The Life of Senna

by Rubython, Tom

  CHAPTER 28

  Fear, Death, God and Racing

  One man’s beliefs and motivations

  Ayrton Senna feared very little in life – just two things in fact: God, and life itself. He wasn’t afraid of death but he was afraid of serious injury and incapacitation. In Adelaide he once said, and repeated a slightly different way in Estoril six months later, that he could never accept not living a full life, the sort of life he already lived. Now the words he used are haunting and worth repeating again: “If I am going to live, I want to live fully, very intensely, because I am an intense person. It would ruin my life if I had to live partially. So my fear is that I might get badly hurt. I would not want to be in a wheelchair. I would not like to be in hospital suffering from whatever injury it was. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant.”

  After the kind of accident he suffered at Imola on Sunday 1st May 1994, inevitably he would have preferred the fate he got. He always made that clear.

  Senna did feel fear, but always on the day before he got in a Formula One car, as he admitted: “I always think about risk the day before I get in the car, especially if the circuit is one of the more dangerous ones. I must think about it because I am exposing myself to a certain risk. The more calculating you can be, the less can go wrong because of an unexpected situation.” Despite those fears, come race or practice day Senna’s mind was clear and the fear gone. It was the way he prepped for a race.

  Although, apart from Elio de Angelis’s death in testing in 1986, he did not experience death at a race track until, ironically, the very last weekend of his life, he knew the dangers and often used to talk about them. Above all he was aware of the charmed life he led – something denied to most other people. He said: “I don’t really know the meaning of fear in English, but the way I see it, the danger of getting hurt or getting killed is there because any racing driver lives very close to it all the time. It is because we are in a close relationship with that experience, consistently, that we learn how to live with it better than other people.”

  The Brazilian had an incurable fascination with accidents that caused injury. In the few times a driver was injured during his time in Formula One, Senna was always close to the action. It might have been considered morbid behaviour by those unfamiliar with his personality. But he thought that by being there and learning what had happened he could understand the process of an accident - and how to survive it. This particular characteristic was never more apparent than during his last weekend at Imola, when there were two serious accidents. One where the driver – Rubens Barrichello – went to hospital and the only serious consequence was him missing the race; the other where the consequence was rather more severe and the driver, this time Roland Ratzenberger, effectively died in his car. Senna was immediately on the case visiting the site of Ratzenberger’s accident in the pace car (and getting into trouble for it) and was right by Barrichello’s side when he regained consciousness after flying into a barrier and being hospitalised. For him it was more a learning process than human concern.

  The faster he drove the nearer he was to having an accident and he was more aware of that than any other driver: “You have extraordinary feelings and emotions when you get near an accident. If you know why you are doing it, and how you are doing it, then you feel fine. You know the limits – you have it in your hands. It’s fascinating in a way – even attractive. But it’s a challenge to control it and not exceed those limits. The feeling of living in that band, which I think is very narrow, is a real challenge – and maintaining it very much a motivation.”

  Senna was always adamant that the fear was gone once he stepped into a racing car – any he had existed entirely outside the cockpit. As he said: “You should have no fear because if you have fear, you cannot commit yourself. It’s important to know what fear is because it will keep you more switched on, keep you more alert. On many occasions it will determine your limits.” When Senna got frightened he was always stopped, as he was at Monaco in 1988.

  The Brazilian admitted he often reached the extreme limits in his driving, as he undoubtedly did on 1st May 1994. Whatever went wrong with the car, and no one will ever know what really happened, he might have been able to save the situation if he had not been driving on the absolute limit. But as he said: “We live in extremes: we tend to go to extremes. It is attractive to go to those extremes, particularly with strong emotions, because it becomes a challenge to bring the emotion back to the centre. By going to the extremes, and then being able to bring it back to the centre, you get the performance. It’s important to have the feeling of fear, in a way, because it keeps part of you in an area where you can hold yourself in equilibrium.”

  Senna rarely hurt himself in an accident. Twice in 1991 he was mildly hurt but until 1st May 1994 he had never drawn his own blood in a Formula One car. He had suffered far more serious accidents on his jet-skis than he ever did in a car. Again he was always aware of what danger he was in but believed he was basically in charge: “Once you sit in a racing car, you know you are taking risks, and you know you are exposing yourself to the possibility of having an accident. Of course you never think you are going to have a bad accident or get injured. But you always have it in the back of your mind. And in most cases it determines the limits you establish for yourself... how fast you go in a corner or over a full lap... in a qualifying lap or during a test. And that is a very important feeling to have, because in a way it helps you stay together and not overshoot in many situations. It is self-preservation but without disturbing your concentration and commitment to driving.”

  In 1988, when Senna won his first world championship, it had a dramatic effect on him. He started talking a lot about God to journalists whereas he had hardly mentioned religion before. He found God as he found success – the inference was that God had given him the world championship and he did not think much of himself until he had won it. It was as if he changed from that day on. He tried to explain it: “I believe we should choose the right moments to talk about such things very carefully. And we shouldn’t let it flow completely naturally all the time. There are times when you should hold back a little bit because it won’t do any good. What you try to do may go completely the other way if you do not choose the right moment.”

  It was very hard to understand what he meant but he grew increasingly eloquent as he got older - and started talking about it in greater detail. In one press conference in 1988 he rambled for a good half-hour about his beliefs and what they signified: “In life, people believe in many different Gods. All over the world there are different ways of praying to, or believing in, a superior power. My belief is that there is only one God, and he is the king of kings – the most powerful of them all. In the world generally there is the good power and the bad power; good things and negative things. All that we see, all that is part of the world – the sky, the sun, the moon – has been created by this God. He controls everything: the bad things only happen if he allows them to happen. His reasons and his desires, his objectives, can only be understood by him. We do not have the ability to understand his objectives for us. He knows what goes on in our hearts and minds before we can feel it. And he is the only one who is able to know. I have always been religious, because of my family, but I was what I would call a superficially religious person. However, over the past year-and-a-half, two years, I have started to devote more of my time to my psychological side, my spiritual side, and tried to learn more about this way of life. I have been fortunate enough to have some good people close to me that know a lot more than I do, to give me the help to start at the right place, and learn the right way. As I’ve been doing it, I have had, on different occasions, situations that have proved [his existence] to me. I was fortunate enough to see things... I wouldn’t have believed it if it was just by theory or discussion. I needed the proof to believe in the first place. And I was fortunate enough to have the proof in different situations, on different occ
asions, of happiness and frustrations, disappointments, doubts and confidence. I had signals that showed me his desire and his power, more than anything his power, to control anything and everything. Of course, talking is fine. Some people, I’m sure, will know what I’m talking about because they have also experienced it. Some won’t because they’ve never had the experience, and they will not believe. What is important to me is to give people the facts that I have been through, let’s say the experience I have been through. I’m not doing anything more than relating the experience that I have had so far, as facts. That has changed my life, progressively, and it is still changing my life. I am today a different person, a much better person, and I know tomorrow I will be even better.”

  It was apparent that he swaged his religious commitments by reading the Bible as he was not a churchgoer. His devotion to God was totally on his own terms – he belonged to no specific religion and had nothing to do with any church. He said explaining: “I share my beliefs with people who have the same feelings as I have, people who see things the same way I see them. These people know a lot more than I do. I have started to learn, to have help from these people, so I can progress and improve.”

  Senna craved understanding and found it in the pages of the Bible, as he admitted: “The best thing I have ever read is the Bible – it’s the best book, the all-time best-seller. There you can find all the explanations and all the answers you are looking for. I don’t think a lifetime is enough to read it all properly.”

  Prayer became ever more important to him right up to the end of his life. As he said: “When things are difficult for me to understand, I try to pray and try to talk to him [God] to ask him to show me my way of life, give me some sign, some light, some understanding. And reading the Bible, I swear to you, many times I got the answers to questions that I could not understand or accept. Opening the Bible, he [God] is immediately there, talking to me about what I am asking, giving me the understanding. That is the beauty of this way of life, to be able to have such a contact. Reading the Bible, he talks to you. It’s even stronger than if someone is standing in front of you and talking to you. That has happened not once but many times with me. Psychologically you can be the strongest man in the world, or physically, but on your own you cannot do it, especially in my profession where it’s such a fight all the time, such a stress, such a tension – there are moments when you cannot do it by yourself, you’ve got to have the source of power. And the only source of power that will be with you all the time is him.”

  After the race in Monte Carlo in 1988, when Senna crashed out of the lead dramatically, he claims he met God. He called it part of the learning experience: “I am learning about it. The more you learn, the more you want to learn, the more you experience it, the more you want to experience it. It’s more than power, it’s peace: an equilibrium in which your mind and body go into a different level of living. It’s natural that you want more – you want to go deeper and live more of this life. So today I face so many frustrating and difficult moments, and yet I find the power and the strength to carry on fighting. I know on some occasions that I would not be able to do it, physically or mentally, just by myself. And if I am doing it, and finding the power and the strength, it’s because someone is behind me, and ahead of me, and on my left and my right. I can feel it – and it is a beautiful experience to be able to live this way.”

  Senna almost became an evangelist because he was so passionate about his beliefs and thought that everyone could reach out to what he had: “It is something that is available to all of us, not just me. It is just a question of asking for it, and of opening our minds and our hearts for him [God]. He is there all the time just waiting for us to say.”

  He was also reconciled to the fact that it was not always positive and admitted that he had doubts when that happened: “When you have a hard time, you suddenly have doubts. But his [God’s] reasons, on many occasions, are only his reasons. Only he [God] knows why things should happen, even if they seem like a bad thing. But in the future it will be a good thing for us. Our understanding is so short, so small, compared to his, that on many occasions we cannot understand. That is where faith is everything. I finally found that in my life, that is what gives me strength to go through the nice times and the difficult times. This year on many occasions I was winning a race when suddenly, boom, something went wrong. I am sure in different years I would get out of the car mad, completely upset, and talk a lot and criticise. I did the opposite this year. I was disappointed, of course, but I had equilibrium and I was at peace. I was able to accept it in a constructive way. I was able to give the people who work with me part of the power that I had to keep whole and look to the future. And that is something I was not able to do a few years ago. What’s the difference? The difference between a few years ago and now is that I have finally found him [God], and I have him, like I said before, all around me.”

  After 1988 Senna appeared to have referred to God in everything he did. He said: “I had not experienced that before: I wish I had found it before [1988]. That’s the proof to me. I know my character. I know the way I am, the way I behave. And suddenly I start to find the way I am behaving strange because it’s not me. I am much more aggressive and much more pushy when something goes wrong. But suddenly I accept things when they go wrong – I am disappointed but I rationalise it and accept it and look at it as something that will count positively some time in my future even if I cannot understand it in my small mind. That makes all the difference in life.”

  Somehow Senna always seemed ready for death. As he said: “The day it arrives, it will arrive. It could be today or 50 years later. The only sure thing is that it will arrive.”

  CHAPTER 29

  1994: The Williams Year

  A brief shining moment

  After a decade of waiting, Frank Williams and Ayrton Senna finally got together at the close of the 1993 season. It was a partnership that had been rumoured on so many occasions that it seemed inevitable – the deal had often come very close but failed to materialise. And it was somewhat precarious right until team principal Frank Williams inked his signature on an option letter before the Portuguese Grand Prix in 1993.

  Since providing Senna with a Formula One car to drive at a test session at Donington in July 1983, Frank Williams had been waiting for Ayrton Senna to join his team and Senna had been waiting to join Williams.

  As McLaren went into decline and Williams went into the ascendancy, the three-time champion had been looking to move to the team. It was a well-suited and well-timed alliance.

  Senna had always had an excellent relationship with Frank Williams and both were passionate about their racing. Williams was also a fan of Senna, and it was almost inexplicable the Brazilian hadn’t joined the team first in 1984 and then again in 1985. The next chance came in 1988, but then Williams itself was down on its luck. Frank Williams said then: “I find Ayrton a fascinating character. For me, what sets him apart is his mental application, his ability to focus his mind on one thing. I’ve had experience of preparation for meetings and negotiations, and believe me, you’ve got to be ready. It’s verbal terrorism – you can feel the bullets. Maybe if we ever did get together, we’d last three months, then kill each other.” The words, heard now, are haunting.

  The negotiations lasted almost two years. Having made his feeling so plain in 1992 and 1993 that he wanted to join the team, and having declared midway though 1992 that he would drive for the team for nothing in 1993, he had little room for negotiation when it came to his salary for 1994. Prost had earned a rumoured $14 million the previous year, by far and away the most money Williams had ever paid a driver. In fact the hefty pay packet had caused the split with Nigel Mansell in 1992 and was the reason he went to America in 1993 to race in IndyCar. Faced with paying Prost $14 million and Mansell his same salary again for 1993 – $12 million, almost 40 per cent of the team’s income – Frank Williams’ crude solution was to offer Mansell a new contract worth only $6 million. It w
as a crass decision guaranteed to upset the team’s most successful driver ever, and it did. He stormed out in disgust and turned down a last-minute offer to keep him for 1993 and restore his $12 million retainer. But the situation helped ease Senna into the team for 1994.

  As a result of all this, Williams was in an excellent position to negotiate when Senna came calling. The outline of a deal was agreed halfway through the season, as it became clear that Prost was going to win the world championship. If Frank Williams had needed any proof of how good Senna was, he had given it to him that season. Driving a McLaren with a Ford Cosworth engine and a 100 horsepower deficit, he had on occasions run Prost ragged when given half a chance and had won five races.

  Frank Williams recalls how anxious Senna was to join the team in mid-1992: “A possibility for Ayrton to join us re-emerged towards the end of 1992, primarily led by him. Ayrton very much wanted to get in the car for 1993 and he just never left me alone. He was very persistent, very tough-minded, and occasionally I was frightened to go home because the phone would never stop ringing. He knew I was there so I would have to answer. I would get half-an-hour’s conversation, mainly on his side, of why we should put him in the car.” The reality was that Alain Prost had completely blocked Senna out of the picture for 1993. But 1994 was different and a deal was done, regardless of what Prost thought about it.

  Senna was in a very poor negotiating position when it came to sitting down with Williams to thrash out terms. He ended up agreeing a retainer of about half the sum he had received the previous year from McLaren. Frank Williams agreed to pay him around $8 million but Senna would have rights to sell a lot of space on his overalls, and retain his cap and tee-shirt rights. Finally, at the beginning of September 1993, after discussions that had gone on all year, Senna and Williams signed a letter of intent for 1994.