Race car driver Ayrton Senna da Silva--8 years ago today.... (1 Viewer)

[CharlesD]

Today is the 8th anniversary of the death of Ayrton Senna da Silva, perhaps the greatest race car driver ever. Senna was killed at Imola during the Italian Grand Prix. That weekend also saw the death of popular Austrian Rookie Roland Ratzenberger the previous day, and a massive crash during the start that sent debris into the crowd injuring some spectators.
Senna was a phenomenal talent. His greatness was apparent even before he first stepped into a Formula One car. He could drive like no other as evidenced by his amazing qualifying performances (Link Removed (8.65MB file)). He was passionate and driven to win. His rivalry with some-time team-mate Alain Prost is now the stuff of legend.
Today the Ayrton Senna Foundation, which was in the planning stages when he was killed, helps thousands of street children in his native Brazil.
He is still greatly missed by all of his fans around the world.

 

[John Garcia]

Senna is my GOD! R.I.P.
I still have the SI issue about Senna's death. There is an errie picture in there showing Senna walking the track, looking at Ratzenberger's crash site and commenting something to the effect of a preminission of his accident the following day.
I was horrified and openly wept when I saw him hit the wall.
I was an F1 FANATIC until that day, then it sort of lost it's flavor for me. It's still exciting, but I no longer have the same interest.

 

[Dan D.]

Wow, I was thinking of this earlier today. At the time, I was more of a Prost fan, but Senna's death shook me up more than I ever would have imagined. He was a spectacular talent and is deeply missed. What fun it would have been to see him battle Schumacher for a couple more seasons.

An amusing story... In 1993, a friend of mine and I were lucky enough to be guests of Team Lotus at the Montreal GP. It was a magical weekend, actually getting to wander around the pits and see what goes on behind-the-scenes. At the end of Friday's practice, we waited for the Lotus chauffeur to take us back to our hotel. The crew was still working so we were the only ones in the car. On the way out of the circuit, there was a light blue Lincoln Continental in front of us. People in the crowd kept leaning over and giving the driver the thumbs-up. Once on the highway back to downtown, the car took off like a shot. We were wildly curious to see who it was. Since we were just a couple of young guys and not really VIPs (thank you Tommy Hilfiger for bailing on the weekend and freeing up the pit passes), the driver was more than happy to have a bit of fun and chase the car down. As we entered the city, we caught up to it and pulled along side at a stoplight. Obviously, you can guess who it was, driving himself back to his hotel in his rental car. My friend, a talented and well-equipped photographer, seized the opportunity and readied his camera. Ayrton looked over, gave us a casual smile, and turned his attention back to the traffic light. Not the best photo my friend took during the weekend, but the one with the coolest memories.

 

[CharlesD]

My favorite Senna story (and I don't know for sure that it is even true) is when he was pulled over for excessive speeding in a rented Porsche near Heathrow Airport before the British GP.
The cop walks up to the car, bends over to the driver's window an asks "who do you think you are?, Nigel Mansell?" to which Senna replies "No, I am Ayrton Senna". Needless to say the cop was impressed!

 

[John Garcia]

No, that story is not true. It acutally WAS Nigel. The cop let him go after looking at his license.

 

[Holadem]

While I don't follow F1 anymore, I still remember exactly where I was when they announced his death. Sad.

--

Holadem