The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  Senna arrived early at the track in his grey Alfa Romeo, along with Brazilian journalist Reginaldo Leme of TV Globo. Leme had worked in Formula One since 1972. He had similarly been a friend of Emerson Fittipaldi and Nelson Piquet at the start of their careers.

  It was a circuit Senna knew well, but Donington was not a favourite test track for the Formula One teams. Williams had used it before to test another young driver, Jonathan Palmer, a few weeks before. Palmer was no slouch, a former Formula Three champion who had gone on to win the European Formula Two title in the senior two-litre category – one step below Formula One on the racing ladder. Palmer was sufficiently impressive to get a Grand Prix drive at his home race in Brands Hatch later that year.

  Palmer’s time was used as a marker to measure Senna’s performance by. If Senna couldn’t match Palmer’s time he knew he had no future in Formula One. He didn’t expect it to be a problem and it wasn’t.

  The Donington track of the early 1980s was only just over a minute long for a Formula One car. It was also the days before proper test teams: and Senna climbed into Keke Rosberg’s FW08C chassis number nine, with the world champion’s number one on the nose. It was the car Rosberg had driven at Silverstone, well out of the points in 11th.

  Frank Williams was late arriving after his Jaguar broke down on the M1 and he had to wait for a lift sent out from the Williams factory. When Williams arrived, he and Senna huddled for 30 minutes before he got in the car. Leme says: “I remember Frank was smiling and they talked about all the different things.”

  Keith Sutton was also photographing the test. Sutton had driven down from Manchester. He says: “I remember my Mark II Cortina only just made it to Donington over the hills.” Sutton was busy sending out press releases to all the magazines. “I remember as a 21-year-old I used to get calls from Bernie Ecclestone, Peter Warr, and Frank Williams asking how good he was. It was amazing.”

  He remembers how it all happened: “Senna called me and said it was a secret test. I need you to be there to take pictures, so we can get some publicity.” The irony was lost on the young Brazilian.

  Senna’s brother Leonardo and his close friend Alvaro Teixeira also witnessed the test. Senna was clearly nervous about what to expect. It was an emotional moment for him. After he changed into his overalls he walked around the car and said in Portuguese “chegou o dia”, meaning ‘this is the day, the day’s arrived, the dream day’. Leme remembers him knocking twice on the car. Then he climbed in as the mechanics helped him buckle up. They had written a note on the steering wheel saying ‘Take Care, New Driver’.

  Leme remembers: “I looked again and he was crying and I asked him what was wrong. He said that he was praying, that’s all.” Leme was filming the test for TV Globo, to be shown on television in Brazil, where there was already intense interest in Senna’s career. He says now: “We were all expecting success.”

  They were not to be disappointed, as Senna drove an amazing first lap, and improved on his second, third, fourth, fifth laps. Every lap he went faster. Jonathan Palmer’s time was soon within his reach. Palmer’s best lap in his test at Donington was 61.7 seconds. Within nine laps Senna had equalled that. In total, he covered around 20 laps that day, setting a new Williams record around Donington of 60.1 seconds.

  Senna himself called a halt to the test just as he was poised to be the first man to go around Donington in less than a minute. Williams says: “He stopped at about a 60.1 and said ‘I think this engine is going to let go, so I would rather not carry on’. We said ‘are you sure?’ and he said ‘yeah, that was fine for me, thanks very much.’”

  Frank Williams remembers: “He drove very few laps – only about 20 and he was immediately very quick. It was clear that driving a Grand Prix car was well within his depth. Jonathan Palmer had done a lot of testing there, and his time was around 61.5 and I think Senna had equalled that by his eighth lap. By the end he had lapped in 60.1 seconds, even though he was a tight fit in Keke’s car because Ayrton was tall, slim and Keke was quite broad and short. Obviously the guy was a bit different. It was all pretty easy for him, getting down to our previous best time within 10 laps. I certainly went away impressed.” The mechanics were surprised that he beat Palmer’s time by 1.4 seconds. Chief mechanic Alan Challis, now production controller at Williams, recalls: “It was a case of getting him familiar with what was in the cockpit and telling him to take his time, as you would with any Formula Three driver. The thing that struck me was how quick he was instantly. Remarkably smooth, confident and quick. He came back into the pits and we told him to slow down a bit. He said he wasn’t trying.”

  Race mechanic Charlie Moody was in charge of preparing the FW08C with his number two Robbie Campbell, who already knew Senna quite well because he had worked previously in Formula One with Brazilian driver Emerson Fittipaldi.

  “Of course, we’d seen Ayrton racing in Formula Ford 2000,” remembers Campbell. “I used to kid him he had a big engine in the car but, of course he didn’t. He was just quick. That day he went round Donington faster than anyone had ever driven a Williams there, and really, he wasn’t trying too hard because he didn’t fit the car. It was Keke’s, and he was a really cramped fit length-wise but was loose laterally because Keke was broader.

  “He did some laps, then came in and said to me: ‘How many gears does this car have?’ I told him it had six. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I only use five so far.’”

  Sutton remembers Senna’s speed into the chicane. “He was terrific under braking there. He was getting on the brakes so late and he was using all the road, just touching the entry kerb a couple of times. He just looked as if he had been doing it all his life.” Steven Tee, another photographer at the test, recalls: “They couldn’t believe how fast he was going. I think they might have done a couple of things to slow him down a bit, because everyone thought he was going too fast. They kept refuelling the car, things like that, to keep it heavy. I think they might have changed the suspension geometry and the wings a couple of times, too, without telling him. Nothing nasty, just little things to see if he noticed. To test him. He did notice. He spotted them all.”

  The team was certainly impressed, as Peter Collins discovered when they returned to the factory and gave him the news on the test. Collins remembers Alan Challis bubbling: “The bloke’s incredible. It was just like the first time we tested Jackie Stewart at BRM.” Collins and Challis told Frank Williams he should put him straight into the car and let him race. But it was not to be. For a change, Frank Williams was asleep.

  When Senna arrived back at West Surrey Racing, team boss Dick Bennetts remembers: “He never really talked about it. He just said it was good. There was a little smile he used to give, a smile of contentment. He was not one of the loud ones and he didn’t talk much about things like that. Once he was testing an F3000 car and had a big accident at Snetterton and didn’t even tell me about it. I went to the next race and people were asking me about it and I didn’t know.” Frank Williams was pleased with the test but not enough to move the earth to give Senna a drive.

  Williams explains: “We weren’t looking for a driver for the following year. We had Laffite and Rosberg and we were happy with that. Keke was already a world champion and was in his third or fourth season, so Senna didn’t compare. Both had a phenomenal ability, but Senna’s was untapped. He hadn’t found his limit yet. There is no mystery to this. We just look at all the evidence and make a decision. There is never any shining beam of light over one driver: you have to take a little bit of a punt.”

  Astonishingly, Frank Williams didn’t sign him up, and let the next Jackie Stewart slip through his fingers. A few months later Senna would also get a test with McLaren, which also let him slip away.

  Keith Sutton’s photos are today cherished memories. He reminisces: “He was pretty sensational that day, I have to tell you, and he impressed a lot of people. I never know why Frank Williams didn’t sign him up that day. I think he regretted it and I think that probably is the r
eason why he signed Jenson Button up because he didn’t want to let another one go through. It was a great privilege for me to be there that day and to see him in a Formula One car for the first time.” But he didn’t get the drive, or indeed any top drive the following season.

  Senna’s first test was the start of six months of intrigue and prevarication that would never happen today. Following that test in July 1983, arguably the greatest driver ever slipped through the hands of Frank Williams, Ron Dennis, Bernie Ecclestone and Peter Warr in quick succession.

  After such a test and a junior career, how he slipped through the Williams team’s fingers is a mystery to all. Today, Senna’s name would have been on four contracts before anyone would even let him sit in a car. Frank Williams plays the situation down today, but privately will admit it was one of his biggest mistakes.

  CHAPTER 8

  1984: The Toleman Year

  The rookie learns the ropes

  At the end of 1983 Ayrton Senna knew he would be driving in Formula One in 1984 – he just wasn’t sure for which team. The problem, for Formula One’s team principals, was that he was too good to be true. He had dominated the British Formula Three championship but not proved himself that much better than runner-up Martin Brundle, who had run him too close.

  It meant the the arrival of Ayrton Senna in Formula One in 1984 would be no simple affair. The complex Brazilian made his debut with the cold, methodical calculation that would eventually see him come to dominate the sport and arguably be its best-ever performer. First he turned down deals with three of the most powerful men in Formula One, and then he signed a contract with a team at the other end of the grid – a contract he knew he was going to break. But that’s why Senna was Senna.

  Nowadays, a driver with his obvious talent, would have been rushed into the formula straight out of Formula Ford 2000. But then there were lessons to be learned and an apprenticeship to be served. It was totally different to the system that operates today where young drivers are hounded by avaricious managers and signed up to long, lucrative management deals.

  Back then even ace Formula Three drivers traditionally did not graduate straight to Formula One; a period in Formula Two – or Formula 3000 as it later became – was deemed necessary. Senna was trying to skip a season. Only Jackie Stewart had previously managed that, back in 1965, and then Emerson Fittipaldi half a decade later.

  It was a year of politics, when all the top drives with the four top teams seemed to be sealed for someone else. It wasn’t that he was unwanted; events had merely conspired against him. Then, as now, Formula One seats were highly coveted and depended on a mixture of talent, cash and nationality. Peter Warr at Lotus desperately wanted him to replace Nigel Mansell, with whom he did not get on. But title sponsor Imperial Tobacco owned John Player Special and wanted a British driver, so Mansell kept his seat – as did his Italian partner Elio de Angelis, who had an ongoing contract.

  Warr remembers how he was on the brink of signing Senna: “I had Ayrton in my office ready to sign for $50,000 and I told Peter Dyke, the promotions manager of John Player, ‘you’ve got to do this!’. He produced the British newspapers on the Sunday morning which had got headlines ‘Mansell Third!’ They completely omitted the fact that Elio was pole in the same car. So that was justification for keeping Mansell for the following year.”

  Williams was also interested, but was not in a position to offer Senna a ride because it still had Jacques Laffite under contract for another year as Keke Rosberg’s partner. McLaren had Niki Lauda and John Watson under contract. And then Renault sacked Alain Prost, and Dennis swooped to sign him in place of Watson, so there was no room for Senna at McLaren for 1984. There was a place at Brabham but this was blocked by politics. Nelson Piquet didn’t want another talented Brazilian threatening him as he had threatened Niki Lauda all those years ago. He had been there and done that as the aggressor, and didn’t want it done to him. In any case, Piquet had recognised Senna as a major new talent to threaten him as Brazil’s Formula One hero, and had already taken a dislike to him, Senna remembered that. Piquet had snubbed Senna when he had tried to introduce himself in the Belgian Grand Prix paddock at Zolder in 1982.

  But this didn’t stop every savvy team principal, except strangely Frank Williams, from arriving at Senna’s door, contract in hand – not for a race seat in Formula One, for a year of testing. Peter Warr of Lotus, Ron Dennis of McLaren and Bernie Ecclestone of Brabham all presented lucrative deals for testing in 1984, and long-term contracts that tied him to driving later on their terms, if he made the grade. But none of them had a drive for him that year.

  He wanted none of it. For one he didn’t want to be tied in the long term, and he wanted to race in 1984. It wasn’t arrogance; even at the end of 1983 he wasn’t sure he had what it took to succeed at the highest level.

  So he accepted a two-year deal with Toleman – the best offer he could get at the time. It was all part of the Brazilian’s carefully calculated strategy to turn himself into a world champion.

  It wasn’t the first time he had turned the big boys down. Ron Dennis had casually offered Senna a fully-funded Formula Three drive and an ongoing commitment to Formula One even while he was still racing in Formula Ford, but Senna was wary of committing himself too soon, especially to a man like Dennis, who had all sorts of strings attached. Even then he generally had confidence in the greatness that was to come, and was not about to let himself be trapped at the crucial stage of his Formula One graduation. He had analysed the fate of other promising drivers who had moved up with the wrong team and found themselves helplessly bogged down by an uncompetitive car.

  Dennis was not the only one who had watched Senna on the nursery slopes and seen the fabulous artistry at work. Alex Hawkridge, the managing director of Toleman, had also been monitoring his performance closely. He was one of the first people beyond the club racing world to appreciate the Brazilian’s prodigious talent.

  Midway through 1982, he too offered to pay Senna’s way through Formula Three, and he too was rejected – politely but firmly, as was invariably Senna’s way.

  There may have been no seats to drive but there were plenty of testing drives that came Senna’s way after his Donington trial with Williams.

  On a cold day late in November, he tested a McLaren MP4 at Silverstone. It was part of his prize for winning the British Formula Three championship, sponsored at that time by McLaren’s major backer, Marlboro. The test was a bit of a showdown between him, Martin Brundle and Stefan Bellof. Regular driver John Watson posted a time first thing in the morning, then left it to the young guns to see how they matched up. Senna went first and almost immediately set a fast time, but the engine blew, even though he drove it all the way back to the pits. Dick Bennetts, his old Formula Three team manager, says: “He didn’t earn many brownie points from Ron Dennis for that.”

  The engine was changed and Brundle and Bellof set similar times in a comparable number of laps. The wily Senna badgered Dennis into giving him another go; he realised perception was everything. He went out and set a time faster than Watson’s. Still he didn’t get the drive. Herbie Blash, then Brabham’s team manager, was watching proceedings and told then team boss Bernie Ecclestone what he had seen.

  Then Alex Hawkridge gave Senna a test drive at Silverstone in the 1.5-litre turbo-charged Toleman TG183B, a chunky, angular car designed by Rory Byrne, now one of the architects of Ferrari’s world championship dominance.

  He used this second chance to go much faster. This ability to influence events in his favour was a key difference that would lead their paths on different trajectories in years to come. Senna was ruthless and cunning, and was hell-bent on gaining the greatest advantage he could muster, regardless of what subterfuge he might have to employ. He had a winner’s mentality to the exclusion of all else.

  When he arrived for the test on Wednesday 9th November, Senna was surprised by a scepticism among the team that he hadn’t encountered in earlier tests. He got into the
regular car of Derek Warwick, who had left to drive for Renault and was regarded by Toleman engineers as a real star. Senna wasn’t.

  The track was damp initially, but gradually the day became crisp and pleasant. Ironically Senna’s arch-rival in Formula Three, Martin Brundle, was testing for Ken Tyrrell. Arrows was also out, with Marc Surer driving. The scepticism lasted as long as it took Senna to complete his second flying lap. The stopwatches told the story. Senna lapped the Northamptonshire circuit faster than Derek Warwick had ever managed in a Toleman. At the British Grand Prix in July, Warwick had qualified 10th fastest in 1m 12.528secs. Senna’s second lap was 1m 12.46secs, some six-100ths faster than Warwick. The car was identical in specification, except for a new six-speed gearbox and a slightly lower turbo-boost setting. The cooler temperature let the turbo engine breathe better and therefore develop a little more power, and the car had been developed further since July; but against that was the ambient temperature drop and less heat in the tyres, although the track pretty much dried out as the day went on. In all, Senna was probably at a disadvantage and his performance, on used Pirelli 91/99 rubber, was a sensation. From then on, Toleman’s engineers forgot all about Warwick and focused on a new hero.

  Despite a problem selecting fifth and sixth gears due to a loose bearing, and using less than race boost, Senna worked down to an eventual best of 1m 11.54secs on new race tyres. It would have been good enough for eighth on the grid at the Grand Prix four months earlier. “His attitude?” Alex Hawkridge remembers. “Absolutely no problem. The guy did everything we expected of him, and more. I was very impressed with the ease with which he seemed to do everything. He was in complete control from the word go.”

  Senna did 72 laps before he began to feel sore. He said on the day: “At first I thought I was comfortable in the car. Now I find I wasn’t. Look how blistered my palm is. I found the power very impressive in the short gears, and very smooth in the top ratios, but on these tyres you have to watch the car very, very carefully even in a straight line, so you can’t relax for a second.”