Ayrton Senna: A Formula One driver who left the world of Motorsports too soon
Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian race car driver who became the greatest F1 driver of all time. With a huge number of wins and dominance of the sport he could have continued his dominance but an unfortunate accident ended his life in 1994. He remains the last driver to die behind the wheel of a Formula 1 race car till this day. His untimely death resulted in massive changes to the safety standards of the sport of Formula 1 and it brought about a big change in the perception of car racing as a safe and harmless sport. Because of his death, the world never got to see just how good he could have become in his later years.
Ayrton Senna was born into a wealthy family in Brazil. He started racing at a young age and started driving go-karts at the age of 13, winning many junior championships early on as well. He moved to England to pursue a career in racing and almost gave up the sport but decided to stay on after he got an offer from the Formula Ford 2000 team. He progressed through to the British Formula 3 Championship which he narrowly won in 1983. In 1984 he moved onto Formula 1 driving for the Toleman team and got his first podium finish for the team coming in second place at the Brazilian Grand Prix. In 1985, Senna moved to Lotus from Toleman and this started his real dominance of the sport. He won many races with the team and showed the world what a capable driver he was. In 1985 he managed to secure seven pole positions and finished the year in fifth place. The next two years were very similar and he impressed enough to move to the top team of the time, McLaren, in 1988.
Senna stayed with McLaren from 1988 until 1993; a year before his death. At McLaren, he was paired with Frenchman Alain Prost, a driver he would win many championships with and also have a strong rivalry against. The Brazilian won his first world championship in 1988 driving for Mclaren and then went on to repeat the feat in 1990 and 1991. In 1992, the dominance of his team started to wane and the team of Williams-Renault started to become very strong. Senna moved ship in 1993 and went to drive for Williams. This was also the fateful year that he crashed during a race and it ended his life. He may have won the driver’s championship that year or gone on to greater supremacy in the sport but we will never know.
The third race of the season in 1993 was the San Marino Grand Prix. This turned out to be a very ominous course because Senna’s protégé Rubens Barrichello was first involved in a serious crash during qualifying that ruled him out of the race. The next day Austrian driver, Roland Ratzenberger, was killed in a horrific crash during qualifying when his Simtek-Ford crashed into a concrete wall going flat out. The death put a huge strain on the other drivers and shook the sport to its core. Immediately following the crash, all of the drivers with Senna leading the way decided to restart the Drivers’ Safety Group to try and increase the safety of drivers in the sport. This was not the only crash to take place before the one that ended Senna’s life though. With the race started a huge accident occurred on the start line when a Benetton-Ford car was slammed into by a Lotus-Mugen Honda. Even though the race was resumed, all the drivers were on edge. Senna was leading the pack when he entered the dangerous Tamburello corner and his car went smashing into the barrier wall at 135 mph. Senna was airlifted to the hospital but he was pronounced dead.
The world lost a great sportsman that day and over the years in numerous surveys and polls conducted Ayrton Senna comes out as the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time. Most people may not know this about the great driver but he gave away millions from his personal fortune to various children’s charities around the world. Both Senna’s and Ratzenberger’s deaths led to the FIA increasing security and safety measures for the entire sport of Formula 1 racing. It is likely that if Senna would have lived on for a few more years he would have cemented his place in the history books; he was able to do so much in the short career he had, imagine what he could have achieved with a few more seasons under his belt.
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