The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  When Senna was looking for a way out he made it very clear to Josef Leberer, who was by then a very close friend, that he would have to move too. Leberer was privy to Senna’s secrets and he shared everything with him. Leberer remembers: “Whenever he had a telephone call, I never had to leave the room. He used to say ‘no, don’t worry, I trust you’. It was really nice.” Senna told him: “We don’t have to talk about it now our friendship, but I just wanted to say it, if I move or change, it is clear that you are coming with me. I would like you to stay with me as long as I am in Formula One.”

  Although he knew his McLaren would be inferior to the Williams that year, it was still a shock to Senna to see Nigel Mansell romp away with the first five races of the season. In doing so he beat the record that Senna himself had set the previous year when he won the first four rounds. To make matters worse, Mansell simply looked invincible. The Williams Renault FW14B was just too fast for the opposition and Mansell was also too fast for his team-mate Riccardo Patrese.

  As a result of Williams’ dominance, McLaren was forced to take drastic action. The team had planned to use the MP4/6B, a revised version of the previous year’s car, for the first three races of 1992. The MP4/7A was due to make its debut at the Spanish Grand Prix, the fourth race of the season, and the team had planned to use the four-week break between Brazil and Spain to test the final package and make any necessary adjustments. But in a desperate attempt to challenge Williams, McLaren brought the MP4/7A in a race early, for Senna’s home race in Brazil. This lost the team vital testing time and neither Senna nor his team-mate finished the race – Berger retiring with an engine failure after four laps and Senna suffering an electrical failure after 17 laps.

  It was the engine that was the real problem. With Honda about to quit, engine development was as good as finished. Senna felt the RA121E had not been developed enough during the off-season. The development unit, the RA121E/B, was incredibly thirsty and had an added weight handicap of 60lb. The car was underdeveloped, the engine was underdeveloped – and heavy and thirsty to boot. The McLaren package was simply too technically inferior to the Williams Renault FW14Bs to seriously challenge for wins. Monaco was the first race of the season when the engine developed horsepower comparable to that of its 1991 sister unit.

  But Ayrton Senna was a racer through and through and never stopped trying. He had only once failed to make the top three on the grid, in Mexico after crashing heavily in the Friday session. He had retired from three of the five races so far, but had made the podium both times he had been able to finish. His third place in Imola was well deserved, but not an easy feat. He drove so hard to get on the podium that he was wracked with crippling torso cramps, which left him slumped in the cockpit for 20 minutes after the race.

  The sixth race of the season was the 50th Monaco Grand Prix, and it was important for Senna. He had scored four wins on the street circuit and was racing for the Graham Hill trophy, awarded to anyone who could equal or beat Hill’s record five wins in Monte Carlo. But Mansell, leading the world championship by 26 points from Patrese and 42 from Senna, had never won Monaco, the most prestigious race on the calendar. In the back of his mind he believed he could win every race that season, so dominant was his car. He had peaked at just the right time.

  Thus Mansell and Senna arrived in Monaco, two drivers equally determined to win. But few believed Senna could beat Mansell. Williams and Mansell were in such great form that Senna only had a chance if something went wrong. And that didn’t look likely, as Williams Renault had 90 per cent reliability in the first five races, four of which were one-two finishes, with Mansell’s team-mate Riccardo Patrese retiring once.

  As Monaco loomed on the horizon, Senna’s morale was low. The Monte Carlo circuit was one of his favourites, but the car’s handling was unpredictable – potentially disastrous for a circuit like Monaco with 20 turns.

  In the first qualifying session on Thursday, Mansell was on excellent form and soon topped the timesheets with an impressive 1m 21.535secs. A suppressed yawn rippled around the paddock. The Williams-Mansell domination was a tired storyline. Then Senna hit the track, and astonishingly bettered Mansell’s time by 0.004 seconds: a minuscule amount, but enough to earn him a round of applause in the pressroom, where journalists had perked up at the hint of change that Senna’s lap had brought. Determined to stay at the top of the timesheets, Mansell went out again, pushing his car over the limit and consequently spinning off, ruining his tyres. While Mansell was in the pits, Senna went faster with a time of 1m 21.467secs, a further 0.064 seconds quicker. Once new tyres were fitted to Mansell’s car, he asserted his authority, recording a startling 1m 20.714secs, 0.753 seconds faster than Senna’s best time. The Brazilian was aghast. Even his most determined drive around his favourite circuit was not enough.

  McLaren took advantage of the rest-day Friday to fit a lighter engine specifically for the second and final qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. So determined was the Brazilian to get pole position, he pushed the car beyond its limits and paid the price. He lost control on the exit from Casino Square, and as he came down through Mirabeau, the rear of the car twitched under braking and spun, causing the rear wing to fall off as he passed through the tunnel.

  He turned to the spare car for the rest of the session, and bettered Thursday’s time, but could not match the Williams’ times. After trading provisional pole position, Nigel Mansell and his team-mate occupied the first row of the grid, with Senna relegated to third, 1.113 seconds off the pole pace. Mansell’s pole lap of 1m 19.496secs was nearly a second faster than Senna’s 1991 pole time, the first-ever lap of Monte Carlo completed in under 1m 20secs and over 150kph.

  “We can’t do anything with the Williams here,” Senna said after qualifying. “I must be patient during the race and hope that something happens to Nigel.”

  Race day dawned sunny and warm, a stark contrast to the previous year’s dire conditions. Patrese was fastest in the morning warm-up, but Mansell was still favourite to win. Senna knew that he would be pushed to get on the podium with the car the way it was. He was seated on the grid next to Ferrari’s young hotshot Jean Alesi, whilst McLaren team-mate Gerhard Berger and another young new talent, Michael Schumacher, driving the promising Benetton Ford, made up the third row of the grid.

  Mansell’s start was faultless; Patrese’s less so. He had the slight disadvantage of starting off line on the dirty side of the track and failed to accelerate on line immediately, allowing Senna a chance. Although a row behind, Senna had the benefit of the racing line and the clean track. As the cars approached the first corner, the sharp right-hander Ste Devote, he made his move. He dipped past the Williams and up the inside of the corner, which meant Patrese could either yield or push for the racing line and take them both out. Patrese chose to yield and Senna swept past the Italian.

  “If Riccardo had been ahead of me out of that corner, I doubt I would have ever got past him,” Senna said after the race. “It was the only chance I had to make up a place. Monaco is the hardest place to overtake in the world. I went for it at the last moment because if I had given Riccardo any indication that I was going to try and pass him, he would have closed the door. I got into second, but the problem then was to stop the car before I hit Nigel, because I was coming up so quickly that I thought he might not have seen me! But it worked out OK and it was a good manoeuvre.”

  Once in second place, Senna started to challenge Mansell, but he soon realised that his charge was fruitless, as Mansell edged away by a second a lap. By lap four Senna was four seconds behind, eight seconds behind six laps later and 20 seconds behind by lap 20. Patrese hassled him only one second behind, but despite being in a superior car, he could not get past the Monte Carlo maestro. All he could do was harry him into a mistake and that was unlikely. With Senna’s driving skills the Brazilian soon eased away, but made no progress on Mansell’s Williams in the ever-growing distance.

  “I knew there was no way I could beat him,” Senna
admitted. “It was impossible with the superiority of his car – we were in no position to challenge Williams for a win. But you never know in Monaco. So I tried to push hard enough so that I was in a position where I would benefit if anything happened to Mansell. Already in the early stages of the race, I was planning for the later stages.” Senna always had a Plan A and a Plan B strategy for every race. Plan A – getting past Mansell at the start – hadn’t worked, so he settled for Plan B – conserving his tyres and brakes should he be given an opportunity to get in front. There was no point in chasing the Williams.

  Senna drove consistently hard, but not on the limit. He kept Patrese at bay, but Mansell stayed a constant 20 seconds in front. On lap 60, Senna’s race nearly ended. Michele Alboreto lost control and spun on the narrow downhill section between Mirabeau and Loews. Senna had to slow to a halt to avoid ploughing into the Footwork. “I just managed to stop with wheels locked, maybe about half a metre from his car,” he recalled. It delayed his charge and Mansell gained another 10 seconds, to lead the race by 30 seconds. “I sat there thinking it just can’t be true, now I’ve perhaps lost any chance, even if Mansell gets a problem, I am so far behind… it wasn’t easy after that to fight on fully, to put the last ounce of effort into driving again. But I did.” The race continued uneventfully, with only 12 of the original 26 starters left on the track. With six laps until the end of the race, Mansell stormed through the tunnel for the 71st time. As he did, he lost the back end of the Williams, and slid sideways across the track. He radioed his pit crew, informing them that he had a puncture in his left rear tyre and to prepare him another set of tyres. He drove to the pits at a reduced pace, but the Williams team, which had already packed away half the equipment, was caught off guard, completely unprepared for an unscheduled stop. His tyres were changed, but the stop was tardy and the new tyres that were fitted weren’t heated properly.

  After seeing Mansell’s spin, followed by the frantic behaviour of the Williams pit crew, McLaren radioed Senna that now was his chance. They quickly calculated that Senna could get ahead if he started charging immediately. As Mansell pitted, Senna was entering the tunnel. He had to make his way round the rest of the track and get past Mansell during the pitstop. Mansell was crawling to the pits, and had a 10-15 second stop ahead of him, plus the time it took to drive the pitlane. Senna knew he could do it. He duly produced a blistering lap time. As he passed the pit straight, the McLaren personnel on the pitwall had their eyes firmly locked on the Williams, still in its bay on the pitlane. For the first time in 1992, something other than a Williams was leading a race. “I could see Ayrton go by and I knew I had lost it,” Mansell said afterwards.

  He rejoined on lap 72, with Senna leading by 5.1 seconds. Furious that he had lost the lead, Mansell proceeded to break the lap record twice in as many laps, with the final time standing at 1m 21.598secs at 91.234mph. Within three laps of Mansell leaving the pits, Senna’s lead had been reduced to 2.1 seconds. Senna was driving on worn tyres that caused his car to slide every time he put the power down. Mansell’s car was superior and the new rubber had by then warmed up to optimum temperature. Senna was tired, but he never gave up.

  “I was always at the absolute limit,” he explained afterwards. “At the technical limit, the car’s limit and also my own human limit.” Mansell attacked Senna’s lead super-aggressively. But having seized the initiative, the Brazilian was not going to relinquish it. Mansell tried to squeeze through, but Senna kept his cool. As Mansell remembers: “Sometimes I saw three cars in front of me. I was driving very hard, but he did – from his point of view – what he had to do… we were both way over the limit.”

  With any other driver Mansell would have got past, even at Monaco. But this was a battle between the two finest drivers in the world at that point in history. Mansell had the faster car but Senna had track advantage. He knew where Mansell would try his hardest to regain the lead – at the chicane on the harbour front. It was there a year earlier that Mansell had taken second place from Alain Prost, and Senna knew Mansell would be planning an action replay. As they came to the chicane on lap 76, they came upon JJ Lehto’s Dallara. Lehto pulled out of the way but the fractional delay to Senna was enough for Mansell to sense his chance. But Senna kept his cool and stuck firmly to the racing line, leaving Mansell ducking and diving behind.

  For the next two laps Mansell tried his hardest, darting across the track to find a way back into the lead. Around Loews hairpin on the last lap, Mansell pushed so hard he locked up, tyres smoking. Going into the final set of corners at Rascasse, Mansell made a last-gasp lunge down the inside and when that failed made another move around the outside. It was a brave attempt but he had to go too wide to clear the McLaren and his chance was lost.

  “For the last five or six laps, I had nothing left to give,” said Senna afterwards. “I knew Nigel would catch me on fresh tyres, that he would try everything and that I was in for a major war in the last three laps. It was exciting but very difficult because he was several seconds faster than me and I had no grip to put the power down. It was like being on ice. On the straights it was like a drag race, with wheelspin in third and fourth gear. Fortunately I only had three or four laps that way. But I gave it everything.”

  Senna attributed the power through the tunnel to the downforce and rear wing on the McLaren chassis, and Williams later countered that it was down to Honda horsepower. But it was neither. It was Senna’s management of the track, the car and engine, and his superior driving skill. He was not just in control of himself and the car;he was controlling Mansell, his Williams and the entire race. His McLaren team-mate Gerhard Berger summed up Senna’s performance perfectly: “Nobody but Senna could have won this race under these circumstances. Anybody else would have made a mistake.”

  Senna won the race just 0.215 seconds ahead of Mansell, elated but exhausted after the gruelling seven-lap chase. He got out of the car, took off his helmet and rubbed his face and hair, as if to try and wake up. His face was flushed from exertion, and sweat beaded on his forehead. Mansell, not as fit as his Brazilian rival, suffered chronic fatigue after the race. He staggered out of the car, bug-eyed from his failed attempts to pass Senna. He had to be steadied on the podium, and after the formalities were over, he collapsed on the ground clutching his bottle of champagne, totally worn out.

  Ironically, Mansell hadn’t had a puncture at all. A crooked, vibrating brake disc caused a wheel nut to loosen, which caused the wheel to wobble. Instead of a slow four-tyre change, the real problem could have been solved with a three-second burst from a wheel gun. “That is Monte Carlo,” said Nigel ruefully. “Ayrton was fantastic. He did nothing wrong at all and I have no complaints.” Mansell knew Senna had scored a popular win and broken the Williams dominance. His victory breathed fresh life into the stale 1992 season.

  It was a triumph for Senna to savour and he lingered at the post-race press conference for nearly an hour, where the media congratulated him for breaking Mansell’s run and winning the Hill trophy. “Monaco is the most important Grand Prix of all,” he told them. “That’s why it is so great to have equalled Hill’s record here. For me, it is one of the greatest things that can be achieved in motor racing.”

  His victory in Monte Carlo in 1992 was the highlight of his 41 race wins. It was a victory against the odds and stopped Nigel Mansell establishing a new world record of six consecutive Grand Prix victories in one season. Unfortunately for Senna, Monte Carlo was about as good as it was going to get that season. Although Senna took pole, his team-mate Berger scooped the following round in Canada when Mansell, Senna and Patrese failed to finish, and then Mansell won the next three rounds in a row. Senna won the next, in Hungary, but Mansell’s second place was enough to clinch both championships, with as many as five races of the season left to go.

  Senna was demoralised and highly unsatisfied with his team’s efforts. To make matters worse, Mansell had overtaken him as the premier figure in Formula One. When British police flagged do
wn a speeding Porsche on the M25 and posed the question, ‘Who do you think you are? Nigel Mansell?’, the car’s Brazilian driver replied wearily and truthfully: ‘No, actually I’m Ayrton Senna’.”

  Naturally there were rumours that Senna would be leaving McLaren and even Formula One. At the British Grand Prix in July, Senna explained: “I will stop if I don’t find a competitive car. There is no reason to risk my life for third place. The only pleasure I get from Formula One is being competitive. I cannot turn my back on McLaren because it has helped me take the title, but I want a team that can give me technical and organisational guarantees.”

  It was a warning to McLaren – and a sign of Senna’s absolute commitment As well as Mansell, he had a new adversary to contend with in the form of Michael Schumacher. The 23-year-old German had burst onto the scene at the previous year’s Belgian Grand Prix, making an impressive debut for Jordan. So impressive, in fact, that he was snatched away by Benetton in time for the following round in Italy. He remained with Benetton for the 1992 season, and while the team was usually not as fast as McLaren it had the greater reliability. This meant that with Mansell beyond reach, Senna and Schumacher would be fighting Patrese for second place in the championship.