Circuits The circuits of his life

His first Grand Prix was run on reclaimed marshland beside a lagoon at Rio de Janeiro. The last new circuit he came to was a private members’ track in the hills of Okayama prefecture, in Japan, which spectators reached by coach down 19 km (12 miles) of country lanes. Between the two, in 11 seasons, he started Grands Prix at 30 circuits in 18 countries: on the streets of Monte Carlo, Detroit, Phoenix and Adelaide, in the forests of the Ardennes and at Hockenheim, on a former bomber airfield in England and on a figure of eight that Honda built among rice fields. He won at 17 of them and took pole position at 20.

The table counts the Grands Prix he started at each, in the order of his first Grand Prix there, and the entries that follow keep the same order, from Jacarepaguá in March 1984 to Aida 10 years later. Macau comes first. It was never a World Championship circuit, but he won the Formula 3 race there in November 1983, before he had started a Grand Prix anywhere. The 20 circuits that mattered most in his life have a full entry; the other 11 have a few lines each. The races themselves are told on the season pages.

First Grand Prix there, 1983–⁠1984

Macau

Macau’s Grand Prix was never a round of the World Championship. The Guia circuit runs for about 6.1 km through the city and over Guia hill: long, fast straights, the Lisboa bend, then a narrow, twisting climb and descent lined with Armco. In 1983 the territory was still administered by Portugal, and on 20 November the 30th Macau Grand Prix was run for Formula 3 cars for the first time, in two legs of 15 laps. He flew in from testing a Brabham at Paul Ricard, arriving at midnight on the Wednesday with no chance to walk the circuit. Third after the first day of qualifying, he took pole on the second in Theodore Racing’s Ralt, number 3.

Roberto Guerrero beat him away at the start of the first leg. Coming out of Statue, Guerrero remembered, Senna went past him so fast that he did not know whether he was standing still. Senna won both legs and the race on aggregate, by 7.32 s from Guerrero, with Gerhard Berger 3rd. The Ralt RT3 he won in is on show in Macau’s Grand Prix Museum. The weekend is told in England: the junior formulae.

Jacarepaguá

The circuit at Jacarepaguá lay in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro, near Barra da Tijuca: 5.031 km, flat, hot and humid, run anti-clockwise. From 1981 to 1989 it was the home of the Brazilian Grand Prix, and after Nelson Piquet won his third title it took his name. Senna’s Formula One career began there on 25 March 1984, when the Toleman TG183B-⁠Hart, number 19, started 16th and stopped after eight laps with a turbo failure. Measured against his speed there, it was the least rewarding circuit of his career: six starts, three poles and not one win.

In 1986, with the city divided between Piquet’s supporters and his own, the piquetistas and the sennistas, he took his first pole at home; Piquet went by on lap 3 and won, and below the podium the two Brazilians held up one flag between them. His first race for McLaren, in 1988, ended in disqualification, for changing to the spare car after the start procedure had begun. His pole of 1989, 1:25.302, is still the fastest lap ever recorded there. Formula One did not come back, and after 2012 the whole site was cleared for the Olympic Park of the 2016 Games. Rio remembers him elsewhere, in an Avenida Ayrton Senna at Barra da Tijuca and a statue on the Copacabana promenade.

Kyalami

Kyalami, high in South Africa, gave him his first World Championship point, in only his second Grand Prix. On 7 April 1984 the steering of his Toleman was heavy from the warm-up lap, and on lap 3 he lost part of its nose. He drove on in the heat and the altitude, finished 6th, three laps down, and was lifted out of the cockpit; in the medical centre he was fitted with a neck brace. When Formula One came back in 1992, after the apartheid years, it was to a different circuit, 4.261 km long and built lower down the hill after half the land had been sold. He was 3rd there in the McLaren MP4/6B-⁠Honda, and in 1993 he led for 23 laps, until the software of the active suspension failed and let Alain Prost by. The race ended in a thunderstorm, and the two shook hands on the soaked podium. Money troubles ended the Grand Prix after that year. The circuit was sold at auction in 2014 to Toby Venter of Porsche South Africa, and has been refurbished since 2015.

Zolder

At Zolder, in Belgium, on 29 April 1984, he started 19th, the lowest grid position of his career, and finished 7th on the road. When Tyrrell’s results for the season were annulled, he was promoted to 6th and given a point. Formula One has not raced there since.

Dijon-Prenois

Dijon-Prenois held the French Grand Prix of 1984, on 20 May: the first race for the Toleman TG184-⁠Hart, and his first on Michelin tyres. He ran between 9th and 11th until the turbo failed after 35 laps. It was the circuit’s last Grand Prix.

Monaco

The Monaco circuit runs clockwise through the streets of the principality: from Sainte-Dévote up the hill past Massenet to Casino Square, down through Mirabeau and the Loews hairpin to Portier, through the tunnel under the hotel and back along the harbour by Tabac, the swimming pool and La Rascasse, narrow, bumpy and walled in by Armco. The layout he raced, 3.312 km at first and 3.328 km from 1986, is essentially the one used today. He started 10 Grands Prix there and won six, more than any other driver: in 1987, and every year from 1989 to 1993.

In the rain of 1984 he was catching Prost from 13th on the grid when the race was stopped after 31 laps. In 1987 his Lotus 99T-⁠Honda gave computer-controlled active suspension its first Grand Prix win. In 1988 he took pole in the McLaren MP4/4-⁠Honda by 1.427 s from Prost in the same car, then, far in the lead, clipped the barrier at Portier on lap 67; his flat was about 180 metres (200 yards) away, and he walked there from the wreck. In 1992 he held off Nigel Mansell by 0.215 s to equal Graham Hill’s five wins, and in 1993, after a Thursday crash at Sainte-Dévote that hurt his thumb, he won a sixth, with Hill’s son Damon 2nd. On 15 May 1994, a fortnight after his death, the front row was left bare, with the flags of Brazil and Austria painted on it.

Montreal

At the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, on the Île Notre-Dame at Montreal, he started nine times and won twice, in 1988 and in 1990, after Gerhard Berger’s one-minute penalty for jumping the start. In 1989 he charged through heavy rain from nearly a minute behind to lead, and his engine failed three laps from the end.

Detroit

The Detroit street circuit ran round the Renaissance Center, on the bank of the Detroit River: 4.023 km of bumpy streets between concrete walls, run anti-clockwise, usually in heat and humidity. Drivers never loved it, and Senna won the last three Grands Prix held there. In 1985 his Friday lap stood for pole, by 1.2 s, when Saturday’s session was rained off; in the race, on brake pads so worn that he had to pump the pedal, he forgot to pump it, hit the wall at Turn 3 and owned up. In 1986, coming in from his pole lap on the Saturday, he saw a mechanic’s board reading “Brasil 1, França 0” and went to his hotel to watch Brazil’s World Cup quarter-final instead of the press conference. On the Sunday he recovered from a puncture to win, and on his slowing-down lap he stopped for a fan’s small Brazilian flag and carried it round, a story he told on television that December. In 1987 he won without a tyre stop, the last Grand Prix win for Lotus, and in 1988 he won again as the heat broke up the track. Formula One never went back: the temporary pits were judged not good enough, and the United States Grand Prix moved to Phoenix. In 2023 IndyCar returned to the downtown streets.

Dallas

Fair Park, in Dallas, held one Grand Prix, on 8 July 1984, in heat above 40°C (105°F) on a surface already breaking up in practice. He hit the wall twice and retired after 47 laps, insisting the wall had moved; his engineer, Pat Symonds, went to look, and a concrete block had indeed shifted.

Brands Hatch

Brands Hatch is a natural amphitheatre in the Kent countryside: the track plunges into Paddock Hill Bend and climbs to the Druids hairpin, and the short Indy circuit lies inside the longer Grand Prix loop. His racing in cars began there. On 1 March 1981 he was 5th in his first Formula Ford 1600 race, and on 15 March, on the Indy circuit in the wet, he won for the first time, by 9.4 s. In September he finished 2nd there and, by Tom Rubython’s account, announced on the podium that he was retiring; he came back, and won there again in Formula Ford 2000 and in Formula 3.

At the British Grand Prix of July 1984 he was quicker than anyone in Friday morning’s practice, a first for him in Formula One, and in the race he passed Elio de Angelis into Paddock Hill Bend to finish 3rd, a result that, Symonds said, pleased him more than Monaco. At the European Grand Prix of October 1985 he took pole on the first all-Brazilian front row, and finished 2nd to Mansell’s first win after weaving to keep Keke Rosberg behind him, which left Rosberg furious. The British Grand Prix alternated between Brands Hatch and Silverstone until 1986, and Brands Hatch has held no Formula One race since.

Hockenheim

Hockenheim was speed in a forest: long, flat-out straights through the trees, slowed by three chicanes, and the Motodrom, the stadium where the crowds sat. He won the German Grand Prix there three years running, from pole each time, from 1988 to 1990, the first on a track still wet from a storm that had ended five minutes before the start. Denis Jenkinson timed another afternoon there minute by minute. On the Saturday of the 1986 meeting the fuel pump of his qualifying Lotus failed just before the afternoon’s qualifying session. With 50 minutes left the mechanics began to separate the engine and gearbox from the chassis to reach it; he started his last flying lap in the rebuilt car at 1:59 p.m., crossed the line under the chequered flag to take 3rd on the grid, then said sorry to the mechanics for missing pole.

In 1991 and 1992 his races there were hard ones. In 1991 his fuel ran out on the final lap, and in 1992, the only front-runner not to stop for tyres, he held off Riccardo Patrese until Patrese spun on the final lap. For the 1994 race one of the forest chicanes was named after him and another after Jim Clark, which Motor Sport thought an insult. In 2002 the forest section was torn up and replanted, the Senna chicane with it; only the line in the trees shows where it ran.

Österreichring

He started four Austrian Grands Prix at the Österreichring, from 1984 to 1987. His one podium there, 2nd in 1985, came from 14th on the grid, further back than any other podium of his career. The site is still on the Formula One calendar, as the Red Bull Ring.

Zandvoort

At Zandvoort, on the morning of the Dutch Grand Prix of 26 August 1984, Lotus announced that he would drive for them in 1985. In the race the Toleman’s engine failed. A year later he was 3rd there for Lotus. The Dutch Grand Prix is on the calendar again in 2026.

Nürburgring

The new Nürburgring was opened on 12 May 1984 with a race for identical Mercedes-Benz 190E saloons, driven by Grand Prix drivers past and present, and he won it, ahead of Niki Lauda. In his two Grands Prix there, in 1984 and 1985, he did not reach the finish.

Estoril

Estoril lies in the hills behind the resort of the same name, near Lisbon. Its designer, Ayrton Cornelsen, had drawn the first circuit at Jacarepaguá; it opened in 1972, and held every Portuguese Grand Prix from 1984 to 1996. With Monaco and Imola it was one of his three most-raced circuits, and he knew it before Formula One: in September 1979 he was runner-up in the Karting World Championship there.

In October 1984 he finished 3rd at Estoril in his last race for Toleman. Six months later, in his second race for Lotus, he took his first pole, and the next day, 21 April 1985, won his first Grand Prix, in torrential rain, leading every lap and setting the fastest lap. When it was stopped at the two-hour limit, only Michele Alboreto was still on the same lap, more than a minute behind. At one point, he said, all four wheels had been on the grass and the car had come back on its own: it was just luck. In 1988 he squeezed Prost towards the pit wall at the start of the second lap, and in 1989 Mansell, black-flagged but still out, drew alongside into the first corner and they collided. On 24 September 1993 Prost announced his retirement there, and in January 1994 Senna did his first test for Williams on the same circuit. Beside the main grandstand is a roundabout garden, the Praça Ayrton Senna, with a stone sculpture that loops like an S.

First Grand Prix there, 1985–⁠1987

Imola

Imola lies on the southern edge of the town, beside the river Santerno, and its lap runs anti-clockwise through parkland, from the flat-out left of Tamburello to the Variante Bassa. Its race was the San Marino Grand Prix. It was the circuit of his poles: eight in all, seven of them in a row from 1985 to 1991. It gave him only three wins, and it was the one race he failed to qualify for, in 1984, when a tyre dispute kept Toleman’s cars in on the Friday.

In 1989, after Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari hit the wall at Tamburello and burned, Senna passed Prost into Tosa at the restart, against their agreement not to race each other into the first corner. What he and Berger found behind the wall is told in Rivals. On 1 May 1994, leading the race, Senna left the road there at the start of the seventh lap. That weekend has its own chapter, Imola, 1 May 1994.

Over the following winter Tamburello and Villeneuve were made into chicanes. In the park of the Acque Minerali, inside Tamburello, Stefano Pierotti’s bronze of Senna sits deep in thought; it was unveiled during the San Marino Grand Prix weekend of 1997. The fence behind it is covered with flags, photographs and messages. Imola’s last Grand Prix so far was in 2025.

Paul Ricard

At Paul Ricard, at Le Castellet, he started six Grands Prix between 1985 and 1990. His pole in 1986 ended in the barriers after three laps, on oil from Andrea de Cesaris’s failed turbo, and his best result was 2nd to Prost in 1988. He had tested a Brabham there in November 1983, before flying to Macau.

Silverstone

Silverstone was a bomber airfield, flat and open to the wind, and since 1987 the permanent home of the British Grand Prix. He knew it long before he raced a Grand Prix there. In 1983 he won six of the eight British Formula 3 races held on it, and the British press turned his old surname into “Silvastone”; in October that year he had his first test for McLaren there.

In eight Grands Prix there he won once. On 10 July 1988, from 3rd on the grid, in heavy rain and standing water, he took the lead on lap 14 and was never caught, and Denis Jenkinson, watching at Copse, praised the delicacy of his control. Three years later, out of fuel at Club on the last lap, he rode to the pits on Nigel Mansell’s Williams, perched on its sidepod, while the crowd poured over the fences, and in 1993 he ran dry on the last lap again. The circuit he raced has largely gone: Woodcote was reshaped for 1987, the whole lap for 1991, and after Imola a chicane was built at Abbey for the 1994 race.

Monza

Monza is the park circuit in the old royal grounds north of Milan: the pit straight and the first chicane, the Curva Grande, the two Lesmos, the Ascari and the Parabolica, and a crowd that floods the track when the race is over. He missed the 1984 race, suspended by Toleman for signing with Lotus. From his first visit in 1985, when he took pole, he started nine Grands Prix there and won two. In 1987, the weekend McLaren announced him for 1988, he tried to run the race without a tyre stop and was leading when he ran across the sand at the Parabolica while lapping Piercarlo Ghinzani, and lost by 1.806 s. In 1988, leading on the 50th of 51 laps, he tangled with Jean-Louis Schlesser’s Williams at the first chicane, and McLaren lost the only race of their season; Ferrari finished 1st and 2nd, four weeks after Enzo Ferrari’s death. In 1990 he won from pole with the fastest lap, leading every lap, and afterwards, prompted by a journalist, shook Prost’s hand in the press conference. In 1992 he won two days after Honda had announced its withdrawal from Formula One.

Spa-Francorchamps

Spa-Francorchamps runs through the forests of the Ardennes. The circuit of 1979 kept the great sections of the old road course, La Source, Eau Rouge and the climb of Raidillon, the Kemmel straight and Blanchimont, and the weather can change from one end of its 6.94 km to the other. After Monaco it was his most successful circuit, with five wins in nine starts. The first came in 1985, when he passed Mansell on the wet outside line on the way down to Eau Rouge; then he won four in a row from pole, from 1988 to 1991. The 1989 race was run in heavy rain, and in 1991 his gearbox jammed on lap 27 and he took La Source in fourth gear for the rest of the race.

On the Friday of the 1992 meeting Érik Comas crashed at Blanchimont and lay unconscious in his Ligier with the engine running. Senna, the next car on the scene, stopped, ran across the live track, switched the engine off and held his head until help arrived. Eau Rouge was the corner he would not give up: when a chicane there was talked of in 1993, Nigel Roebuck remembered, he was outraged. A temporary chicane was built before it for 1994, after his death, and the corner was restored, with more run-off, for 1995. A dark granite stone photographed at the circuit in 2009 carries his engraved portrait and the words Ayrton Senna para sempre: forever.

Adelaide

The Adelaide street circuit was laid out each year in the East Parklands beside the city centre: the pit straight through the Victoria Park racecourse, the chicane at its end, the long Brabham Straight and the hairpin beyond it, 3.780 km, run clockwise. From 1985 to 1995 it held the last race of every season. He took pole there six times in nine starts but won only twice. In 1989, days after his disqualification at Suzuka had been upheld, he was leading a torrential race when, blinded by spray on the Brabham Straight, he drove into Martin Brundle’s Brabham. In 1991 he led all the way through a race started in a storm, waving for it to be stopped; it was, and after long argument the result was taken at 14 laps, with half points, the shortest Grand Prix to that date.

On 7 November 1993 he won from pole, the last of his 41 wins, in his last race for McLaren and Prost’s last Grand Prix, and drew Prost up beside him on the top step. That night, the History Trust of South Australia recalls, Tina Turner pulled him up on stage at her concert by the circuit to introduce The Best. A year after his death a plaque was put up at the first chicane, now the Senna Chicane, and beside the first corners a concrete slab carries two handprints and his signature.

Jerez

The Circuito de Jerez was built in 1985 in the dry country outside Jerez de la Frontera, the sherry town, and its control tower carries the hatted figure of Tío Pepe. Its first Grand Prix, on 13 April 1986, brought the closest of his 41 wins: Mansell, on fresh tyres, took four seconds a lap from him, they left the last hairpin wheel to wheel, and the Lotus crossed the line 0.014 s ahead. In 1989 he won again, from pole, with the fastest lap and every lap led. In 1990, in Friday qualifying, Martin Donnelly’s Lotus broke up against the barrier and Donnelly lay on the track, still strapped to his seat. Sid Watkins found Senna standing silently behind him as he worked. Senna went back out and set the fastest lap yet seen at Jerez, took his 50th pole on the Saturday, and visited Donnelly in hospital. Formula One left after that year, came back for European Grands Prix in 1994 and 1997, and has not been back since. For 1994 a chicane was built at the corner where Donnelly crashed, and named after Senna.

Hungaroring

The Hungaroring lies in a valley at Mogyoród, about 20 km from Budapest, and was built in eight months: tight, twisting and dusty. Its first Grand Prix, in August 1986, was the first behind the Iron Curtain, and he started it from pole; Piquet went round the outside of him into Turn 1 in a long opposite-lock slide, and won. It became his most consistent circuit, with seven podiums in eight starts and three wins. In 1988 Prost dived inside him as they came up to lap two backmarkers; Senna gave him just enough room, took the place back on the exit and won by 0.529 s. In 1991, after four Williams wins in a row, he took pole by 1.232 s, won in the heat, and dedicated the win to Soichiro Honda, who had died six days before; in 1992 he won on the day Mansell clinched the title, and pulled him up to the top step beside him. For the circuit’s 40th anniversary, in July 2026, its corners were named: Turn 1 after Piquet, for that pass of 1986, and Turn 13 after Senna.

Mexico City

At the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City he started seven Grands Prix from 1986 to 1992, and won once, in 1989, from the pole that equalled Jim Clark’s record of 33. He turned his McLaren over at the Peraltada in practice in 1991, and crashed heavily in the Esses in 1992.

Suzuka

Honda built Suzuka among the rice fields outside Suzuka City, to a design by the Dutchman John Hugenholtz, and opened it in 1962: a figure of eight that crosses itself on a bridge, with almost every kind of corner, the Esses, Degner, the Hairpin, Spoon, the flat-out 130R and the chicane before the last bend. Japan’s first Grand Prix for 10 years was held there in 1987, and from 1988 to 1991 it settled all four of his championship fights, three of them in his favour. In 1988 his McLaren barely moved at the start and he reached the first corner about 14th; drizzle helped him, and he passed Prost on lap 28 to win the race and his first title. In 1989 the two McLarens locked together at the chicane, and his win on the road was taken away by disqualification. In 1990, from a pole he had asked in vain to move to the cleaner side of the track, he kept his foot down into the first corner, and the collision with Prost made him champion. A year later he took the third title there, and at the last corner let Berger win. In 1993 he won again, his 40th win, and afterwards came his scuffle with Eddie Irvine in the Jordan team’s office. The Honda Racing Gallery at the circuit displays three of his McLarens and his helmets.

First Grand Prix there, 1989–⁠1994

Phoenix

From 1989 to 1991 the United States Grand Prix was run on a grid of downtown streets in Phoenix, Arizona: flat, square blocks and short straights between concrete walls, reshaped for 1991. He took two poles and two wins there in three races. On the Friday before the 1989 race, in the desert heat of June, he set the time that became his 34th pole and took Jim Clark’s record; in the race he led for 33 laps before an electrical fault stopped him. In 1990, moved to a cool March day, he started 5th and chased Jean Alesi’s Tyrrell: on lap 34 he dived inside at Turn 1 and Alesi took the place straight back round the outside, and on lap 35 he did it again and closed the door. In 1991 he won from pole, the first of four wins in a row, and became the first driver to win five United States races, three in Detroit and two in Phoenix. Fewer than 20,000 people watched. There was no race in 1992, and nothing of the circuit survives; a mural of him on Central Avenue, painted in 2019, is within sight of where it ran.

Interlagos

Interlagos lies in a basin between two reservoirs in the south of São Paulo, which gave the district its name: between lakes. The circuit opened in 1940; it runs anti-clockwise and is notoriously bumpy, and from the high ground around it spectators can see most of the lap. His racing began here, on the kart track behind the old back straight: on 1 July 1973, aged 13, he won his first official kart race there, and the track is now named after him. The Grand Prix came back from Rio in 1990, on a layout shortened to 4.325 km. He had asked for a fast downhill S off the end of the straight; he disliked the slower one that was built, and wanted it named after the pioneer Chico Landi. Everyone calls it the S do Senna.

He won at home only twice, and both times here. In 1991, with his gearbox failing until only sixth gear was left, he held off Riccardo Patrese by 2.991 s and had to be helped from the car, locked in cramp. In 1993, after a stop-go penalty and a cloudburst, he passed Damon Hill into the Bico de Pato and won; the crowd flooded the track, and Juan Manuel Fangio presented the trophy. In 1994, in his first race for Williams, he spun off chasing Michael Schumacher. Since 2021 the race has been called the São Paulo Grand Prix.

Magny-Cours

He raced three French Grands Prix at Magny-Cours: he was 3rd in 1991, was knocked out by Schumacher on the first lap in 1992, and was 4th in 1993, in his 150th Grand Prix.

Catalunya

At the Circuit de Catalunya, near Barcelona, he raced three Spanish Grands Prix. In 1991 he and Mansell went down the straight wheel to wheel, sparks flying, reaching close to 300 km/⁠h (185 mph); in 1992 he spun off in the rain, and in 1993 he was 2nd. Photographs from 2013 to 2017 show a monument to him there.

Donington Park

Donington Park, in the grounds of Donington Hall in Leicestershire, beside East Midlands Airport, is Britain’s oldest road circuit still in use; the builder and collector Tom Wheatcroft reopened it in 1977. It framed a decade of his Formula One life. On 19 July 1983 he drove a Formula One car for the first time there, Keke Rosberg’s Williams FW08C, and within about nine laps matched Jonathan Palmer’s benchmark time; Frank Williams arrived late, his Jaguar having broken down on the M1. He had already won there in Formula Ford and Formula 3.

Donington held one World Championship race, the European Grand Prix of 11 April 1993, on a wet Easter Sunday. He started 4th, was 5th by Redgate, and led at the end of the first lap, having passed Schumacher, Karl Wendlinger, Damon Hill and Prost. As the track dried and wetted again he stopped four times, and set the fastest lap while driving through the pit lane, which was shorter than the track. He won by 1 min 23.199 s, lapping everyone but Hill. The Donington Collection, where his spare McLaren from that race was shown, closed in 2018. Outside it stood a bronze memorial of Senna and Juan Manuel Fangio under a crest dated 1997; a slate plaque put up on the 10th anniversary commemorates the race as his greatest win.

TI Circuit Aida

TI Circuit Aida was a private members’ circuit in the hills near the village of Aida, in Okayama prefecture, built by the golf-course magnate Hajime Tanaka and opened in November 1990; its corners were named after the British veterans who opened it, Moss, Attwood, Piper and Hobbs among them. It held two Pacific Grands Prix, in 1994 and 1995, and since 2005 it has been the Okayama International Circuit. He raced there once, on 17 April 1994. He learned the circuit by watching an old video of a local race, and on the Friday took pole in the Williams FW16-⁠Renault, his 64th and the last before Imola. On the Sunday, after a formation lap run behind a pace car for the first time, he got wheelspin; Schumacher led into the First Corner, Mika Häkkinen’s McLaren nudged the Williams into a spin and Nicola Larini’s Ferrari hit it. Rather than walk back, he stayed by the First Corner for some 15 minutes, listening to Schumacher’s Benetton, and came away convinced that some cars were running illegal traction control. A fortnight later he went to Imola.