The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Senna’s idol was Jim Clark. He was eight years old when he was killed at Hockenheim and he was shattered. He had always idolised Clark and wanted to be him. When he died Jackie Stewart became his new idol.

  His father was also a Clark fan, and promised to buy Senna a proper go-kart when he reached his 10th birthday. He was delighted and even then he appreciated the wonderful opportunity his family had given him, as he said: “I had a good opportunity in life to live well and to live healthily and learn a lot. I believe I was led at the key moments in the right direction.”

  As it got more TV coverage, motorsport began to become popular in Brazil, especially when Emerson Fittipaldi started to make his mark. Fittipaldi, the son of a São Paulo sports journalist, had started his career in karts and, in seemingly no time at all, graduated to Formula One as Jochen Rindt’s team-mate at Lotus.

  It heartened Senna no end – he knew that if Fittipaldi could do it then so could he. On the other hand, he wondered whether there would only ever be room for one Brazilian driver in Formula One: had Fittipaldi stolen his thunder? He couldn’t have been more wrong about that.

  He was astonished when Rindt was killed and Fittipaldi took over as team leader, in no time at all becoming world champion.

  With his head full of dreams of becoming a second Fittipaldi, he celebrated his 10th birthday by tearing the gift wrapping off a full-sized kart with a 100cc Parilla engine. He had to wait three long years before he was eligible to race it. That didn’t stop him driving it.

  When Fittipaldi became world champion in 1972, it put Brazil on the motorsport map, and it applied to host a Grand Prix. São Paulo won the bid and the first race was staged at the Interlagos circuit in Senna’s home city of São Paulo.

  The first race was run in 1973: Senna, who was nearly 13, watched Brazilian brothers Emerson and Wilson Fittipaldi compete for honours. Emerson won and it seemed that the whole of São Paulo went wild. There was more to celebrate when he claimed a second world championship in 1974, this time for McLaren.

  Fittipaldi remembered meeting the young Senna in the mid-1970s when he set up his own team: He said: “When I was testing the Copersucar in 1975 and 1976 at Interlagos, he used to be testing his go-kart on the other track. He would come up and talk to us and I remembered him from then. He was a quiet boy, very shy. A few years later he came with his manager to my office before he went to Europe to race Formula Ford, and we kept in touch from there.”

  When Senna finally reached the qualifying age to race professional karts, he entered a kart race at the Interlagos kart circuit through Elcio de São Thiago, who ran a kart racing club. It was held on Sunday 1st July 1973. Maurizio Sala was the driver to beat, and Senna beat him first time out. It was obvious straight away he was an outstanding talent. But from that day, it would take 11 years to get into Formula One.

  From then on he was dedicated: racing became his life. He tested at Interlagos two or three days a week and learned how to change the engine or the carburettor, and how to set up the chassis. It gave him his feel for mechanical things, which endeared him so much to his teams later – and especially to Honda.

  He had found his source of contentment: “I discovered this extraordinary sensation: being first, the fastest, the winner. It is a stronger emotion than mere speed.”

  Ruebens Carpinelli, then president of the Brazilian national karting commission, spotted his talent early: “His dedication was self-evident. Every time I went to the kart track he was there, training. He was impressive. He was only a boy, ready to talk to anybody about his kart.’

  Two weeks after victory on his debut, Senna won the junior category of the São Paulo winter championship. And when the summer season started, he fought his way to the full junior title.

  The next year he won the national junior championship, followed in 1976 by the senior championship of São Paulo and victory in the three-hour kart race in his new 100cc kart. This, too, was the season in which he first appeared in the yellow helmet with green and azure bands, the colours of Brazil. The South American title fell to him the following year.

  Meanwhile in 1973, his education continued unsuccessfully, as one of 560 students at Colegio Rio Branca. His time there was not memorable, although the school revelled in having him as a pupil when he became famous. Later he attended secondary school and spent his time, by all accounts, drawing pictures of racing cars.

  Karting and racing were all he lived for. In certain circles of São Paulo all the talk was of the feud between Maurizio Sala and Senna. Sala and Senna crashed together frequently and Senna was completely fearless on the circuit. He would not give way, but expected others to give way to him. Nothing intimidated him: once he was out in front, getting past was difficult. In the rain, he was the master. It was a dress rehearsal for his battles with Alain Prost still 15 years in the future.

  His parents were astonished at his prowess, especially considering his eye-body coordination problems of the past. But these had genuinely disappeared.

  In 1990, he said of that time: “At the beginning I was just doing it for the feeling of driving: I liked the feeling of moving the steering wheel, braking, putting on the power, feeling the engine, listening to the engine, feeling the air on my face, the speed. It was something that got to me when I was a kid: it got inside of me then. And it stayed there.”

  He also discovered girls, and dated his chief rival’s sister, Carolina Sala. It was unusual as his personality was as introspective as ever. But it gave him a psychological edge over competitors who could not understand his motivation.

  He also established a relationship that was to endure for his whole karting career, with a Spanish kart mechanic called Lucio Pascual Gascon, who was known to everyone simply as ‘Tché’. His father introduced him to Tché, who prepared a lot of karts in São Paulo, but Senna established a special relationship with him very quickly, as he did with so many engineers and racing people in the years to come.

  Tché, who had been Emerson Fittipaldi’s mentor 10 years earlier, prepared Ayrton Senna’s racing engines personally and his father paid the bills. Senna spent all his spare time at Tché’s workshops, absorbing the rudiments of a knowledge that would make him technically able to converse with his race engineers in Formula One.

  South American championship titles followed in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981.

  In 1977 Senna went international kart racing, taking him all over South America, and in Uruguay that year he won the South American series. He also met Mauricio Gugelmin, who became one of his best friends.

  Tché remembers his young charge as if it were yesterday: “He always came to a race to win it – enemies and competitors didn’t exist to him, he was there to win. I used to say ‘Keep cool if you can’, and he would reply ‘No, for me it’s first place or nothing!’ He was an individualist, always seeking perfection. He never permitted a crooked wheel or other small details, and he always paid attention to his timing to make sure nobody else could outrace him.”

  In 1978, at the age of 18, Senna was ready for his first trip to Europe, to compete in the world karting championship: that year it was being held at Le Mans. His father contacted the Parilla brothers of Milan-based DAP, Europe’s top kart constructor. DAP agreed to run him a kart and his father paid the bill. He amazed his family when he announced he would travel to Italy alone. They were worried as he spoke no English, no French and hardly any Italian.

  He set off three weeks before the world championship so he could test in Italy. The works drivers for DAP were English driver Terry Fullerton and Dutchman Peter Koene.

  Fullerton also took part in the test session, supervised by Angelo and Achille Parilla. Fullerton, the 1973 world champion, was preparing for the championship at Le Mans. Senna attacked the unfamiliar track and ended the day outpacing him. The Parilla brothers signed him up as their second driver for Le Mans, and after a fortnight’s preparation in Italy the team left for France, where they were joined by Tché, dispatched at the family’s
expense to give expert assistance with the team’s engines.

  Senna persuaded Fullerton and Koene to help him perfect his driving skills. He won two heats in the world championship before retiring in a third when the engine expired.

  He found the competition was a good deal fiercer than in Brazil, and in the three races which constituted the final he came seventh in the first, retired in the second and came sixth in the third, finishing sixth overall in the world championship. Karting magazine described the performance as ‘sensational’.

  In 1979 Senna resolved to return and focus on Europe. That year he won the Brazilian championship again, before returning to Europe for a few races and the world championship at Estoril in Portugal. In a preliminary race at a track called Jesolo he had his first big accident. Going into a fast corner, two inside wheels lifted, he was thrown out of the kart at 50mph into a steel barrier and the flying kart hit him. He was not injured, but suffered shock.

  There were three finals. Senna led in the first but finished fifth. In the second he was second before taking the lead after the leader retired, but he was overtaken and finished third. He then won the third race. He was joint winner of the whole event but lost the championship on lap difference.

  In 1980 he won his third Brazilian championship and went to Nivelles in Belgium for the world championship, where, aged 19, he came second again. He had failed to win any of the three world championships he had competed in. It was a blow to his confidence and he was less sure of his future than ever.

  His father Milton, sensing a weakness in his resolve, took the opportunity to persuade him to join the family firm. He told him his brother and sister had settled down to conventional careers, and so should he. He never dreamed his son had what it took to make it in Formula One, and he didn’t want him to waste time on it. Viviane da Silva was a psychologist, while Leonardo was a software writer.

  Reluctantly, the young Ayrton enrolled in a business course at São Paulo University. It lasted three months and in November 1980 he headed off to Britain to secure his first drive in a car. There he was told he needed a wife to be successful and, once back in Brazil, asked his long-standing girlfriend to marry him. Surprisingly she agreed and he left for Britain wedded to Liliane Vasconcelos Souza, a girl from a wealthy Brazilian family. Neither of them could speak barely a word of English as they headed for the eastern English county of Norfolk to begin a new life.

  CHAPTER 3

  The First Year in England

  An overnight success in Formula Ford

  Fresh from his fourth Brazilian karting championship and second place in the world kart championship at Nivelles, 20-year-old Ayrton Senna decided he wanted to race cars full time. He finally won a struggle with his father, who wanted him to join the family business, stay in Brazil and complete a business studies course he had begun. Senna scrapped the course and in November 1980 arrived in England to sort out a drive for the following season in Formula Ford. It was his only choice if he wanted to start on the ladder to Formula One. Formula Ford had been set up with the aid of the Ford Motor Company in 1967 in a bid to provide a cheap platform for top-class entry-level single-seater racing. Senna could have chosen the German or Italian Formula Ford championships, but he had worked it out that Formula One was British based and that is where he would attract the most attention. The fact that he didn’t speak a word of the language and that he had never been to Britain hardly entered into his decision.

  Coming to faraway England was a nerve-wracking experience for a young man on his own with an uncertain future. In England he signed his name Ayrton Senna da Silva – because da Silva was such a common Brazilian name he thought it would be more memorable if he included his mother’s maiden name Senna as well. He soon realised it was far from memorable, but that was for later.

  Having chosen British Formula Ford Senna went for the best – the works Van Diemen team run by Ralph Firman. Van Diemen was a late entrant in Formula Ford, having first built a car in 1973. It was an overnight success and since then had been consistently the car to beat. Driving for the factory Van Diemen team meant Senna would be automatically among the championship favourites. Since 1973, Firman’s team had won four Formula Ford Festivals and five Formula Ford 1600 championships. That year it had won the triple crown of the Festival and the BRSCC and RAC championship titles with another Brazilian, Roberto Moreno, doing the driving.

  Senna’s November visit was designed to get everything sorted out. He had agreed a £10,000 budget with his father but a top car cost £20,000 to run in those days. Senna believed he could get a works drive and actually get Firman to pay him. He was soon to be disabused of that notion.

  Senna had the best possible introduction through Chico Serra, who for two years had been singing his praises to Firman after watching him race karts.

  In theory he should have come to Britain a year earlier but his own indecision and the wrangles with his father had prevented that. Senna had been to Europe many times for his karting career but that was for individual races. Car racing needed a full-time commitment that would take him away from home for almost eight months.

  Arriving at London-Heathrow in mid-November, he was met at the airport by Serra. He had offered to help smooth the young driver’s path and had arranged for Senna to meet Ralph Firman for dinner the following evening. Getting into one of the three Van Diemen works cars required cash and it was not easy. But Firman had already provisionally decided that Senna would be his lead works driver in 1981 and that he would subsidise half of the £20,000 cost of running a single car – an outlay that 20 years later had risen to £200,000. Firman usually charged £30,000 for a season in order to give himself a profit.

  He was used to dealing with young Brazilians. He introduced most of them to single-seater racing. Through Serra, Senna asked Firman for a free works drive and a salary. It was an incredible cheek. That was not the way it worked in Formula Ford. All drives were paid for, although some were subsidised if the owners could see talent.

  The young Senna also had money in his pocket – £10,000 supplied by his father, the equivalent of £100,000 today.

  Over a long dinner with Firman, during which Serra acted as translator, Senna was told he could test drive the following day at Snetterton and if he was good enough he would get the drive for 1981.

  The following day Senna’s first experience of a real racing car was not a happy one. He took to the track for 10 laps in a Van Diemen-Minister RF80 in front of Firman. The team boss was impressed but not overawed by this new Brazilian’s talent. As he recalls: “I’d known about him for two years from his reputation. When he arrived there was this great interest. We knew he would be good.” Just how good was not yet clear. Firman, a cautious man, had seen good drivers come to nothing before. But he was impressed enough to give him the drive.

  Senna recalled later: “I did not enjoy it very much. I thought it was too difficult to drive the car. But Ralph thought I was good enough to have the factory drive the following year.”

  Before leaving to go back to Brazil Senna arranged for accommodation in England for the season with Ralph Firman’s wife. Serra then dropped him back at Heathrow and that was it. He was a works Formula Ford driver for 1981. When he got back to São Paulo in Brazil, his father Milton da Silva wired Ralph Firman a 10 per cent deposit for his son’s season of racing and hoped for the best.

  Senna had three short months to prepare for his first season abroad. He was also planning to carry on his karting career. He was a professional karter and drove with big teams on a salary. That was his job and he had no intention of stopping. By that time he was winning virtually every karting race he entered, except the elusive world championship events.

  Senna had married Liliane Vasconcelos Souza in February 1981, which meant that the trip to England would also serve as their honeymoon. Souza was the daughter of wealthy parents and part of São Paulo’s aristocracy. She was a glamorous blonde with blue eyes and a perfect figure.

  When they
arrived at Heathrow it was as a couple of starry-eyed Brazilian kids who spoke little English and had no idea of the British way of life. In those days British winters were still fierce and snow covered the ground. It was an unwelcoming sight as they set up their first house together in a small rented bungalow in the village of Eaton, outside Norwich, not far from the Van Diemen factory and the Snetterton circuit. Senna inherited the lease of 29 Rugge Drive from countryman Raul Boesel, who had finished his time in Formula Ford and moved on to Formula Three.

  Firman says it was difficult for a young foreign driver racing in Britain for the first time. As he recalls: “We were very close at the time. Like the other foreign drivers, he relied on us, especially my wife, to organise things for him.”

  As soon as they got there Senna wondered why he needed his wife. He expected immigration officials to turn up at any minute to inspect her – or a representative of the local authority to arrive for a similar inspection. She may not have been essential but at the time she was his biggest asset. She had the appropriate domestic and social charms necessary for the young Brazilian to make his mark.

  But Liliane was horrified at her first experience of Britain. It was cold and she had moved from a life of luxury in São Paulo to a very ordinary middle-class life in rural Britain. The central heating thermostat was turned up to the maximum but it was still not enough to keep them warm.

  Like her husband, Liliane spoke little English but drew a lot of attention in the paddock. The early races were held in freezing weather until the British summer began to emerge in May. She may have despised her social circumstances but she enjoyed life as best she could in the tedious paddocks of Britain’s racetracks. She found herself almost every weekend spending three days at a racetrack with virtually nothing to do. Life as a Formula Ford driver’s wife, traipsing around Britain’s club racing venues, was very different from the privileged stratum of Brazilian society to which she was accustomed.