1992 Three wins against the Williams

The new McLaren was brought forward to race for the first time at Interlagos, at Senna’s home Grand Prix on 5 April. McLaren took six cars to São Paulo, three new ones and three old, with 47 of its own people and 23 from Honda. He qualified 3rd, 2.2 seconds off pole, and walked away so fast that Ron Dennis followed two steps behind him. In the race he took 3rd from Michael Schumacher round the outside at the S do Senna, but his V12 was cutting out, and on the climb to the pits it held up a queue of cars until Schumacher, Jean Alesi and Martin Brundle got by. Schumacher accused him afterwards of playing around; Senna said he should have checked his facts. After 17 laps he stopped. He said: “The Williams are from another planet … I almost didn’t see them after the second lap.”

The Williams FW14B-⁠Renault had active suspension, a semi-automatic gearbox, traction control and Renault’s V10, and it was the class of the field. Nigel Mansell won the first five races of the year, and Williams drivers led every lap of the first five and the first 70 of the sixth. McLaren had begun with a stop-gap, the McLaren MP4/6B-⁠Honda. Senna was 3rd in it at Kyalami. In Mexico City, on the Friday, the car hit a bump in the Esses, spun and struck the wall, and a suspension part driven into the cockpit bruised his left leg. The next day, his 32nd birthday, he qualified 6th with extra foam packed round the leg, and in the race his transmission failed.

The McLaren MP4/7A-⁠Honda, designed by Neil Oatley with Henri Durand as chief aerodynamicist, had McLaren’s first semi-automatic gearbox and a throttle worked electronically, by a sensor on the pedal. Senna disliked it: it interfered with his habit of blipping the throttle to balance the car in a corner. He carried the number 1, with Gerhard Berger beside him for a third year, and Goodyear, the only tyre supplier now, had dropped its qualifying tyres. At Interlagos he had spoken about what the new electronics were doing to the sport.

Electronics create a different manner in which you must drive … With the assistance of very modern technology you can fix a car much quicker … But do you really want to control a skid or braking electronically? That should be part of a driver’s skill. If you miss a shift during a fight with another guy, he passes you. If you have a faultless gearbox, then nobody makes a mistake … All this technology changes a lot; some aspects are good but others, I argue, take away some importance from the driver.

In Spain, in the rain at the Circuit de Catalunya, he held 3rd until he spun off three laps from the end under Alesi’s pressure. At Imola he was 3rd, and afterwards sat slumped in the cockpit for a long time; Sid Watkins had to give him a saline injection before he could climb out. Mansell told L’Équipe that Senna was still the king of theatre.

Monaco, 31 May

It was the 50th Monaco Grand Prix. Mansell had won the first five races of the year but had never won at Monaco; Senna was chasing a fifth win there, which would equal Graham Hill. Mansell took pole with a new record, and Senna was 3rd, more than a second slower. He knew that if Riccardo Patrese’s Williams reached Sainte-Dévote ahead of him, he would be stuck behind it. At the start he pulled alongside, braked as late as he dared, and beat Patrese through the corner without running into Mansell. Patrese admitted that he had been a little cautious, not wanting to squeeze his team-mate; David Tremayne of Motor Sport judged that the move won Senna the race.

Mansell drove away, 22 seconds ahead by half-distance. Senna ran alone in 2nd, looking after his tyres and, by his own account, talking to himself in the cockpit to keep his concentration. On lap 60 Michele Alboreto spun at Mirabeau, Senna had to come almost to a halt while the Footwork was turned round, and Mansell’s lead grew to about 30 seconds. Then, on lap 71, in the tunnel, Mansell felt the rear of his car go light, thought he had a puncture, and came in for four new tyres. He rejoined about five seconds behind. Goodyear found the tyre still inflated; Williams concluded that a wheel nut had worked loose.

On new tyres Mansell took a second out of the gap in one lap and much of the rest in the next, and set the fastest lap of the race. By lap 75 he was on Senna’s gearbox. For three and a half laps he feinted left and right, at Tabac, at the swimming pool, at the exit of the tunnel and at the chicane, and on the last lap he tried the outside at Rascasse. Senna kept to his line and closed every door. He had switched off his rev limiter, and on the straights, he said, the car behaved like a dragster, spinning its wheels in second, third and fourth. Whenever he expected Mansell to attack, he told his engineers, Mansell was somewhere else. He won by 0.215 seconds.

It was his fifth win at Monaco, equal with Graham Hill, and his fourth in a row. On the slowing-down lap he stopped at the McLaren pit to embrace his brother, Leonardo, and then went up to the royal box to meet Prince Rainier for the fifth time. Mansell climbed out, sagged against his car, sat on the ground, and needed help to reach the podium. It was the first time that year that a driver who was not in a Williams had led a lap.

Montreal to Hockenheim

In Montreal he took pole, his only one of the year and the only one all season that did not go to a Williams. He led the first 37 laps with a train of cars behind him. On lap 15 Mansell dived down the inside at the last chicane, went across the kerbs and through the sand, came back on without his front wings and spun out; he shook his fist at Senna and harangued Ron Dennis before he left the circuit. Senna said Mansell had tried to straight-line the chicane and got it wrong. On lap 38 the Honda cut out, and Berger won.

At Magny-Cours Schumacher misjudged his braking into the Adelaide hairpin on the first lap and knocked him out. During the stoppage for rain Senna went to find him on the grid and told him what he thought, and Schumacher accepted the blame. At a test at Hockenheim on 16 July, blocked on a fast lap, Senna seized him by the collar of his overalls in the pits.

At Silverstone Brundle beat him off the line, and for 50 laps the two of them replayed their Formula 3 duels of 1983. Senna passed him at Stowe on lap 53, and moments later his transmission failed at Club. Brundle said it had been just like old times, and admitted that he had to smile when Senna stopped a couple of corners later. Senna said he wanted a winning package for 1993; otherwise he might take a year off at his beach house in Brazil.

At the German Grand Prix everyone else stopped for tyres; Senna alone ran the whole race on one set. Mansell, on new tyres and closing, cut through the second chicane on lap 19 and came back on right behind the McLaren, and Senna waved him through. Patrese, on fresher tyres, was on his tail from lap 37. Twice at the third chicane he was alongside on the inside, and each time Senna kept his foot in round the outside and took the inside line at the apex. On the last lap Patrese tried again into the stadium, found the dusty line as Senna closed the door, and spun. Senna was 2nd, 4.5 seconds behind Mansell. Patrese said Senna had not been unfair.

Hungary

A win at the Hungaroring would make Mansell champion, and so would 2nd, unless Patrese won. Senna alone chose Goodyear’s softer tyres all round. At the start Patrese led, and Mansell, on the dirty inside, was passed round the outside by both McLarens. For some 30 laps Mansell attacked him, using the slipstream past the pits every time; Senna moved over to break the tow and covered every move. Mansell admitted later that, with the championship on his mind, he had not dared risk a collision with the McLaren. On lap 39 Patrese, far ahead, spun, and Senna led. He made a precautionary stop for tyres on lap 67, kept the lead and won by 40.139 seconds. Mansell, 2nd, was champion.

On the podium Senna pulled Mansell up beside him on the top step. Mansell remembered what he said to him there.

… 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!’

Senna thought he was driving as well as he ever had, and that a performance like that was the product of experience. That afternoon James Hunt told BBC viewers that Senna had told him he would drive for Williams for nothing. Frank Williams, when he heard, joked that someone should give him a telephone so that he could ring Senna at once.

Blanchimont

On the Friday morning at Spa, in free practice, Érik Comas’s Ligier went off at Blanchimont, one of the fastest corners anywhere, and hit the barrier hard. Comas was knocked unconscious, and the car came to rest on the track with its engine still running. Senna was the next car along. He stopped his McLaren, ran across the live track, reached into the cockpit and switched off the engine, and held Comas’s head until the medical team arrived. Denis Jenkinson, watching from across the valley as the red flags came out, noted that Senna had not been involved in the accident, and had stopped to help before the doctors got there. Comas took no further part in the meeting. He has said since that Senna saved his life.

That afternoon Senna qualified 2nd, 2.2 seconds behind Mansell, and said he had driven as hard as ever, in a car that was the same as ever. He also said he was finished with Williams. They had been close two or three times, he said, but Alain Prost, who had already signed, had a clause in his contract that gave him a veto over his team-mate, and he had used it. At Monza Prost said he had no such power.

On the Sunday his acceleration took him past Mansell into La Source, and he led the first lap. When the rain came the others went in for wet tyres; he alone stayed out on slicks, hoping the track would dry, and led again. It did not dry, and by the time he changed he had fallen to 12th or 13th. He went back to slicks well before the Williams drivers, and came through to 5th. Schumacher won his first Grand Prix, and Mansell’s 2nd place gave Williams the constructors’ title.

Honda

On Friday 11 September, at three in the afternoon in Japan, as qualifying at Monza was about to begin, Honda announced that it would leave Formula One at the end of the year. Its president, Nobuhiko Kawamoto, said later that he had decided long before.

I made the decision to quit at the end of 1991. So I wanted to win the championship in 1992, and I wanted Senna to win the title for the fourth time.

When Japanese journalists asked Senna for his thoughts, Honda recalls, he turned away from the microphones with tears in his eyes. Without Honda engines, he said that afternoon, it was finished for him.

On the Sunday morning Mansell announced that he was retiring from Formula One. Three days after Hungary, he said, a Williams director had rung to tell him that because Senna would drive for nothing, he must take far less than they had agreed. In the race Patrese passed Senna on lap 14, and on lap 20 Mansell let Patrese through to lead, as he had promised. Then Mansell’s hydraulics failed on lap 42 and Patrese’s on lap 48, and Senna, nursing a split exhaust and trouble with his downshifts, took the lead and won by 17 seconds. He would rather have won by overtaking, he said, but he had been there, and had taken the chance. It was his 36th win, and his last with Honda. On the slowing-down lap he waved a Brazilian flag.

Running shoes

At Estoril his rear wing collapsed at the end of the straight in Friday qualifying. While Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Ron Dennis met behind closed doors to settle which of their teams would have Senna and which Prost, Senna parked his red Honda NSX outside the Williams motorhome. On race morning Williams confirmed Prost for 1993.

If Prost wants to come back in a sporting way he should be sporting and allow us to have a fair fight. Everything has been laid out before him. It is like giving him running shoes and the rest of us lead boots.

He called Prost a coward, Motor Sport reported, and warned that things could get very physical the next year. In the race a chassis imbalance made his car feel like a three-wheeler even on the straights. He made several tyre stops, set the fastest lap, his only one of the year, and passed Brundle on lap 69 for 3rd, a lap down. Mansell’s win was his ninth of the season, one more than Senna’s record of 1988.

At Suzuka, Honda’s last home race, his engine failed on lap 3, and he walked back to the pits to cheers from the Japanese crowd. In Adelaide he stayed close behind Mansell for 18 laps, the two of them trading lap records, until they came up behind two slower cars at the hairpin at the end of the Brabham Straight: Mansell braked, Senna could not stop in time, and he ran into the back of the Williams. Each blamed the other. Berger won Honda’s last race. Senna was 4th in the championship with 50 points, one ahead of Berger; Mansell had 108.

Firebird

On Sunday 20 December, at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix, Arizona, he drove Emerson Fittipaldi’s Penske PC-21-Chevrolet IndyCar. Fittipaldi had asked Roger Penske for the car. Senna drove it with the pedals set for Fittipaldi and the seat for Rick Mears, and would not have either changed, and his best lap, 49.09 seconds, was 0.61 seconds faster than Fittipaldi had gone in it.

Penske said years later that he saw the test as leverage in Senna’s talks with McLaren. Senna told the Los Angeles Times what it had meant to him.

I have always had a lot of curiosity about Indy, so this occasion was most important for me … It was like having a new toy. There was so much to learn, to understand. It was a tremendous challenge, but I think it has rejuvenated me. For the first time in some time, racing was fun again. Formula One--the people and the politics--had drained my enthusiasm for racing this past season.

… Formula One has become so sophisticated that it is computer racing … The Formula One cars have taken racing away from the driver and put it in the computers. In the Indy car, I felt important again.