory are still present in the hearts and minds of everyone who knows Formula 1. And they will always do it.
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