The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  As Senna got wealthier with his near-$20 million-a-year income from driving and sponsorship, his attention was turned to what he could do for the poor of São Paulo. His focus was on children, and he was giving away around $2 million a year.

  Josef Leberer remembers: “We were driving through São Paulo and I had to ask him, ‘you are a wealthy guy, you see these poor areas, what do you think about it?’. He was such a good person. And you could see that it went deep into his heart because he said, ‘this is a big problem in Brazil and sometimes it is difficult with the corruption, but I would like to do something already’. He was supplying children in hospitals but he was never talking, he said ‘I don’t like to talk about it, I like to do it’. I remember I thought I was really proud to have the chance to meet someone like him.”

  At Imola for the San Marino Grand Prix, the story returned to normal after extensive testing at Imola, as Senna and Prost qualified first and second – 1.6 seconds ahead of Mansell’s Ferrari in third. Before the race, Senna and Prost hatched a secret plan. Senna put it to Prost that they should not race until Tosa, and thus avoid an accident like the one at Brazil, on a track that both of them knew to be dangerous. Thinking of the good of the team, Prost agreed.

  Senna had the better getaway and Prost slotted into second, as arranged. But the race was stopped following a horrific accident on the third lap. Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari flew straight off the track at Tamburello, where it hit the wall and burst into flames. Berger thought his number was up and was knocked unconscious by the sheer violence of the accident. He was pulled intact from the wreckage by marshals, suffering only minor burns, broken ribs, a fractured shoulder, concussion and shock.

  At the second start, Prost took the lead, but Senna seemingly broke the accord and overtook him at Tosa on the first lap; it stayed like that until the end. By then Prost was 40 seconds behind in second. A team statement later blamed the deficit on his tyres going off early.

  Prost was absolutely furious and seething as he took his helmet off. Journalists and the team, unaware of the accord, were bemused. He told them an accord had been breached. The hacks had no idea what he was talking about. Prost stormed straight off to the McLaren motorhome, where he told Ron Dennis what he thought of Senna and the damage he was doing to team morale. When Dennis would not immediately take his side, Prost grew even angrier and immediately left the circuit for the airport in a helicopter. He refused point blank to go to the post-race press conference and was fined $5,000.

  When Dennis tackled Senna afterwards, he had plenty of excuses ready. Firstly he told him that the accord only counted towards the first start not a restart, that Prost had broken similar agreements on several occasions in 1988 and that the accord had lasted only until Tosa.

  Dennis wasn’t at all convinced and ordered Senna to apologise. Senna explained to journalists afterwards: “He got the jump early, then I got the slipstream immediately, and I was in the slipstream all the way until the first corner, and I got much more speed than him. So that is the truth.”

  The following week McLaren was due to test at Pembrey, a little circuit near Llanelli in Wales. Pembrey was a very low speed circuit with the characteristics of the Monte Carlo circuit, the next race. It was chosen for privacy and it was here Dennis brought his drivers together and Senna duly apologised. Afterwards Ron Dennis simply said: “The problem is resolved.” To make things quite clear, he added in a statement: “They had agreed [Senna and Prost] that whoever made the best start, would exit the first corner ahead. Alain made the better start but Ayrton took the corner., which was not consistent with the agreement they had made. A subsequent discussion between them at Pembrey resulted in an apology from Ayrton.”

  But the problem wasn’t resolved, far from it. Senna later spoke to writer Gerald Donaldson off the record, in an interview not published until after his death. Senna told Donaldson that Prost’s problems at Imola had not been caused by tyres – that had simply been an excuse from the team. He said: “His mistake was spinning off, with no car problems. Although it was stated that there was a tyre problem, there was no tyre problem. So putting everything together there was an unhappy situation for him, and he tried to blame it all on the start.

  “At Pembrey I was quiet, I was doing my work. I kept everything to me, but I’m going to say exactly what happened. There was the threat of him stopping racing. As far as I was concerned I had nothing to do with it. I had something on my mind, and I did what I thought was correct in that situation.”

  In the few days between the race and the testing at Pembrey, Dennis spent hours on the phone to Senna urging him to apologise to Prost, who was apparently making dire threats to Dennis that he would either retire instantly or leave the team. With big sponsorships and commitments riding on the season, Prost had panicked Dennis and the team principal went into overdrive, pressuring Senna to apologise.

  It was reminiscent of his rescue mission 12 years later when he had to prevent star car designer Adrian Newey from leaving for Jaguar. Senna confirmed this: “I had a lot of pressure from Ron in order to accommodate the situation, to give, let’s say, some room for somebody to take the blame. And that’s what I did. Yes, I apologised. I realised how bad he felt in his mind, at Pembrey. Personally, I felt bad, because I don’t like to see anybody fucked in the head. And I realised he was completely fucked in the head. I was not responsible for it. I did not feel I was responsible in a bad way. But it happened to be that I was involved. At that time, we discussed about the thing itself. He had a view, and I had the view I told you. And Ron was trying to put things in a way in order to accommodate [Prost], because he was so fucked in the head, he was not in a position to accept anything. And if anybody had to do something, it was Ron, who tried very hard – and did a good job to convince me to change my mind. And I actually changed my mind.

  “After a big discussion, I said, ‘Okay, so I changed my mind, okay, I made a mistake.’ But to accept that I made my mistake, I had to change completely my knowledge of how an overtaking manoeuvre is done. You know, my concept of an overtaking manoeuvre is when you start to come along, and then you finally overtake. And in my concept, I got to the overtaking manoeuvre before the braking point. And I had to change. So I accepted that I did the final overtaking under braking. But I changed my concept completely. I was moved by the bad feeling I had in my heart to see somebody fucked in the head like he was. And due to some pressure from Ron, [who was] trying to make me see the magnitude of the problem: maybe he would stop, and how bad this would be, not only for him but also for the team, and for the rest of the season.”

  Senna asked Donaldson to check his version of the facts with Ron Dennis. Before he could do that the situation got much, much worse. Prost revealed full details, seemingly on the record, of what had happened, which up to then had largely remained secret. The whole story soon appeared in French sports daily L’Équipe.

  Senna then responded at length, on the record, to Prost’s version of events. He told the press he had not apologised to Prost of his own volition. Ron Dennis was back to square one. But Prost’s threat of retirement had gone, and he never mentioned it again.

  But the revelations to L’Équipe marked the start of serious hostilities between the two drivers that would endure until May 1994. Before this spat the relationship had been relatively peaceful, and might have remained so had Senna not appeared to have broken the accord he himself had suggested. Senna made it worse by continually making it quite clear to anyone who listened that Ron Dennis had forced him to apologise.

  Senna again stated: “It was stupid because it meant I had changed my opinion on the concept of our accord and I have never changed my opinion. I said sorry for the good of the team, to calm things down, because I was compelled to. I wiped away a tear because at that moment it was harming me.”

  Prost was incensed when he heard this. He fumed afterwards: “As far as Senna is concerned, I want nothing more to do with him. I have always tried to keep relationships go
od in the team, but I will no longer do that to Senna. What I appreciate more than anything is honesty. He has not been honest. Ron Dennis has put him under a lot of pressure to get him to tell the truth and Ayrton was very upset. He even cried. It was incredible.”

  On balance, Senna had broken his accord with Prost. It appeared much later that he had always expected to be ahead at the first corner and had therefore given it no thought. But Prost’s superior race thinking ensured he made a better start. Senna genuinely believed he was in the right, though as he did with so many track clashes later in his career. He was never able to give the other side any benefit of any doubt. There is little doubt he did suffer from a problem some people have, in that they recall a different version of events after an incident and from then on believe their version to be 100 per cent true.

  But Prost had also been wrong by speaking to the press about it.

  The situation between the team-mates was irreparable.

  At Monaco, Senna was totally dominant in qualifying. If anyone asked him about Prost, he said: “I don’t want to hear any more talk about that guy.” He also walked away with the race, winning by almost a minute from Prost to reverse the disappointment of 1988.

  In Mexico, Prost attempted a reconciliation, but Senna blanked him completely and did his talking on the track, taking the 33rd pole position of his career. Prost lagged Senna’s winning car by almost a minute, but on this occasion there were another three cars between them.

  Observers believed Prost had cracked and five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio advised him to retire. The Argentine said: “I had 10 very good years. Jackie Stewart had 10 years and you will have had 10 years after this one. Now is the time for you to think about other things in life and in the future. There are lots of other things in life apart from motor racing.” Prost did not agree.

  For Senna, with two wins on the trot, the 1989 world championship seemed a foregone conclusion. But typically, Prost had scored points in all four rounds.

  The United States Grand Prix was held in Phoenix, in early June, in 38°C of heat. It was a momentous occasion as Senna scored his 34th pole position, beating Jim Clark’s record. Senna had never seen Clark race but was well aware of his reputation, as he said: “I feel rather light-headed.” In the race Senna retired due to electrical problems while leading, and Prost scooped his first victory of the season.

  Reinvigorated, Prost followed that up with pole again, upping his game in front of so many French-speaking Canadians that it felt like his home race. Senna was completely eclipsed by the Frenchman in qualifying, as he had been at Paul Ricard the year before. But in a wet race the following day he was completely back to form.

  The Williams Renaults had a clear advantage over the McLarens in the wet and Prost was out of it anyway as he suffered a suspension failure on lap two. Senna battled bravely against superior opposition, pitting in and out for wet and dry tyres to find an advantage. He had it won with three laps to go when his engine expired and let the two Williams through for the team’s first victory since 1987.

  For the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard, Alan Prost once again raised his game in front of his countrymen and got pole. Senna was to suffer his second mechanical retirement in a row and did not even complete one lap as the drivetrain failed on the restart. Prost won again.

  But the main action for once was not on the track, as Prost announced at the race that he would be leaving McLaren at the end of the year, citing preferential treatment for Senna from McLaren and Honda. Prost did not say where he was going, but most seemed to think he would take Fangio’s advice and retire.

  That was not the end of it. In an astonishing mea culpa, Ron Dennis admitted that he believed Senna had been running with a superior engine since he joined the team. Dennis’s explanation, however, was gobbledegook: “I have not said anything about this before, but I feel we should say that there have been results from the engines which have made us query their performances. Fuel consumption, for example, has been different from one engine to the other. We and Honda have worked very hard on these differences since they became apparent after the Brazilian Grand Prix. It is something which is very difficult to understand from the theoretical and mechanical point of view as the engines are exactly the same. It has been of great concern to us all. We, McLaren, the team and Honda are working to understand them. I can say that any differences such as these are not planned.”

  Prost’s announcement focused all speculation on his future but did nothing to clear the air in the team. Dennis was anxious to retain his star driver line-up and hoped he could persuade Prost to stay.

  Senna may have been getting Honda’s development engines, but that was hardly surprising. Senna had a brilliant relationship with the Japanese whilst Prost did not have one at all. Senna’s engines were not reliable, however, as Silverstone was to prove. He placed his car as usual on pole, but was out after a few laps as Prost cruised to victory.

  But when the car held together and he had no problems, Senna would inevitably win. At Hockenheim however, during the German Grand Prix, there was bad news from Brazil: Senna’s manager, Armando Botelho Texheriro, had passed away from cancer in São Paulo. Ron Dennis knew how much Botelho meant to Senna and didn’t want him stressed on the eve of an important race. He gathered the Brazilian journalists and asked them to keep it secret until after the race. They agreed.

  Senna won the race ahead of Prost. When the press conferences had been concluded, Dennis took Senna to one side and told him about the death of his manager. Dennis had been right. Senna’s grief was palpable and it led to ludicrous rumours in the press room that he was planning to retire.

  In Hungary, McLaren was beaten out of sight by Nigel Mansell’s Ferrari. Senna finished second while Prost could only manage fourth.

  At the Belgian Grand Prix a fortnight later it was back to normal as Senna won from Prost at a soaked Spa: Prost’s championship lead had been whittled down to just 11 points. But the Spa event was more significant as Prost had intense secret negotiations with Ferrari about signing a three-year contact to drive for the team from 1990. When the Italian team agreed to pay him $12 million a year, he signed. That Ron Dennis could not persuade him to stay at McLaren Honda was no surprise, after all that had happened.

  After the Belgian Grand Prix, in an interview with French magazine Auto Hebdo, Senna revealed how difficult the situation had become: “I speak to his mechanic and he speaks to mine but between us, it’s finished. I adopted this attitude and I will maintain it. Because it’s me who will not talk to him, not the other way round. I never wanted to betray our agreement at Imola and I never thought for a second it was dishonest. Prost undoubtedly interpreted the manoeuvre differently, that I will admit. What I found out of all proportion was his reaction after the race. He lost fair and square. Even if he had led at the first bend, I would have beaten him. I was faster that day, that’s all. What was I supposed to do? Lift my foot off the accelerator on the straight because I was going faster than him? Are we racing or aren’t we?”

  On the eve of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Prost announced what everyone by then knew: he would drive for Ferrari for three years starting in 1990, alongside Nigel Mansell. At Monza, he thus immediately became the new hero of the tifosi. But he also let himself off his self-imposed leash, having developed a grudge against Ron Dennis as well as Senna. Prost felt Dennis had taken Senna’s side and was favouring him.

  He immediately began to heap criticism upon Dennis, whom he said had offered him money not to drive the following season. He told the French press: “Ron Dennis proves the regard he holds for me in doing everything to stop me driving against McLaren. It’s flattering. In 1988, I had the chance to say no to Senna’s arrival. But I thought the team would need a driver of his ability when I stopped. I was had. It’s a lesson, that’s all. There’s no point in having thoughts like ‘I would definitely have been world champion twice more’.” Prost even suggested that Honda could be aiding Senna by delibera
tely slowing his engine via satellite from Japan.

  In 1990 Senna refuted this version of events when his original biographer, Christopher Hilton, sent him a pre-publication manuscript and he scribbled in the margin: “One year earlier that McLaren having Honda, both Ron and Prost even went to Japan to convince Honda to come to McLaren and yet Honda came to Lotus. As for 1988 I initiated the work towards Honda and Prost would not have had Honda in 1988 if Senna was not part of the team. OK.” It seemed more plausible than Prost’s explanation, but maybe Prost was unaware how close Senna and Honda were.

  Prost also attacked his own team at the track. Having given his opinion on Honda he stated the Senna’s car preparation was favoured by the team itself. This was too much for Ron Dennis, who called one of his motorhome press conferences to state unequivocally that the team gave both drivers absolutely equal treatment, but, he admitted, he could not speak for Honda.

  Senna duly took pole while Prost qualified only fourth, and led all the way until lap 44 when a blown Honda handed victory to Prost. It was yet another mechanical failure for Senna in a season full littered with them. The Italian fans went wild. On the podium, Dennis still disgusted by Prost’s remarks threw the constructors winning trophy down at his feet. The crowd began to shout “cup, cup, cup.” Prost inexplicably took it and lowered the trophy into the crowd, and someone ran away with it. Prost’s contract stated that all winner’s trophies belonged to the team – the originals are extremely valuable. But it was not the money that angered Dennis. He owned a complete set of trophies for every race McLaren had ever won, and they were proudly displayed at the Woking factory.