Ayrton Senna - Tribute to the Myth of Formula 1

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23 years today! Where did the time go ?!
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Ever since i can remember being a young boy, my father encouraged me to experience life, to practice sports, to study and to cultivate the thirst for knowledge, understanding, wisdom. And he allways tried to guide me in a productive and healthy way, whilst allowing me the freedom to make my own choices, mistakes, and to find my own path.
Of course that when you are young you only want to go out and play with your friends, you have no capability of understanding what that planting of the seed really means, much less its infinite possibilities and implications, and so only much latter in life was i capable of grasping what his intentions were. To expand my horizons, to find my vocation, to comprehend the existence of concepts such as interaction, emotions, competition, introspection, potential, destiny,etc. And to understand that knowledge takes no place, it is infinite, as so are we.
Like most kids who enjoyed and practised sports, i had admiration for several sportsmen, from several sports, but in those days, F1 stood out for me.
I found it incredible how such men, who were part of an elite and whom not only had an above average physical aptitude, but also a distinguished academic formation and intellect, could risk their lifes at such incredible high speed, for the sake of competing. For me it was as difficult to understand as it was exciting to watch.
And during that amazing F1 era, considered by most as the best era of Formula 1, with so many top level pilots, there was a young Brazilian pilot named Ayrton Senna who captivated people not only with his ferocious driving and apparently unlimited skills, but also with his humble and somewhat philosophical ways. A trully special combination, a rare breed.
I would rather not remember this date, as it only brings sad memories of a time that seems to have happened in a different live. And in many ways, it was.
23 years ago, the 1st of May of 1994 wass the date that marked the death of Ayrton Senna at the young age of 34. 23 years later i talk not how he died, but how he lived, who he was and what he did. And so i would like to share with you this small tribute to the Mystical Legend that he became, for having inspired millions of people around the World with his ways and his feats, and i invite you to also participate in this if you will.
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Im not gonna go into his rivalry with Prost, the Suzuka GP incidents in 89 and 90, the shady politics and F1 leadership that undoubtably conspired against Senna, nor the conspiracy theories regarding Senna´s fatal crash. Dispite the intense smell of shit , and the heavy dark aura one could feel surrounding F1 at the time, it is my belief that its better for each individual to reach understanding by himselfe, in his own way, so it is not my intention to influence you, yet i wont hide my point of view.
To me it allways felt that with Ayrton gone, whatever light that existed in the immense darkness, that light had been turned off.
But the Ayrton Senna Legend continues, the myth remains.
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In 1984, during Ayrton´s 1st year in Formula 1 and one week before the Monaco GP, Senna paricipated in the promotional event "Champions of Nurburgring Race". Notably this race involved several past and present Formula 1 drivers, including Stirling Moss and past World Champions Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme and Alan Jones, driving identical Mercedes 190E 2.3–16 sports cars. Alain Prost started from pole position, but Senna took the lead in the first corner of the first lap, winning ahead of Niki Lauda and Carlos Reutemann. After the race, Senna was quoted as saying, "Now I know I can do it." Senna was a last-minute inclusion in the Mercedes race, taking over from Emerson Fittipaldi.



As a little example of how Ayrton was viewed upon by the established power at the time, here´s a small clip of Ayrton´s arrival at the Monaco 84 GP podium, Ayrton´s 1st podium in his very 1st year racing in Formula 1, for a very humble team named Toleman.
Note the fact that that Monaco GP of 84 was scheduled to have 77 laps but was terminated in the 31st lap due to bad weather conditions(rain). The Frenchman Alain Prost, leader of the Driver´s Championship at the time and racing at home, was also leading that GP, but Ayrton was in 2nd place, and constantly and consistently gaining several seconds per lap on Prost, something which led people to assume that Ayrton would eventually overtake Prost, winning the Monaco GP in his poor Toleman car, and beating the Championship car Mclaren, driven by the Frenchman Alain Prost. As you can imagine, that wouldnt look good in "peoples" eyes, so the suspect ending of the race was cause for speculation. Either way, that was the 1st time people noticed that Ayrton Senna was a phenom.
In this clip, you´ll see Ayrton arriving at the podium where there stands the Prince Rainier of Monaco (the white bearded man), Alain Prost (on the right), and young Princess Stephanie of Monaco.
Notice their reaction as Ayrton arrives, and notice Ayrton´s posture as well .... i´ll let you be the judge of what you see ...

Something i would also like to point out, is that in the following 9 years , Senna was the Monaco GP Champion in 6 out of those 9 times. A record that still stands to this day.


Ayrton was a firm believer in God, and he described several times how his experiences felt like when he reached such high levels of concentration that surpassed his perceived limits not only of the machine, but of himselfe as well. And he talked about how he felt the car was like an extension of himselfe, and that he felt he was in a different atmosphere, as if a different dimension.
Thru his experiences, he definatly believed there is something else, some kind of connection , something which cannot be normally perceived by our senses, something perhaps, divine.
His ways, his feats, and his fatal crash gave birth to the Ayrton Senna Legend, and his indomitable spirit is remembered to this day, something which most likely will never be forgotten.
People say all kinds of things about him, that he was a Demi_God, or that in some way he had been touched by God. Such is the difficulty to understand were he got his strength, his skills, his visions and his ways from.
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Besides his ways and his feats, and the legacy he left, something more happened which contribuited to the way people view him as a mythical figure. Since he was such a devout believer in God, its only natural for people to question where was God on that fateful day, and how could God allow Ayrton that tragic fate... well, they do say that God gives signs of warning, premonitions, and if you are a believer in God or not, a person of faith or not, or if there are signs or not, still a few strange incidents occurred. Something which one might find interesting ...
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April 29th 1994 - Imola GP - Friday Qualifying - Rubens Barrichello, a Brazilian pilot and a protégé of Ayrton, crashed at 225km/h. It was a near fatal crash.

April 30th 1994 Imola GP - Saturday Qualifying - The Austrian pilot Roland Ratzenberger fatally crashed going at 306km/h.

During that weekend, Senna telephoned his girlfriend and broke down into tears while recounting Barrichello´s accident, and he said he wasnt felling very confident, and that he felt something was off, that something was wrong. His girlfriend begged him not to race, but he said he couldnt quit, that he had to race.
The people that were part of Ayrton´s team, and even some journalists who were usually around Senna, noticed that Ayrton didnt look himselfe during that weekend. They noticed that Senna didnt joke nor laugh, and that he was very serious and very tense, something which was very unusual in him.
In his book 'Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One" Sid Watkins( official F1 Doctor at the time) wrote of Senna's final days and how distraught the Brazilian was at Ratzenberger's death in qualifying.
Advising Senna not to race, he said: "why don't you give it up altogether? What else do you need to do? You have been world champion three times, you are obviously the quickest driver. Give it up and let's go fishing".
Senna's reply, the last words he spoke to Watkins, was simple: "Sid, there are certain things over which we have no control. I cannot quit, I have to go on."
In the morning of the 1st of May of 1994, according to Ayrton´s sister, Ayrton asked God to speak to him, and so he randomly picked a page and a text from The Bible. The text said that on that day, God was going to give Ayrton the biggest gift of all. Himselfe.


May 1st - Race - Having qualified with the fastest time, Senna started from the pole position. On the 7th lap, while leading the race, and on one of the fastest parts of the track, something happened that made Ayrton Senna´s car go straight whilst in the middle of a curve and he fatally crashed. He was carrying the Austrian flag with him, and his intention was to hoist the Austrian flag at the end of the race, in honour of his peer, Roland Ratzenberger.


On a personal note, what stuck in my mind the most, besides the crash, was watching Ayrton´s demeanour while inside the car, already on the starting grid , just moments before the start of the race. Allways with a very confident and extremely focused look, on that day he looked anything but. I might be reaching or looking too much into things, but what i see is a doubtful man who feels that something is wrong, that something is off, as if he was trying to connect to something that was unusually missing ... perhaps even more. One can ony speculate what must have gonne thru his mind during those 3 days...
(timestamped)



Ayrton is loved and remembered by people all around the World. Back when he started driving for Mclaren-Honda he was surrounded by young Japanese engineers, members of the team, and those young men loved working with Ayrton, and they idolized him, because they saw him as a Samurai.
In an intervew, the Chef Engineer of Honda said this about Senna : "His moral qualities, and his qualities as a professional, are the same qualities that we praise in Samurais."
"Despite being the super pilot and engineer that he was, Ayrton was a normal person, he cursed and he suffered. The Japanese people have tremendous respect and admiration for normal people who are capable of incredible feats."
Ayrton was viewed as a hero by the Japanese people. When the Japanese manufactured a new car, they called Senna asking him to do the test drive.
For those of you who havent lived it, or havent watched it, here´s a video of what was then a live transmission, from the Japanese TV channel covering the F1 GP, reporting Senna´s death to the Japanese people...

Test drive in Japan


Japanese TV channel reporting Senna´s death ...



He had flaws like any common man, but he had virtudes beyond any normal human.

Indomitable spirit, never lacking the courage to make his voice be heard, allways showing his enormous passion and relentless desire to win thru his words, but most of all, thru his actions.
Untamable, he backed down from nothing and no one. Fought against the giants of F1, went against the rules he believed to be unfit or unfair, against his teammate and greatest rival, against his team manager,
against the other great pilots who had better cars...
Even with a weaker car, he still knew how to use the curves, the weather and his skills to his favour.
With a weaker car, with a broken car, even with a crashed car it wouldnt matter to him, he wouldnt quit. Instead, he would try to find a way to get back to the race, pushing himselfe and the machine to the limit, and beyond, with the sole purpose of victory.
The pilots and the teams have each track studied to the smallest detail, so all drivers know what are the correct trajectories to take, and which speed can the car withstand at any given point of the circuit. Pilots said that Senna had a different perception than the other drivers. Most drivers can only feel the maximum traction they get in a curve once they arrive at the curve, but the pilots said that Senna was different, that it looked like he already knew at what limit could he make the curve, even before he arrived at it. They said that it was as if he was seing the curve not from the normal perspective of onboard the car, but as if he was seing the track from above.



Ayrton Senna quotes:

"It's important that the drivers stay together, because in difficult moments we have each other. If we are not together, the financial and political interests of the organisers and constructors come to the fore."

"When you love what you do, you convey that feeling, that attitude, that resolve, that love to all around you."


"It is not simply a stronger muscle, or a better tonus in your muscle, but is really the power, the strength you get, physically speaking you know, to your body, but also to your mind... and you only really know by doing it, i believe. Once i realized there was something special in there, i really foccus and try to learn about myselfe, because its basically learning about yourselfe. Learning about your own limitations, learning about your strengths, your qualities, and trying to make, as a whole, a smoother person."


"If a person has no dreams, they no longer have any reason to live. Dreaming is necessary, although in the dream, reality should be glimpsed. For me this is a principle of life."


"The main thing is to be yourselfe, and not allow people to disturb you. To be different because they want you to be different. You gotta be yourselfe. Many times is thru a mistake, due to your own personality or your own character, or interference that you get on the way, but you learn. And the main thing is to make sure you learn from your mistakes, and get better."


"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence."


"I believe in the ability of focusing strongly in something, then you are able to extract even more out of it. It's been like this all my life, and it's been only a question of improving it, and learning more and more and there is almost no end. As you go through you just keep finding more and more. It's very interesting, it's fascinating."


"I believe that we start to see our true personalities when we go through the most difficult moments. This is when we get stronger."


"We are made of emotions. We are all looking for emotions, basically. Its only a question of finding the way to experience them. There are many different ways of experiencing emotions. Perhaps one different thing only that, one particular thing that F1 can provide you, is that you know you are allways exposed to danger, danger of getting hurt, danger of dying."


"Fear is exciting for me"


"A given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And then you go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think , ´ok, this is the limit.´As soon you touch this limit something happens in you, suddenly you can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high."

"So many things have gone thru my mind. I am a professional , i have a responsability, and im also a human being, and the values i have in my life are stronger than many other peoples desire to influence those values, and to destroy those values. I refuse to walk away from the fight, its my nature, to go right to the end...thats what im going to do."
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"That day i suddenly realised that i was no longer driving conscious, and i was in a different dimension for me. The circuit for me was a tunnel, which i was just going, going, going ...and i realised i was well beyond my conscious understanding."


"Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down."


"With regard to performance, commitment, effort, dedication, there is no middle ground. Or you do something very well or not at all."


"Sometimes I try to beat other people's achievements but on many occasions I find it's better to beat my own achievements. That can give me more satisfaction. I don't feel happy if I am comfortable. Something inside me pushes me when I get comfortable. It makes me go farther and I want to keep pushing."


"It's very hard to win without any problems. To win, you have to fight. And many times, this fight means to indispose in certain ways with some people, to prevail your beliefs, your point of view, your ideas and your personality above everything. If you don`t fight hard, you lose your own way. And if you lose your own way, you`re nobody. So, to achieve this line of conduct, you have to fight very hard. And in many times, you really have to fight."

"When you're not happy, you need to be strong to change, resisting the temptation of turning back. The weak goes nowhere."

"Wealthy men cant live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance."


"I cannot live on an island of prosperity when I'm surrounded by a sea of misery."
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"Nothing can separate me from the love of God."
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"It doesnt matter what you are, who you are or what you want, in life, daring to be different reflects in your personality, in you character, in what you are. And that is how people will remember you."

" The truth is that everyone is going to hurt you, and you only have to choose who is worth suffering for."

" Ideally we are what we think, in reality we are what we do."
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"Whoever you are, no matter whatever position you have in life, either in the highest or the lowest class, allways have as a goal,
alot of strength, alot of determination, and do everything with alot of love. And with alot of faith in God. Someday you will make it, in one way or another, you will make it."



Everyone thought Senna viewed Alain Prost as his enemy, these were Ayrton´s last words to Alain, just before the start of the Imola 94 GP...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu_uy3B_l7o

The opinions of some of the all time best F1 pilots, on Ayrton Senna...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khdh5rFzHPg


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"I love you all ... Sayonara"

Obrigado Ayrton, obrigado pela força, pela coragem, pela fé, pela dedicação, pelo amor. Foste mais que um mero Homem, tu és imortal. Parece até que foi noutra vida, e em muitos aspectos foi mesmo, pois nunca haverá outro Ayrton Senna....jamais !!
Se não te importares, vou fazer de tudo para levar comigo, nesta viagem que é a vida, o teu espirito indomável. Só espero estar à altura dos teus pergaminhos!
Vamo que VAMO !!!
 
Thank you very much to @Drake. I couldnt have done it without you bro ;)
 
I remember Niki Lauda giving an interview not long ago. His voice broke when he talked about Senna's impact on the sport.
 
RIP Ayrton Senna

The best to ever do it

Fantastic OP it obviously took some time well done
 
There we go :p ;)
Thank you good Sir . :)

I remember Niki Lauda giving an interview not long ago. His voice broke when he talked about Senna's impact on the sport.
I can only imagine what Great Champions like Niki Lauda, and other F1 pilots really thought about Ayrton and his crash. Thank for you comment ;)
 
RIP

Good thread.
 
That scene is intense.
Incase you forgot, Schumi and Häkkinen were in the podium in Imola 1994 and here they are in the podium again when Schumi achieves same amount of wins as Senna.
 
Incase you forgot, Schumi and Häkkinen were in the podium in Imola 1994 and here they are in the podium again when Schumi achieves same amount of wins as Senna.
Oh, I didn't know that. That makes it even harder.

I hope we'll see Michael healthy again.
 


Weird that his bro seemed more cold then Mika. You'd expect his bro to console him more. Why did Shumacher get so emotional? Was Senna like his idol or mentor?
 
Weird that his bro seemed more cold then Mika. You'd expect his bro to console him more. Why did Shumacher get so emotional? Was Senna like his idol or mentor?
As Schumi was coming up the ranks, Senna was winning races in F1 so willing to guess Senna was an idol for him. They also raced each other in F1 so Schumi got to see first hand how great Senna was.
 
Great thread.

My first watched F1 race was Senna's last. It left quite an impact on me to be honest.
 
Even with the active technology used in F1, no one can drive an F1 car in the rain like Ayrton did. He was fearless. Thanks for the memories @Fadeless !

Ayrton was the greatest F1 driver of all time IMO...
 
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Great thread.

My first watched F1 race was Senna's last. It left quite an impact on me to be honest.
It were the worst days of F1, during one the best F1 era´s.
I know it sounds a cliché, but i used to follow F1 almost religiously, but lost complete interest after Ayrton´s death. In several ways, it seems to have happened in another life, and in many ways, it was.
Thanks for your comment.
 
Even with the active technology used in F1, no one can drive an F1 car in the rain like Ayrton did. He was fearless. Thanks for the memories @Fadeless !

Ayrton was the greatest F1 of all time IMO...
Thanks for your cool comment bro!
 
Even with the active technology used in F1, no one can drive an F1 car in the rain like Ayrton did. He was fearless. Thanks for the memories @Fadeless !

Ayrton was the greatest F1 of all time IMO...
Overtakes Prost (4 time World Champion and good driver in the rain), Hill (World Champion), Wendlinger and Schumi (7 time World Champion and like Prost, a good rain driver). Crazy lap!
 
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