VIII · In his words
What they said About Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna as his rivals, team-mates, team bosses, engineers, doctor, family and journalists saw him, from Prost and Berger to Hamilton, in their own words.
Honestly, it’s very difficult for me to talk about Ayrton, and not only because he’s not here any more. He was so different, you know, so completely different from any other racing driver – any other person – I’ve ever known…
What they said
Contents
What they said
What was he like?
On 10 July 1993, the Saturday of the British Grand Prix, The Independent asked the men who raced him what Ayrton Senna was like. Martin Brundle, who had fought him for the British Formula 3 title 10 years before, and Gerhard Berger, his team-mate for three seasons, gave long and careful answers; they are below. Johnny Herbert’s was the shortest: “I don’t know, I’ve never met him.”
Many who knew him described two men, one generous and one ruthless, one warm in private and one remote in public. Here is what they said, arranged by who spoke. Each quote is given as it was printed or transcribed, with its occasion. Words on film, in a broadcast or a signed piece, or printed within about a year by the reporter who heard them, carry no mark; words that came to this book second-hand, by way of another person’s account, a memory set down years afterwards or a later report or copy of a record it could not see, carry the mark attributed when they are set out on their own, as do the few whose speaker is in doubt.
What they said
The rivals
Alain Prost, his team-mate at McLaren in 1988 and 1989, spoke about him often over 30 years, and both ways. After their collision at the first corner at Suzuka in 1990 he said:
What he did today was absolutely disgusting. Believe me, I was flat out into that corner, in fifth gear, and he hit me hard enough to break off my rear wing. Apart from anything else, whatever he thinks of me, I can’t believe he would risk his own safety on the first lap of a Grand Prix and with the whole field behind us. I’ve said to you before, he tries to represent himself to the world as a man he is not. He has no value.
Eight years later, to Nigel Roebuck of Motor Sport, he was calmer.
Ayrton was certainly the best driver I ever raced against, by a long, long way. He was, by far the most committed driver I ever saw. To be honest. I think the best race driver – in terms of really applying intelligence – was Niki, but overall was the best, by far. He very successful in every thing that mattered to him, everything that he set out to achieve for himself
In the film Senna he returned to the rivalry itself.
He never wanted to beat me. He wanted to humiliate me. He wanted to show the people that he was much stronger. Much better. And that was his weakness.
In 2024, 30 years after Imola, he told Damien Smith of Motor Sport: “Ayrton represented more panache. I was the ‘Professor’, clinical. He was ‘mystic’ and people liked that.” He also remembered the friend of the last months, after his own retirement at the end of 1993.
There were three Ayrtons for me: the one before F1 when he was looking at my races, at everything I was doing, the way I was doing it; obviously the one when we were together, inside or outside the same team; and then the one when I retired.
… We were talking very often, every week, twice a week. … His motivation was to be world champion, but his biggest motivation was to beat me.
Nigel Mansell clinched the 1992 title in Hungary, with Senna the winner beside him on the podium.
… Ayrton said some incredible things to me in Hungary on the podium. Some were very unflattering to him, but were very poignant to the moment of winning the championship - he said, ‘Now you know why I am the way I am!’
Nelson Piquet, Brazil’s other champion of the decade and no friend of his, put Suzuka 1990 in one line, as David Tremayne quotes him: “Senna just drove straight into the back of Prost, and that’s all there is to it.”
Martin Brundle, his rival in British Formula 3 in 1983, raced against him in Formula One from 1984.
Senna is a genius. It is not a word I use lightly, but in his case it applies. You can’t compare drivers of different eras, but in the years I’ve been racing I’ve come across no one to touch him as a complete driver. He doesn’t really have a weakness, apart from, occasionally, letting his emotions get the better of him.
… In the car, he is magnificent. He is outstanding at qualifying, in his race strategy, negotiating with traffic and coping with the rain. At Donington this year, for instance, Prost wasn’t in the same league.
… I define genius as just the right side of imbalance. That’s how I see Senna. That’s why he’s special. He is highly developed to the point where he is almost over the edge. It’s a close call.
Having Senna to race against in 1983, Brundle said the day after Imola, had launched his international career.
What they said
Team-mates
He had 10 team-mates in Formula One. Gerhard Berger, beside him at McLaren from 1990 to 1992, filled his hotel room with frogs and threw his briefcase out of a helicopter. As GrandPrix.com quotes him, he said: “He taught me a lot about our sport; I taught him to laugh.”
I tried to find weaknesses in Senna, but I couldn’t. He is 100 per cent in everything. I learned a lot from him, so for me it was a good three years. And I still like Senna. We had good fun, a good relationship.
Five years later, to Nigel Roebuck:
It was because of Senna, … I really liked the guy he was the closest friend in racing I ever had, but while he was there, McLaren was always going to be his team.
… McLaren were very good to me, … and I would say that Ron Dennis and I were friends, and still are. But he never realised that his team was built completely around Senna. He accepted anything from Ayrton, never really stood up to him. Then again, no one ever really stood up to him, did they?
And in 2025, looking back:
Was it good for me to be teamed with Ayrton? Yes and no. Would I do it again? No. I always had the same equipment, same engine, but he was difficult to beat.
… the last thing I needed was not having a winning car and being with Ayrton.
Satoru Nakajima, his team-mate at Lotus in 1987, remembered small kindnesses.
Every circuit we went to was new to me, so he advised me on what to look out for, during team meetings and even in private conversations. Not only that, when we were in Brazil, he advised me on which water I could and couldn’t drink in daily life, and how to drive on the Brazilian roads. In Monaco, he even taped up my hands so I wouldn’t injure my fingers.
Mika Häkkinen took the second McLaren for the last three races of 1993 and, at Estoril, out-qualified him by 0.048 seconds at his first attempt.
Ayrton understood there were other fast drivers out there but when I came in and kicked his arse on my first race weekend he wanted to understand what I was doing. As a three-times world champion he was very mature, very confident, so he asked me, ‘Mika, what did you do?’ And I said, ‘Ayrton, it’s balls,’ and he went berserk, got really upset with me. I was shocked, tried to explain to him that it was a joke, and that of course I respected him for everything that he had achieved but also that we needed some humour.
… For him it was a very traumatic moment, … People were asking him, ‘Who is this Finnish guy? What’s happened to Ayrton?’
Michael Andretti, who had a hard season beside him in 1993 and left before it ended, defended him on the day he died.
Ayrton was the most misunderstood person out there because he got such a bad rap in the media. I can assure you he was a good person. He was very supportive of me last year.
What they said
The men who ran his cars
Ralph Firman’s Van Diemen team ran him in Formula Ford in 1981.
Ayrton was tough and hard on the track, … as most of them are, but away from it I always just considered him a normal bloke. The main thing with him was his extraordinary focus – even during downtime. He’d win a race, then be in the office by 9am on Monday complaining that his engine hadn’t been good enough. I’d reply, ‘Jesus, you won by eight seconds’ – but he still wanted me to contact our supplier Minister to ask for more power.
Dick Bennetts’s West Surrey Racing ran him in Formula 3 in 1983.
Ayrton and I had a slight difference of opinion at Oulton Park, when I suggested he should settle for second behind Martin if they were running in that order, because he’d been throwing away points and by finishing second he’d drop only three – or two if he could set fastest lap. He said, ‘But I want to win.’ I pointed out that he didn’t have to, that he could finish second to Martin in the remaining races and still take the title, but with him it was always, ‘Why should I finish second?’
… For all his latent speed, … it was the end-of-season Macau GP that marked him out for me as something truly special.
His first run in a Formula One car came from Frank Williams, in a Williams FW08C, at Donington Park on 19 July 1983.
Ayrton? He was quick immediately. You could tell he was the real thing. I think it was within nine laps that he equalled Jonathan Palmer’s best lap set some time before, which was 61.6s or 61.7s.
Asked about him in 2015, Williams told himself to choose his words with care.
a man of very remarkable mental capacity… Be careful, Frank, think before you answer… he was slightly paranoid… he could easily have become President of Brazil
At Toleman, in 1984, Alex Hawkridge suspended him from the Italian Grand Prix after he signed for Lotus without telling the team.
We’re not used to this, … In the past a contract was always something you shut away in a drawer and forgot about. It isn’t worth a light if you have to look at it…
At Lotus, where in the winter of 1985–86 he refused to accept Derek Warwick as his team-mate, the team manager Peter Warr said later: “Ayrton dominated his team-mates, intimidated them, and he knew Warwick was strong, and he didn’t like it.”
Ron Dennis signed him for McLaren in 1987. The two sides stood half a million dollars a year apart; by Dennis’s account they settled the difference on the toss of a coin, which Dennis won. After the disqualification at Suzuka in 1989, when Senna talked of giving up:
Left him alone for a while. I gently persuaded him if you are true to your values, if you believe that your values are correct values, then walking away from the dark forces that you’re faced with in life just doesn’t become an option.
After Suzuka in 1990:
I looked at the traces [from Senna’s car], the brake and the throttle pedals, and you didn’t need to be Einstein to work out what had happened. He came back to the pits, and I said, ‘I’m disappointed in you.’ He got it. I didn’t have to say any more. It was one of his rare moments of weakness. I don’t think it was anything that he was particularly proud of, but it was the finishing touch when pole position was on the wrong side of the road.
… It wasn’t a great moment, but he had very few lapses in his life and he was an incredibly principled person - a great human being.
Jo Ramírez, McLaren’s team coordinator, on the grid at Adelaide in 1993, for Senna’s last race with the team:
When we were just about to start the race Ayrton was sitting in the car and called me over. He actually just wanted to talk to me, but he didn’t want it to get picked up by the team intercom. Ayrton grabbed my arm very hard and pulled me into the cockpit. He said he found it very strange doing this for the last time in the McLaren.
… I said to Ayrton ‘If you win this, I’ll love you forever!’ I could see his eyes were wet. I was worried during the race I might have made him too emotional!
… Six years with McLaren: three world championships, 35 race wins – see if you can beat that with another team! But if you can’t, come back, we’ll always be open for you.
Ian Harrison, the Williams team manager, met him in 1994.
He popped in for five minutes to say hello and he was quite quiet and extremely polite. That was the thing that immediately struck me about him. He was very calm. He was direct and matter-of-fact.
… He apologised for going off and said that it wouldn’t happen again. I think that really summed up the bloke.
… He was interested in safety and deeply concerned with humanity. He had a thing about that.
What they said
The engineers
Pat Symonds was his race engineer at Toleman in 1984.
With Ayrton, it was the first time I saw that there was something different in a real elite sportsman. Obviously he had ability by the bucketful but it was more than that. It was the first time I’d met a driver that didn’t need to use his entire brain to drive the car and had plenty of capacity left to think about what was going on. This was enormously valuable in an era before data recording. He could tell you what the water temperature was, what the revs were in each corner.
At Honda, Toyoharu Tanabe remembered him saying that the throttle pedal was not opening fully; when they measured it, it was about 2 mm short. Bob Bell, an aerodynamicist at McLaren, watched him beside Prost.
The animosity between them wasn’t really apparent on the surface and they were very professional. Ayrton was much more proactive than Alain and gave the impression of being more in control of the group of people around him, plus his relationship with Honda was much closer. When you were with Ayrton you definitely had the feeling that this bloke was something special. I got a similar feeling with Schumacher at Mercedes, but I didn’t get it with anyone else.
Adrian Newey designed the Williams FW16 he drove in 1994. He spoke of him in 2017.
Ayrton was a great man, … People talk about somebody having an aura about them - and it’s very difficult to quantify why you would feel that. Is it because of what they’ve achieved, or the personality? Whatever it was, Ayrton had that aura where if you were with him or talking to him - his enthusiasm, inquisitiveness and energy was infusive. The little time I spent with Ayrton was very memorable. I still think if that hadn’t happened that day, perhaps he’d be President of Brazil now. I suppose the immediate thing was the sense of waste.
What they said
The doctor
Professor Sid Watkins, Formula One’s medical delegate, was his friend; Senna stayed with him in Scotland, and they went fishing together.
It’s the deepest personal relationship that I’ve ever had with any driver. Whenever I got to the circuit and ran into Senna, he was usually being interviewed or surrounded by people. And the moment he saw me, his face would always light up with a beautiful grin. Because he had that wonderful humility, which is not common amongst racing drivers.
He did not look away from the other side of him. Of the collision at Suzuka in 1990, Watkins said in 2008:
He was telling everybody it was an accident, but that night he admitted to me in private that it was deliberate. He said, ‘I backed off a little bit, let my left front go close to his right rear, we touched, and off he went.’
In the same interview he remembered the generosity.
Among his various projects for the poor of Brazil, he funded a programme for medical support for people in the upper reaches of the Amazon. We’d agreed to go together and see it in action at the end of the 1994 season…
… Magically the word had gone around and every child in the village had gathered at the door. While I made my call, Ayrton stood in the rain signing autographs by the light of a street lamp until every child had one.
At Imola in 1994 it was Watkins who urged him to stop.
What they said
Family
His sister, Viviane Senna, created the Instituto Ayrton Senna in November 1994. His mother, Neyde, speaks in archive footage in the film Senna.
I once asked Ayrton when he would stop racing. Mum, I’ll stop when I become World Champion. I knew deep inside it is not true. We all know that.
Viviane’s son Bruno, who was 10 when his uncle died and later raced in Formula One, had raced karts against him at the family farm.
For me, it was special to have such a hero from inside my family, … and even when we raced karts together he was competitive. Ayrton was not a fragile person, but he had a very open side to him, very naive sometimes, and motor racing has never been a sport for naive people. So he hardened himself for racing. But there were many moments when you could see his softer side coming out. For example when there were accidents, he wanted to help, wanted to know why it happened. For those who didn’t know him well, it was hard to see that side of Ayrton, but he was a kind person and totally normal, much softer, when he was away from his motor racing.
What they said
1 May 1994
He died on 1 May 1994, after his car left the track at Tamburello on lap 7 of the San Marino Grand Prix. Roland Ratzenberger had been killed in qualifying the day before. That weekend has its own page, Imola, 1 May 1994, and the funeral is in Farewell. That day Michael Andretti said: “He might have been the greatest driver of all time. There was not a weakness in Ayrton Senna.”
Senna was the greatest driver ever and when someone like him is killed you have to ask yourself what is the point of it all.
Michael Schumacher had won the race.
There is no satisfaction at all for me, … This win certainly should make me satisfied, but for me too many things happened this weekend to let me feel that.
Ron Dennis, for McLaren:
Ayrton Senna was an extraordinary racing driver. His skills, craft, subtlety and courage were of such magnitude that he dwarfed his generation of drivers. With McLaren he won three world championships and in doing so gave pleasure, not only to all of us in the team, but also to millions of people. But to me he was more than all of this, more than a world champion, more than a successful businessman. To me he was a friend.
Damon Hill, his team-mate at Williams, two days later:
For all his concerns about safety Ayrton never played safe in the cockpit. He performed at 100 per cent all the time and for that he commanded admiration from every driver.
At the funeral in São Paulo, where he was among the drivers walking beside the coffin, Prost is reported to have said: “He was the only opponent I truly respected.” In 1998 he looked back on the words he had used after Imola.
When he died, I said that I felt a part of me had died also, because our careers had been so bound together. And I really meant it, but I know some people thought I was not sincere.
What they said
The ones who came after
Michael Schumacher equalled his 41 wins at Monza in 2000, and wept in the press conference.
What surprised me was that people said I was human after all, … For me, it was a surprise because I thought I was a human being before it happened. That surprised me the most. It was very strange for me because on the one hand I was so happy and to have equalled the record of Ayrton Senna was something special, but on the other hand I had other thoughts. I was thinking of Ayrton, a driver I really admired, and I had those memories of Imola in 1994 and it was all too much for me.
Lewis Hamilton was nine, and racing karts in England, when he heard.
I was racing at Rye House in karting. My dad had a red Vauxhall Cavalier and we had a white box trailer with a gas heater shoved at the deep end of the trailer and I was helping my dad fix the kart, changing the wheel. I think I was helping to do the bolts up on the rear wheel of my cadet kart. I don’t know how he got the news but someone told him that Ayrton had died. And I remember I had to walk away from my dad because my dad would never let me cry in front of him. So I had to go to a different place and it was not so easy. I remember trying to channel that that sadness into my driving and I think I won that weekend. But the following weeks were very tough.
In Montreal in 2017 Hamilton equalled Senna’s 65 pole positions and was given one of his helmets: “I’m shaking. I’m speechless …”
In November 2024 he drove Senna’s McLaren MP4/5B at Interlagos, in the rain, with a Brazilian flag.
It’s very, very emotional, naturally, … I was just revisiting my childhood as I was watching [Ayrton] race here as a kid. Hearing that sound and… watching him drive here, winning that race, I just couldn’t believe that I just had that chance to do that, and it was really the greatest honour of my career. To do it here in front of this beautiful crowd here in Brazil, who stood out in the rain all day yesterday, and then have been here since 4am or 3am this morning… A very, very special day and I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who made this happen.
Fernando Alonso, on the 20th anniversary:
On my schoolbooks I didn’t have pictures of girls, obviously I was too young but I had Ayrton there and the same in my room, … I had a big poster of Ayrton and even my first go-karts were in the colours of Ayrton’s McLaren because my father also liked him. It was a very sad moment.
Rubens Barrichello, the young Brazilian he helped, spoke of him in 2025.
Ayrton was always very kind to me. He was like a big brother to me, because he knew I didn’t have a lot of money, so he always did his best to help me. He introduced me to people. He did whatever he could. But he was a hero as well as a big brother. I always used to watch his hands in the videos I’d bought or rented. The way he drove – wow! – I was just in love with that.
What they said
The press box
James Hunt, commentating for the BBC at Monaco in 1984, saw it early. As his words are transcribed, he said: “I think we are watching the arrival of Ayrton Senna as a truly outstanding talent in Grand Prix racing.” At Estoril a year later, as Senna led in the rain: “I don’t think it really matters what the Lotus is like. He’s got such a prodigious talent.”
Michael Kranefuss, who ran Ford’s international racing, told The New York Times in May 1994 what he had seen at Monaco.
It was like you were watching photographers, … and then you were watching a painting done by Michelangelo. … He was very intimidating, … On the race track, he was not always a nice guy. … He was very loyal to people who helped him early in his career.
Jackie Stewart, interviewing him in Adelaide in 1990, asked about his collisions; his answer is on the previous page, In his words.
Okay. Let me ask you another difficult question. If I were to count back all the world champions, the number of times they had made contact with other drivers, that you in the last 36 months or 48 months have been in contact with more other cars and drivers than they might have done in total.
In 2004, on the 10th anniversary of his death:
He was probably the fastest champion I ever saw. He was always stretching the elastic. My goodness was he quick.
Not everyone was won over.
I don’t think Ayrton Senna is the greatest racing driver of all time… He was the most intense and deep-thinking man I ever met… But I could not respect him for the ruthlessness with which he drove… I think Senna took it too far — like with Prost in Japan in 1990.
David Tremayne of Motor Sport knew him from 1983. In June 1994 he wrote:
Ayrton Senna was the most committed man I ever met. The sheer depth of his approach to his profession was something few ordinary people could truly understand. We speak of breathing, eating and sleeping a subject; well, Ayrton did just that.
… The trouble was, there were two Ayrton Sennas. The one, and sadly I never did more than scratch its surface or peek within its shadows, was an intense, funny, loyal and warm character. But the other could be a monster, the bully of the track. The intimidator.
… Senna had the mind of a computer and the emotions of a Latin. … To see Senna on a quick lap was to be awed by majesty.
And in the same tribute:
A flawed genius he undoubtedly was, but at Imola, just as in 1968 and again in 1982, motor racing lost one of the greatest kings it will ever know. To many — especially those with whom he worked — Ayrton Senna will always be the greatest.
… He was still the yardstick by which all other racers were judged. More than that, he was the yardstick by which they judged themselves. … Perhaps we never really knew him at all, perhaps we knew parts of him too well. I’m just grateful that we were acquainted, and that in my dotage I will be able to tell my grandchildren with pride and misty eyes, ‘Yes. I saw Senna race.’
Some of the most repeated lines about him are not here, because they cannot be traced or have been reworded in the retelling. They are gathered, each with the reason, under Misattributed.
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