1990 The second title

For almost half of the United States Grand Prix, on a cool, grey March day in Phoenix, the race belonged to a Tyrrell. Jean Alesi took the lead into the first turn, and by lap 14 he was more than nine seconds clear. Ayrton Senna had started 5th. His engine had given trouble on the Friday, rain on the Saturday stopped anyone improving, and the cool track had suited Pirelli’s qualifying tyres, which put a Minardi, a Dallara and Alesi’s Tyrrell ahead of him. He passed Andrea de Cesaris on lap 4, and on lap 9 his new team-mate, Gerhard Berger, who had taken pole, locked his brakes and went into the tyres. He weighed the Tyrrell up, and by lap 31 he was on its tail. On lap 34, with a backmarker to deal with, he dived down the inside into the first turn. Alesi went round the outside of him and took the inside line for the left-hander that followed, and led again. On lap 35 Senna did it again, and this time closed the door. He won by 8.685 seconds. It had been, he said, the sort of racing he liked, and on the podium he applauded when Alesi’s name was read out and was the first to spray him with champagne.

It was his third season with McLaren, and the first without Alain Prost, who had gone to Ferrari and taken the champion’s number 1 with him. The two teams swapped their pairs of numbers, so McLaren ran Ferrari’s old 27 and 28: Senna was 27, and Berger, who had moved the other way, from Ferrari, was 28. The car was the McLaren MP4/5B-⁠Honda, developed from the 1989 car by a team under the chief designer Neil Oatley, who was also Senna’s race engineer, and Honda’s 3.5-litre V10 went through six versions in the year.

He taught me a lot about our sport; I taught him to laugh.

He had nearly not been there at all. Through the winter FISA, whose president was Jean-Marie Balestre, had held back his licence until he withdrew his charge that the 1989 championship had been manipulated, which in February he did, and he had spent weeks in silence at his beach house at Angra dos Reis. At McLaren’s press conference in Phoenix he spoke of a lack of motivation.

Before that press conference Berger had taken a sleeping pill by mistake for a sinus pill, and he still took pole the next day. At first he was too tall for the cockpit. He and Senna became close friends, and a few days after Phoenix they were at Angra together, fishing, diving and water-skiing. Berger’s humour loosened Senna up; Oatley remembered that Senna had never really shared Prost’s sense of humour, not until Berger arrived and taught him.

Interlagos

A fortnight later the Brazilian Grand Prix went back to São Paulo for the first time since 1980, and Senna raced in Formula One at Interlagos for the first time. The circuit had been cut from 7.96 km to 4.325 km, with new pits and a new control tower. The downhill S after the pit straight was his suggestion, though he disliked what was built: he had wanted a fast S, taken in fourth gear off the end of the straight, not a place to stop. He asked for it to be named after the pioneer Chico Landi, and it became the S do Senna. President Fernando Collor de Mello had just frozen bank accounts to fight inflation, and fans paid up to a month’s wages for their tickets. Senna took pole by 0.611 seconds. On the grid, interviewed by TV Globo’s Reginaldo Leme, he was moved by the crowd, and he said later that it had given him back his motivation.

He led every lap to his tyre stop, rejoined behind Berger, and was in front again when Berger stopped, about 12 seconds clear of Prost. On lap 40 or 41 he came up to lap his old Lotus team-mate, Satoru Nakajima, and followed the Tyrrell for several corners. At a slow corner Nakajima moved over, slid on the dusty surface off the racing line, and the McLaren’s front wing struck the Tyrrell’s rear wheel. Senna radioed ahead, stopped for a new nose and finished 3rd. Nakajima sent word that he was sorry and that it had not been intentional; David Tremayne of Motor Sport wondered why Senna had not waited for the next straight, where the Honda’s power would have made the pass safe. Prost won, in his second race for Ferrari, and reminded reporters that he had won in Brazil six times, the first of them before Senna was even in Formula One. The two ignored each other on the podium, where Collor handed both of them their trophies.

A grand chelem

At Imola he took his sixth pole there in a row and led until the fourth lap, when a damaged wheel rim, probably struck by a stone, let a tyre down and he went off into the sand at Rivazza. Walking back to the pits, he was greeted by tifosi chanting for him to drive their Ferrari.

At Monaco, on the Thursday, his first flying lap was two seconds faster than anyone else’s. He took pole on the Saturday, and after a restart, when Berger ran into Prost at Mirabeau on the first lap, he led all 78 laps and set the fastest lap: pole, fastest lap, every lap led and the win, what French writers call a grand chelem. In the closing laps his engine was losing power, and he let Alesi close to 1.087 seconds. When someone remarked excitedly on how close the finish had been, he said, “It was enough.” It was his third win at Monaco. That evening, at the Automobile Club’s gala, he dedicated it to Juan Manuel Fangio.

In Montreal he took pole on the Friday, before rain washed out the Saturday, and the race started wet. Berger jumped the start and was given a one-minute penalty; after the stops for slicks he ran ahead on the road, and Senna let him go and won on corrected time, from Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. Brazil opened their World Cup against Sweden the same day.

In Mexico City two weeks later, at his 100th Grand Prix start, he began the day by pushing a cream cake into the face of Jo Ramírez, McLaren’s team coordinator. He led for 60 laps and had been 17 seconds clear when a tyre began to go down. He asked to stop; the team told him to stay out. Prost passed him, then Mansell, and on lap 64 the right-rear tyre exploded. In part, he said, it had been his own fault: he could have come in for a tyre without consulting Ron Dennis. Dennis agreed that the team had called it wrong.

Level with Fangio

Paul Ricard and Silverstone gave him two 3rd places and Prost two wins. In France a slow pit stop cost him; at Silverstone, chasing Mansell, he spun at Copse on lap 14 and had to stop for new tyres. After Silverstone Prost led the championship, by 41 points to 39. McLaren spent a week testing at Hockenheim with revised front suspension and a stronger engine, and there Senna took pole and followed Alessandro Nannini’s Benetton, which was running without a tyre stop and was too quick on the straights to pass. At the end of lap 33, as Nannini came up to lap a backmarker in the stadium, Senna took his slipstream and went by under braking for the first chicane. It was his 24th win, level with Fangio, and it put him back in front, 48 to 44.

At the Hungaroring, where his father had joined him in the paddock for the talks about his future, he had a puncture, stopped, and came back from 10th. On lap 64, at the chicane, he dived inside Nannini, and the Benetton was launched out of the race. Nannini said Senna had arrived in the middle of his line; Senna said Nannini had closed the door too much. Observers told Motor Sport there was only one line through that chicane, and Nannini had been on it. Senna finished 0.288 seconds behind Thierry Boutsen, a friend and holiday companion since 1985, and drew alongside him after the flag to show his appreciation.

The talks ended at Spa. On the Friday evening, by the account of the Italian paper l’Unità, he left the Williams motorhome with his father, having turned Williams down, and agreed to stay at McLaren for 1991. On the Sunday, after two red flags and three starts, he won from pole. It was his 25th win, one more than Fangio.

Monza

He arrived at Monza 13 points ahead. On the Saturday morning his engine had to be changed, and he managed only eight laps in the spare car, which was set up for Berger. In the afternoon, while his own car was finished, he stood calmly at the back of the garage and watched Prost take provisional pole, with Berger a thousandth of a second slower. With less than four minutes left he went out, did one lap to warm his tyres, and started his only flying lap as the chequered flag was being unfurled: 1:22.533, pole by 0.402 seconds. A block of Brazilian fans in the grandstand opposite the McLaren pit made sure everyone heard about it.

Derek Warwick’s Lotus rolled at the Parabolica on the first lap, and the race was restarted. Senna led every lap, set the fastest lap and won by 6.054 seconds from Prost: his first win in the Italian Grand Prix, and his second grand chelem of the year. There had been a bet on it. Ron Dennis, doubting that a McLaren could win at Ferrari’s home, had agreed that if Senna won he could keep the car, and it stands today at the Instituto Ayrton Senna in São Paulo.

In the press conference, with Berger gone to catch a plane, Carlo Marincovich of La Repubblica asked whether this, on the oldest and most glorious of circuits, was not the moment to shake hands. Prost said he would if Senna would. Senna answered that the two of them had only their work and their passion in common, that he would never forget 1989, and that he had refused Prost’s hand at Phoenix in March because he had not believed him sincere; if Prost said publicly that he meant it, he would respond. Prost said he did not want to go back over 1989, and held out his hand. After a moment, Senna took it.

At Estoril Mansell swerved across Prost at the start and both McLarens went through. Senna led for most of the race, until Mansell came past on lap 50 and he did not fight him. He was 2nd when the race was stopped after 61 laps, and 18 points ahead of Prost with three races left.

Jerez

At Jerez, on Friday 28 September, about eight minutes from the end of first qualifying, the front suspension of Martin Donnelly’s Lotus failed in the fast right-handers behind the pits. The car hit the barrier and broke in two, and Donnelly was thrown out, still strapped to his seat, and lay in the middle of the track with his legs broken. Senna went to the scene and to the circuit’s medical centre; the accounts do not agree on the order. Sid Watkins, the Formula One doctor, worked on Donnelly at the trackside, and only when Donnelly was in the ambulance, Watkins wrote later, did he realise that Senna had been standing just behind him all the time, silently watching.

When the session resumed, about 40 minutes later, Senna went out and did 1:18.900, the only lap under 1:19 and a new record for the circuit. Donnelly, who remembers nothing of that weekend, has put it simply since: Senna had watched a man he knew near death, then went back to his garage, closed his visor and did the fastest lap anyone had ever done at Jerez. On the day of the crash Senna said:

As far as I hear, he is out of danger, life danger, which is a lot considering the accident. And as it happened to him, can happen to any of us. There are some things that you can calculate, but there are things which are unexpected, and those unexpected things are the most dangerous ones, like it happened to him today. I hope we don’t see those things in the future.

On the Saturday he took his 50th pole, the first driver to reach that number. McLaren gave him a cake, and he embraced his father. He did not celebrate. He went to see Donnelly in hospital in Seville, and when he spoke to the press his eyes filled. On the Sunday an undertray strut from an AGS holed his radiator. He retired, Prost won, and the gap was 9 points, 78 to 69, with two races left.

Suzuka, 21 October

Only the best 11 results counted, and both men had already scored in 11 races, so a win at Suzuka was worth only 7 more points to Prost. If Prost failed to score there, Senna was champion whatever happened in Adelaide. Pole at Suzuka had always been on the right-hand side of the grid, off the racing line, on the dirty side of the track. On the Wednesday Senna asked for it to be moved to the clean left-hand side, as it had been at Estoril at his request. He was refused. Who made the decision is still disputed; a year later he blamed Balestre. On the Saturday he took pole by 0.232 seconds from Prost, and it stayed on the right.

At the drivers’ briefing on the Sunday morning the race director, Roland Bruynseraede, told the drivers that anyone who went straight on at the chicane must rejoin by the proper route. Piquet argued that this was more dangerous, and proposed that they be allowed to cut through under a marshal’s supervision, and the drivers agreed. Senna had been disqualified for exactly that a year before. He stood up, said that it was a joke, and that what had happened the year before had been a joke, and walked out.

The day was sunny. Prost got away better from the clean side; Senna, on his right, drew almost level on the Honda’s acceleration. Prost drifted left towards the middle of the track and then turned in for the first corner, a right-hander. Senna, on the inside, kept his foot down, and his left front wheel struck the Ferrari’s right rear, about nine seconds after the start. The two cars slid across the run-off together into the gravel, in a cloud of dust. The two drivers walked back separately, without a word. Senna hurried at first, expecting a restart; when it was clear there would be none, he slowed, and walked calmly to the pits. He was World Champion for the second time, and McLaren had the constructors’ title as well. Neil Oatley was not in Japan: he had driven to the McLaren factory at three in the morning to watch it live, and it was over, he said, in about 30 seconds.

Senna said he was at peace with himself, blamed Prost for closing the door and the officials for the grid, and dedicated the title to those who had fought against him the year before. “I don’t give a damn what Prost says”, he said.

Prost talked of giving up racing.

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.

Adelaide

In Adelaide Jackie Stewart, interviewing him for Australia’s Channel Nine, put it to him that in the past three or four years he had been in contact with more cars and drivers than all the world champions before him put together. Senna told him he found it amazing that so experienced a man should ask such a question, that racing drivers race with other people, and that “if you no longer go for a gap that exists”, you are no longer a racing driver.

He held to that for a year. At Suzuka in 1991, with Balestre no longer at the head of FISA, he said he had made up his mind the night before: if Prost beat him off the line, he would go for the first corner regardless. Ron Dennis said later that the brake and throttle traces had shown him what had happened, and that he told Senna he was disappointed in him. Steve Nichols, Senna’s engineer in 1988 and 1989 and by then at Ferrari, felt sad: Senna had let himself down that day, and had not needed to, because he would have won the championship anyway.

The Australian Grand Prix was the 500th race of the World Championship. Senna took his 10th pole of the year and, in a heatwave, led for 61 laps, until the gearbox found neutral as he changed down under braking and he went off into the tyre barrier. Piquet won. Fangio drove a Mercedes W196 in the parade that weekend, and at the end of the season the champions were photographed together: Fangio, Jack Brabham, Denny Hulme, Jackie Stewart, James Hunt, Piquet and Senna. Prost declined to join them.