“I am not designed to come second or third”.
Like any true-blooded Englishman, I had a strange love/hate relationship with three-time world champion Ayrton Senna in the early ’90s. To the pre-teen me, he was the enemy; the mortal foe of Nigel Mansell, Britain’s first genuinely promising Formula 1 driver since James Hunt – who had won the World Drivers Championship before I was even born. Mansell’s quest to secure his one and only championship would end Senna’s winning streak, with the Brazilan driver having scored the most points in both 1990 and 1991 before ‘Nige’ won the crown in 1992, thanks in no small part to the untouchable Williams FW14B.
However, when Senna was tragically killed in 1994’s San Marino Grand Prix, it shook the entire world of F1. Any lingering, childish animosity I held towards him for being Mansell’s key rival was totally removed, and it became brutally clear that the sport had lost one of its shining lights. At 34, he arguably had more world championships in him; he is often cited by other drivers as an inspiration and his legacy has endured considerably since that tragic day in 1994. In his native Brazil, Senna is still regarded as a hero, and Asif Kapadia’s wonderful 2010 biopic does a fantastic job of illuminating the human behind the legend.
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