It's the anniversary of the passing of a legend. Ayrton Senna - 21st March 1960 to 1st May 1994. Still a huge loss to motorsport.
Not anywhere on my list of great drivers because of his bratish mind game behaviour I lost all interest in F1 for the years he was driving, even Schumacher never managed that.
There's a fine line between genius and arrogant (I've got god in my cockpit nutter) ,but he got the results.
Although when you see a replay of him running Prost off the road a couple of times you you wonder what they would have done with him now!
If they where that good would they need these tactics?, my respect for Rossi (Motogp) went down a few notches when he started demanding that Lorenzo
was removed from the team.
At the end of the day they are supposed to be SPORTSMEN!
I appreciate he wasn't everyone's cup of tea (and he was arrogant) but I found him entertaining in his own way. We don't seem to have as many "characters" these days.
Senna is the GOAT and was, in fact, very humble outside the GP circus.
He had the first carbon fibre briefcase, until Berger threw it out of a helicopter, he was like a kid when playing with his Radio Controlled planes
and the children's foundation he started is working brilliant.
And Schumacher got Senna's contract at Ferrari.
In fact there are no characters left in F1, that's one of the main problems. They are all monotone and PC; no enthusiasm.
One of the classis lines was when Jackie Stewart brought the Tyrell into the pits complaining he had no grip. Tyrell answered 'you think you have
problems, England are 72 for 6'
I remember James Hunt winning the British Grand Prix and the first thing he wanted as he stepped out of his car was a f...... cigarette.
[Edited on 1-5-11 by designer]
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Quinn
I appreciate he wasn't everyone's cup of tea (and he was arrogant) but I found him entertaining in his own way. We don't seem to have as many "characters" these days.
Like some of the above, I don't hold him that highly because he didn't seem to race an a way that was very sporting but what he did off the
track is incredible. Wasn't he the one that said taking away all the driver aids without limiting anything else was going to lead to accidents?
Then to have two men killed on one weekend.
I read somewhere they found an Austrian Flag in his car when they recovered it which he'd been planning to unfurl for his Victory lap in honour
of Ratzburg.