Ayrton Senna Stories? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

Squabble · #1 05-01-2012, 08:41 PM

Any of you old timers have any Ayrton Senna watching stories? Anyone see him race in person? Anyone remember discussing him and his influence on the sport?

I just discovered him and am consuming as much info as I can find online but it all seems to suggest that he was just larger than can be captured on film/tv. I'm floored by him and his racing and he seems like an amazing guy.

Today was the anniversary of his death and I caught a little article that sent me researching his life.

toomany MBZ · #2 05-01-2012, 08:53 PM

Excellent driver, unemotional, didn't care for him.

MTI · #3 05-01-2012, 08:55 PM

Bio Pic available on netflix

t walgamuth · #4 05-01-2012, 11:05 PM

I never liked his ruthless on track attitude. Very high skills though, no question. (His death was not necessary. the steering column broke IIRC....really no excuse for that sort of a failure). the Italian govt tried McClaren (is that right?) for murder, I believe and the top guy there had to stay out of Italy for a couple of years, I believe.

I really liked Gilles Villeneuve....and his son who had a much higher sense of protecting his own life. they both raced hard but clean and took no guff from anybody on track.

i remember a moment when Jaques was a rookie in Indycar, racing at Cleveland.....Robby Gordon (who I like very much too) tried an aggressive move on Jaques which forced Jaques to risk a wreck to stop a pass. Young Jaques fought Robby off and held his position as Robby ended up losing significant ground on the deal. I liked it very much!

alabbasi · #5 05-01-2012, 11:25 PM

He had a huge rivalry with Alan Prost. I watched a documentary on him and they really got at each other. I remember watching Prost once threatening to put him into the wall during one race.

After Prost retired, they buried the hatched and became friends. He was one of the people that carried Senna's coffin during his funeral.

E150GT · #6 05-01-2012, 11:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alabbasi

He had a huge rivalry with Alan Prost. I watched a documentary on him and they really got at each other. I remember watching Prost once threatening to put him into the wall during one race.

After Prost retired, they buried the hatched and became friends. He was one of the people that carried Senna's coffin during his funeral.

I thought he and Michael schumacher had a big rivalry?

alabbasi · #7 05-02-2012, 12:01 AM

I believe that this was before Schumacher and it started while Prost and Senna were on the same team. Schumacher won the grand prix in 1994.

t walgamuth · #8 05-02-2012, 06:00 AM

I don't know the exact timeline but I suspect Shu and Senna's careers overlapped slightly.

Ah yes.....Prost. I watched a lot of F1 in those days. He was good. Another that springs to Mind is John Watson, who was a terrible qualifier but always came on strong in the race and tended to be on the podium at the end.

Nelson Piquet was a contemporary of Prost and Senna. After he retired from f1 he came to the US and was running at Indy one year and lost the rear end of his car by letting off the gas too abruptly when wanting to go into the pits in practice.

His car crashed heavily into Indy's unforgiving concrete wall and he destroyed his feet. He spent a lengthly recovery in Indianapolis. I sent him a get well note and he responded with a form letter with his signature. It was quite humorous. he was a very fun loving guy off the track. I still have the letter here somewhere.

My image of Piquet is running at Hockenheim in the BMW Brabham with the four cylinder turbo motor, late in the race turning up the boost and spouting huge flames out the exhaust every time he shifted or let off the gas.....good stuff.

Squabble · #9 05-02-2012, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by toomany MBZ

Excellent driver, unemotional, didn't care for him.

unemotional? here he is getting out of his car to help Comas: Ayrton Senna helps Eric Comas 1992 - YouTube

not to mention the quietly donated $400 million of his own money to help starving children in brazil: "As his profile rose, Senna expressed concern over the widespread poverty in Brazil. After his death it was discovered that he had quietly donated an extremely large portion of his personal fortune (estimated at around $400 million) to help poor children. Shortly before his death, he created the framework for an organisation dedicated to Brazilian children, which later became Instituto Ayrton Senna."

i kinda dig the ruthlessness of his driving. people seem to suggest he didn't get aggressive directly, but would instead put drivers in a situation where they'd have to decide to let him into the gap or risk a crash because of his position next to them on the inside.

definitely want to check out the bio pic. watched the top gear segment dedicated to him and it was pretty amazing.

toomany MBZ · #10 05-02-2012, 07:51 AM

^ I was referring to his actions on the podium.

Only a handful of people have a super license, and winning a Grand Prix? The guy just stands there seriously bored.

I didn't like Prost, until Senna came along. Oh, and Senna admitted to taking out Prost once.

Yes, he raced against Schummi, that would have been a wonderful sight had Senna survived the accident.

He drove a Williams, not a McLaren. Patrick Head was found guilty, 13 years later, of "culpable of admitted control" after he (and Adrian Newey) had the steering column changed to Senna's liking. A hasty alteration failed.
However, after 13 years, the "culpable homicide limitation" expired as it's 7 years 6 months in italy.

Death of Ayrton Senna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

vwbuge · #11 05-03-2012, 05:55 AM

Senna is a class act and there will never be another like him. The amount of money he donated was staggering. It was never discovered until after his death.

Someone earlier stated that the steering column was to blame. It was actually a piece of the front suspension that broke off and hit him. The said piece had enough force to pierce his helmet and skull.

t walgamuth · #12 05-03-2012, 06:25 AM

The suspension broke when he hit the wall but he would not have hit the wall unless his steeriing broke.

I was watching the race on TV (Live, I believe). The impact did not look that great, but unfortunately the suspension and wheel folded around and impacted him. I remember it well. The camera came in on him and he was simply sitting in the car and it appeared looking straight ahead. You could see him twitching just a bit, and one of the announcers said softly that we could be watching him dying.

Sometimes the talking heads get it right, unfortunately, in this case.

Squabble · #13 05-03-2012, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

The suspension broke when he hit the wall but he would not have hit the wall unless his steeriing broke.
I was watching the race on TV (Live, I believe). The impact did not look that great, but unfortunately the suspension and wheel folded around and impacted him. I remember it well. The camera came in on him and he was simply sitting in the car and it appeared looking straight ahead. You could see him twitching just a bit, and one of the announcers said softly that we could be watching him dying.
Sometimes the talking heads get it right, unfortunately, in this case.

thanks for sharing tom, amazing part of history you saw, no matter how gruesome.

i'm really regretting my punk rock rebellion, that caused me to take interests elsewhere at the time. this mans life has really affected me for some reason and i'm really bumming at not being able to see him in action. i'm a huge fan of the 80's in general and his life seems to have touched a lot of what made that decade great, not to mention him just living that lifestyle. it's also weird that i played with a marlboro sponsored matchbox car as a child, could have been his!

i've never been a racing fan but now i can't get enough. watching him dart down the track in the rain, tweaking the car back and forth like a mosquito, and out-driving everyone on the track is thrilling.

t walgamuth · #14 05-03-2012, 07:19 AM

It seems the great ones are always excellent in the rain.

Schumaker I don't seem to remember being outstanding at driving in the rain but what he was really good at was having the right tires, either slicks or rains on the car when the green flag dropped.

If you choose rains for example and it rains right after the start everybody else has to pit for them and you are cruising.

Then during the race it often tapers off or on and you have to decide which lap to pit and change them.....again, making the right choice at the right time is often the difference between winning and a mid pack finish.

In my autocrossing, I don't claim greatness in any way, but it seems my best venues are the places we race on slippery old asphalt. Perhaps the lack of overall grip neutralizes the better cars a bit. Being an old hand at driving on the snow probably helps....along with my first driving experiences as an 11 year old being a quarter midget on a muddy clay 1/16 mile track.

They used to water the track down on a hot summer day to lay the dust and we would run on it until it became hard and slick enough that the tires would sqeal on it. It would then be just one long slide around the track.

DeliveryValve · #15 05-03-2012, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

The suspension broke when he hit the wall but he would not have hit the wall unless his steeriing broke.

I was watching the race on TV (Live, I believe). The impact did not look that great, but unfortunately the suspension and wheel folded around and impacted him. I remember it well. The camera came in on him and he was simply sitting in the car and it appeared looking straight ahead. You could see him twitching just a bit, and one of the announcers said softly that we could be watching him dying.

Sometimes the talking heads get it right, unfortunately, in this case.

I'll never forget that day. I for some reason woke up very early that morning and turned on the TV. I put the Imola race on and watched that bazaar start and then that crash. As Tom noted, it didn't look that bad but the race had been put on hold for a long time. I basically turned off the TV and went back to sleep. It wasn't until later in the day I heard Senna had died from that crash.

I used to watch a lot of car racing back then, FI, Indy/CART, NASCAR, NHRA and World of Outlaws were on my TV often. I always thought Ayrton Senna was a great aggressive driver, you can clearly see he was one of the best out there. He would come off cocky, but as a race car driver, I respected that. My former co-worker, who Brazilian and was living there at the time, told me the whole country was in shock. She remembered how awful it was for everyone around her. Senna was their national hero who they thought was invincible.

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