If he had lived to see this Thursday dawn, Ayrton Senna would have probably smiled to himself for having made it to the age of 53. The Formula 1 racer’s turbulent career saw him face-off with so many great racers through the 80’s and early 90’s, on tracks and in cars with little safety mechanisms compared to today.
Unfortunately history serves as a constant reminder that Senna is no longer amongst us, having met his end on the race track on May 1, 1994 at the San Marino GP in Italy. Though it’s been almost two decades since Senna made his final lap, there are still a few die-hard F1 fans who remember the Brazilian speed demon
“Most people have heard his name but have no idea what he has done,” says Dominic Gonsalves, an accent trainer who has been following the sport for 35 years. “I still remember I watched him race as a young guy in the 1985 Portuguese GP. No one even knew his name. I was in Bahrain at that time and we were watching on an old black and white TV set there. It was so wet that half the racers had crashed but this guy not only managed to grab pole position, but also won the race,” he recalls.
If there were two things that people watched Senna for, it was for his speed and his temper, “In those days, there were no cameras inside the cars and so we would rely on the commentators and an on-screen display to show us how fast people were going. With Senna, the boards used to light up to 220 mph (350 kmph) and we used to look on at awe,” says Naren M V, a father of three and chartered accountant residing in Kilpauk.
“He was also very entertaining after collisions and in the post-podium conferences where he would yell at Prost, Schumacher and so many others for having bumped him. It was quite funny to see a guy get so upset on international TV,” he adds.
The day the 3-time-world-champion crashed into a concrete wall, his speedometer clocked his speed at 330 kmph. “In those days, crashes were regular. There would be a short lull, the racer would be taken away and the race would restart. That’s exactly what happened when Senna crashed as well,” recalls Naren. It wasn’t till a day-and-a-half later that news reached him that Senna never recovered from the crash. “I was shaken and stopped watching F1 for four years, until Schumacher came into his prime,” he says.
So what is Senna’s legacy to F1 today? Plenty. Though young racers today only remember him as the “last racer who died on a track”, they don’t quite know that their races are safer because he died that day in May. Better crash barriers, cuts to engine power, larger sills in the driver cockpits and easier tracks were all done in the aftermath of the speedster’s death — leaving a legacy of safety for today’s young racers.