The Aura of Ayrton Senna

Some called him a genius. Alain Prost believed him to be a madman who thought God was his co-pilot. The more I read about this guy, the more enchanted I get. The will to win is no big deal among sportsmen, but his determination to outpace everybody shocks me. His passion for racing was such that he sometimes got transported in to another world, just as I do when I read about him. That’s Ayrton Senna, one of Formula 1’s greatest drivers, for you.

I sometimes wonder, with 7 drivers championships Michael Schumacher leads the chart, followed by Juan Manuel Fangio (5), Alain Prost (4) and many others with 3 (Senna, Nikki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and more). So despite winning lesser championships why is only Senna put in the same league as Schumi?

Can’t blame Fangio because he drove in an era when F1 was hardly known, but others raced in times when the sport had left a mark on the world stage.

Well, Senna was renowned for his qualifying skill, which produced a then record 65 pole positions in 162 races (0.401 poles/race), and for his rain driving which earned him the name ‘The Rain Master’. Interestingly another driver considered to have mastered the art of racing on wet tracks is the man who surpassed Senna’s record…Schumi. Senna’s ability and determination to grab poles were not always backed by a reliable car in the races, and his run was ended by mechanical failures innumerable times. The 3 championships he won were with the most reliable car he had…Mclaren with a Honda engine in 1988, 90 and 91.

The Brazilian's penchant for using driving as a means for self-discovery is even more fascinating . “The harder I push, the more I find within myself. I am always looking for the next step, a different world to go into, areas where I have not been before. It’s lonely driving a Grand Prix car, but very absorbing. I have experienced new sensations and I want more. That is my excitement, my motivation.” Prost said Senna cared more about winning than living. May be he did but it is this passion that makes him stand above the rest, that leaves us all enamoured.

Yes, it did cost him his life in the end, but made him live forever. In 1994, we lost a champion and an equally great man when Senna suffered a fatal crash at the Imola circuit at the San Marino Grand Prix. Such was his greatness that an Austrian flag was found in his car after the crash. It was a flag Senna was going to raise in the honour of Austrian Roland Ratzenberger who had died on the same track just a day before, an incident which had shaken him.

And, ironically, Schumi was right behind Senna on the latter's fateful day, something that suggests me that the never-say-die aura may have passed on from one champion to another.

When I Wikied for some stuff on him, I came across a few amazing lines that he said, things I felt would captivate you, as much as they awed me…

- “Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.”

- “On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit'. And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

- “One particular thing that Formula-1 can provide you, is that you know you're always exposed to danger. Danger of getting hurt, danger of dying. This is part of your life, and you either face it in a professional, in a cool manner, or you just drop it, just leave it and don't do it anymore really. And I happen to like too much what I do to just drop it, I can't drop it.”

- "Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else."

- "There are no small accidents on this circuit." - talking about the Imola circuit before the fatal 1994 race.

- "It's going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I'll risk saying that we'll be lucky if something really serious doesn't happen." - pre-season 1994.

- "I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It's a way of life for me."

- "Of course there are moments that you wonder how long you should be doing it because there are other aspects which are not nice, of this lifestyle. But I just love winning."

- "My car quit so I parked it." (after retiring from the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix)

- "If you have a target in your life, a real target, doesn't matter if you are very poor or rich people, if you work hard and believe in God, you can get the success, success in the life."

- "I know that it is impossible to win always. I just hope that defeat doesn't come this weekend."

- "If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs me my life, I hope it is in one go. I would not like to be in a wheelchair. I would not like to be in a hospital suffering from whatever injury it was. If I'm going to live, I want to live fully. Very intensely, because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially." (January 1994, 4 months prior to his death)

I only hope his legacy lives forever. By the way, I’m one of the many fans who were deprived of the great races between Prost and him. If anyone has any material, do share it with me!