Searching for Senna

This was going to be a 2012 Formula One season preview. It was going to ponder the ongoing dominance of Sebastian Vettel, the prospects of Australians Mark Webber and Daniel Ricciardo, whether McLaren and Ferrari could close the gap to Red Bull, etc. You get the idea. There was just one problem though – it was lacking a central figure; a key protagonist. Sure, you could argue a case for Vettel or Lewis Hamilton or even Mark Webber. But none can hold centre stage with remotely the same flair as Ayrton Senna once did.

Of course Senna’s record is outstanding – 162 races for 65 pole positions, 41 race wins and three world championships (1988, 1990 and 1991). Yet while using statistics to evaluate his career may give some sense of his place in history, in many respects they miss the point entirely.

Given that Vettel’s career is still more or less in its infancy (a weird statement to use for a two-time world champion, but he is still only 24 years old and may be driving for another decade yet), let’s leave him to one side and think about Senna compares with Michael Schumacher.

On statistics alone, Schumacher gets the nod at almost every turn, albeit that he has barely eclipsed Senna’s 65 pole positions (he has 68) despite featuring in 126 more Formula One races. Yet the calibre of machinery each driver has in any given year can distort such pictures quite badly, so let’s break it down further.

Both were undisputed masters in the wet – the displays of Senna in the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix (GP) and 1985 Portugese GP were as virtuous as Schumacher’s 1996 Spanish GP romp. Both did amazing things with a car that had betrayed them – Senna winning the 1991 Brazilian GP in a car stuck in sixth gear for more than ten laps, Schumacher running second in the 1994 Spanish GP when stuck for much of the race in fifth. We never saw the two go head-to-head in the same machinery and thus the debate about whom was the better will never be settled, but they remain the two greatest drivers I’ve ever had the privilege of watching.

With all due respect to the seven-time World Champion though, he never had the drawing power of the Brazilian. A bit of that can be boiled down to old-fashioned stereotyping; Brazilians are often seen as more flamboyant and passionate than their ‘efficient and clinical’ German counterparts. I’m not an avid soccer fan, but I’d much rather watch Brazil play the beautiful game than Germany. Like it or not, we often view individuals through these sorts of prisms. While Senna was almost certainly the more charismatic and appealing of the two to new audiences, the stereotype exacerbated the gap that already existed. Parlaying this aura into relationships with high profile TV stars and models over the years certainly didn’t hurt his cause.

The adoration of his fellow Brazilians was felt to a level that few, if any, others could replicate. As the phenomenal documentary Senna highlighted on numerous levels, many of his countrymen adored him on a level reserved for the exalted few. Part of that equation is simply something that Vettel, Schumacher or even our own Mark Webber can never replicate.

Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s was going through levels of poverty and social upheaval not seen in many ‘Western’ nations for decades. For many Brazilians, Senna was one of the few rays of hope in an otherwise often barren life. Just as modern Australia will struggle to love anyone the way that Depression era-riddled 1930s Australia loved Don Bradman and Phar Lap, those with too many ‘competing’ good things to look forward to won’t centre their love on one person the way that many Brazilians did towards Ayrton Senna.

Thus far we have Senna seemingly cast as the perfect storm of an amazing artist behind the wheel, with the charisma to match, who came from a country where to many he was the metaphoric shining light on the hill. But there is one more twist in this comparative tale.

It’s easy to forget now, but when Senna won his first world title in 1988, he succeeded another Brazilian in doing so. Indeed, Nelson Piquet’s three titles (1981, 1983 and 1987) emulated the feats of Senna, albeit that his records for pole positions (24 in 207 races), race wins (23) and sheer speed were not as strong. Nonetheless, why didn’t Piquet steal much of the ‘shining light’ thunder in the years immediately preceding Senna’s run?

Part of the difference was sheer driving ability, as highlighted above. However a much greater part came through in their respective personalities.

Piquet understood Formula One politics and used these machinations to his advantage; Senna was often outmanoeuvred politically and had to rely on his talents behind the wheel to overcome such hurdles. Piquet also had an extremely delicate temperament. In 1982 he threw punches at Eliseo Salazar after a collision when leading the German GP. Later in his career, he used the media to attack rivals such as Nigel Mansell (calling him "an uneducated blockhead") and even having the audacity to suggest that Senna "doesn't like women".

Contrast this prima donna-like behaviour to Senna. An occasionally sensitive and highly strung character with a number of crashes in his career where their ‘accidental’ nature could be called into question, he also had a tremendous sense of natural justice. He wore his Brazilian heritage proudly on his sleeve (and indeed, his helmet) in all situations, irrespective of the political and social traumas his home land was suffering at the time. He launched the Ayrton Senna Institute (a charity dedicated to Brazilian children) and had a far greater egalitarian streak than his public persona had given away. In short, he was truly a champion of the people, for the people.

As with seasons past, I will watch the 2012 Formula One season with great interest. Maybe one day Sebastian Vettel will enter the same echelon as a driver that I have currently reserved for Senna and Schumacher. But as a complete package, his story will never be compelling as that of the great Brazilian who left us all too early. The Formula One paddocks of the world have been the worse for his absence ever since.

Thanks to Getty Images Europe for use of the photo