A Star Named Ayrton Senna

Losing for him was already bad...

and losing against me was the worst

thing that could happen to him.

For him, second place

was the first place for losers.

He hated that.

There was nothing for him but winning.

He wanted to psyche his opposition

to think that he was in front of them.

He had to be the quickest all the time.

Ayrton would enter a corner faster

than he'd ever been before...

and trust

that something inside Ayrton Senna...

would get him and the car around the

corner. That's an act of trust or faith.

He prepared his chance,

and when it was there he took it.

And when you weren't correct, no way.

That was aggression.

So at the end if you saw the yellow

helmet, you knew you were in trouble.

I always thought that

he was just too intense about winning.

And he actually believed that

he had a God-given right to win.

You think you have a limit.

As soon as you touch this limit...

something happens and suddenly

you can go a little bit further.

With the power of your mind, your

determination, instinct and experience...

you can fly very high.

Ayrton Senna's talent,

commitment and determination...

carried him beyond normal boundaries.

He displayed a supreme ability

behind the wheel of a car...

but he also demonstrated

an immense depth of character...

of thought and of emotion.

His enormous rivalry with Alain Prost

in the late 80's and early 90's...

extracted every element of his genius.

But if there was one area

where Senna truly flew high...

it was racing in the rain.

His precision in the wet

was just unbelievable.

He felt the car so much more.

In the wet you have to be very precise.

You can't make any sudden moves

with the steering.

You got to be much more gentle.

Ayrton could feel the car

more than the other drivers.

Looking out of my commentary box, I

saw the worst weather I'd ever seen...

at any race anywhere in the world.

It was embarrassing to me

as an Englishman...

that everybody who thinks it rains

all the time in England...

were being proved right.

Ayrton was always very fast

when it was wet.

And this day, he had a little bit

of everything going for him...

and everything against us

to make us look stupid.

We employed somebody

for the weather forecast.

And he was at the airport,

close to the track at Donington.

We were

in permanent contact with him.

So we started the race...

and he was saying, not to me,

but to the engineers...

we were going to have a big shower.

There were some drops.

So I stopped for the tires, we had

a few more drops and then it was dry.

Every time he'd say something,

the opposite happened.

And I had the sad record

of changing tires seven times...

and six of those times

were the wrong way.

He was pissed off all year about having

this Ford engine in his McLaren...

because he wanted the championship,

but he knew he wouldn't make it.

All he could do was to wait

for special circumstances...

and then show everybody what

he could do. That was such a time.

He'd put into his head that he wanted

to be up front in the first lap.

He wanted everybody to look stupid

and that's exactly what he did.

They were making me hold my breath.

At the best of times, you thought: I

can't believe it. He can't stay like this.

He's bound to go off.

And there he just kept going and going.

Nobody knew where anybody was.

I remember the spray as he went.

Everyone else was cautiously going

around thinking:
I better be careful.

He just went:
Go. And he was off.

Gone. It was brilliant.

But he knew he could do it.

I had to go to the pits

to give the trophy away...

and I should've still been in hospital

because of a heart problem I had.

But when I got on to the podium,

I forgot about being ill, I felt 18 again.

To see the happy face he's got.

It was unbelievable.

His roots were firmly grounded in

the steel-making city of So Paulo...

the industrial heartland of Brazil.

Here, amid the energy and bustle

of South American commerce...

Ayrton developed his talents

on the car track at Interlagos.

And began a collection of trophies

that would be cherished by his family.

Ayrton was a very determined man.

He knew exactly what he wanted and

he would go at it till he achieved it.

He was very persistent. When he was

a kid people used to call him stubborn.

Because he would go to the limit

to get what he wanted.

As a child, I remember he was always

training in his go-cart.

He used to travel

to different the carting competitions.

We were always very curious to hear

how he had done at the competition.

And every year his results

would get better.

Ayrton was always very interested...

in car racing. As far as I remember

he was always involved in carting.

Before long, cart races in Brazil

and all around the world...

became all too aware

of the driver in the yellow helmet.

I met Ayrton when he was kid

driving in the carting races.

I was already painting helmets for

Fittipaldi, the Formula-1 champion...

and for Nelson Piquet. Ayrton also

wanted to have an identity of his own.

I decided to give him a warm color and

just like Ferrari has the color red...

I made his yellow

with two blue and green stripes...

coming out of his eyes to suggest

movement and aggression as well.

I decided to use the colors of our

country:
green, yellow, blue and white.

Ayrton loved the design and it became

his trademark throughout his career.

I'd known him for a long time...

because we did two World Carting

Championships. In Le Mans and Estoril.

In '78 and '79, so this goes back

to the very old days.

And he was very committed.

He had this look in his eyes.

He was exceptionally committed,

more than anybody else.

We were always a very close family.

So when Ayrton went to live in

England, we missed each other a lot.

We traveled over there often

and he came here when he could...

so we could be close together.

He wrote often.

After every race, he'd send us all

the details. About every corner...

and what he did and how he did it.

I still have the letters.

And in spite of the distance,

we always remained very close.

When Ayrton moved to England,

he didn't speak English.

So he would sit

and watch television...

for hours on end, trying to understand

and trying to learn the language.

And he couldn't cook either.

He never learned.

So he spent years eating fried eggs,

boiled eggs, scrambled eggs...

any egg dish imaginable, because

that was all he knew how to cook.

When Ayrton hired me back in 1984...

he was very worried about

his physical condition.

And about his health,

because he was a very skinny man.

The media referred to him

as Skinny Ayrton Senna.

We started working together...

and we recognized his determination...

to become stronger

and more able-bodied.

He was a very persistent person...

because he went all out.

What made Ayrton different from

the rest was that he actually did it.

Because knowledge alone

doesn't mean a thing.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes