SCHU V SENNA RE-EXAMINED

Thought I would put this up to read while we wait for the decision in Paris......a good read.

SCHU V SENNA RE-EXAMINED


Just when the mouthwatering prospect of a head-to-head rivalry between Formula 1’s established maestro Ayrton Senna and young pretender Michael Schumacher was becoming a reality, fate took Senna away.

In his recently published biography of the German seven-time world champion, Michael Schumacher: The Edge of Greatness, James Allen tells the inside story of the tetchy and unequal relationship between the inter-generational rivals.


Michael Schumacher had a great deal of respect for Ayrton Senna. The problem for Schumacher was that he felt Senna didn’t respect him.

Only in the final months of their rivalry, just before Senna’s death at Imola in May 1994, did the Brazilian show Schumacher the respect he craved.

Senna’s shadow is cast long across Michael’s career. It would be an exaggeration to say that he haunts him, but Senna’s death and Schumacher’s proximity to it certainly left an indelible mark on a man who, despite appearances, is actually very sensitive.

Theirs was the duel that the world was waiting to see, but fate decreed that it was to last for just two and a half seasons – they shared the same starting grid just 41 times.

Willi Weber says: “For all of us what happened to Senna is a great tragic loss and we would have liked to have continued driving with him in Formula 1 and Michael would have liked to have shown him how good he really is.

“I am sure that Ayrton Senna knew that Michael would take over from him. He felt it, otherwise it wouldn’t have come to these complaints between Michael and him.

“He already knew that there was someone quite special in the car who was capable of breaking his records and driving faster than he ever could.”

In his early Formula 1 career, Schumacher was well aware that Senna was the biggest beast in the jungle and the young pretender set out to let him know that he had a new challenger.

The two had many run-ins both on and off the track, as Schumacher deliberately attempted to get under Senna’s skin.

He was aware that the Brazilian was an emotionally driven man and he provoked him to fury on several occasions.

One thing Schumacher found unacceptable about Senna was that he would lecture the junior drivers on safety and respect and then behave on track as if those rules did not apply to him.

When Schumacher spoke out about this publicly Senna put him down savagely, on one occasion branding him a “stupid boy”.

Meanwhile their battles on track were intense and loaded with menace as the two testosterone-driven racers used their 200mph cars to intimidate each other.

* * *

Senna also provided Schumacher with his first encounter with what can only be described as the ‘win at all costs’ mentality in another driver.

The Brazilian was totally unable to accept that anyone else could be better than him and was always unwilling to be beaten. When Nigel Mansell won the world title in 1992, Senna whispered these chilling words into his ear on the podium: “Now you know why I am such a bastard; it’s because I never want anyone else to experience what you are feeling now.”

Mansell says that his blood froze.

Senna himself had been bloodied by some intense battles on the track with Alain Prost, including the two infamous occasions when the pair collided with each other to win the world championship.

Heavy-handed tactics on the racetrack were common in those days; these were hard men sorting out their differences at high speed.

When he was parachuted into one of the top teams in late 1991, Schumacher found himself mixing with them straight away.

* * *

The world’s best driver and his natural successor had got past the stage of marking out territory; now they were on a potentially devastating collision course.

On the first lap of the 1992 French Grand Prix, Schumacher was following Senna when he made a lunge down the inside at the Adelaide Hairpin, the slowest corner on the circuit, presumably thinking of paying him back for the move Senna had pulled on him in Brazil.

Senna did not give him room and swung across in front of him. Rather than back off, Schumacher kept coming down the inside and the inevitable collision occurred. Studying the pictures again, with the knowledge of the simmering feud between them, it seems as though Schumacher was looking for trouble.

He certainly got it.

Senna’s car was eliminated on the spot and the race was stopped. Schumacher’s car lost its front wing, but was repaired and was able to restart.

But on the grid before the restart Senna, who had changed out of his overalls and into a jumper and jeans and who had clearly had time to reflect before acting, confronted Schumacher.

An Italian journalist from La Gazzetta dello Sport got close enough to the pair to record what was said.

“What were you up to?” said Senna, his left hand on Schumacher’s shoulder, pressing downwards, his right index finger pointing in his face.

“Who do you think you are? You’ve made a huge mistake, like in Brazil, even worse. On the first lap with cold tyres and brakes you cannot try certain things. You could have caused a catastrophe.”

Schumacher himself takes up the story.

“Senna went on: ‘Look what happened, happened, OK, but unlike you I talk to you directly and tell you you’ve messed up. But I don’t go to the media and make it public.’

“I told him that I didn’t think that this was the right place to have such a discussion. If he wanted something more he should come back after the race.

“But he had behaved unfairly to me [in Brazil] and I didn’t understand why, so I kicked up a fuss after the race. But he didn’t like that especially because I was still the greenhorn in Formula 1.

“He often came up and spoke [like that]. We didn’t get on very well in those days. It wasn’t really a lesson he wanted to teach me, but more typical Formula 1 theatre like it was in Senna’s days.

“What was far more important for our relationship was that we got on much better in 1994, when we started to talk to each other like racing drivers should: frank and like colleagues.

“Senna belonged to a different generation. There was this invisible pecking order and each new driver had to find his place. You had to earn the respect of the other drivers on the track.

“It’s strange I’ve always found it hard to talk about him. I never had the need for role models or to follow in people’s footsteps, doing as they did.

“On the other hand he was the best driver that I’ve ever met. I can remember a karting race in Holland when I was about 10 years old.

“I saw him there on the racetrack for the first time; the line that he drove, his style, just wonderful.

“I didn’t follow his career further but one day I got into F1 and met him again.”

Jo Ramirez was the team co-ordinator at McLaren at the time and a close confidant of Senna’s.

According to him, Senna had a plan when he confronted Schumacher in France. “He said: ‘Watch me as I give him a bit of the evil eye,’” says Ramirez.

“And then when it was over he said: ‘Hopefully I’ve spooked him and it might slow him down a bit.’

“Ayrton always kept a close watch on him, from the very first days. Right from the beginning, he considered Schumacher as the next big threat, way ahead of all the other drivers around at the time.”

Senna told Ramirez that he hoped that the confrontation so soon before the restart would unsettle Schumacher and it did. When the race got under way again, he crashed into Stefano Modena in the Jordan-Yamaha.

* * *

With the passage of time, Schumacher tells the story as if he met Senna eyeball to eyeball, but his body language at the time was very much that of the kid being told off by the master and contemporary reports show that he was full of remorse.

“It was a bad day,” he told reporters. “I messed it all up. The first incident I caused because I came too fast into the corner.”

That said, Schumacher did not take Senna’s theatrics on the Magny-Cours grid lightly. In interviews during the following week, leading up to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, he stuck his head even further above the parapet.

“If it is someone like Senna or Mansell it doesn’t matter, if someone is making a mistake in my eyes I have to tell it the way I see it. I don’t just shut up because I think I should. They all know what I think of them. They cannot just do what they want with me.”

This was a veteran of a mere 14 races talking about a three-time world champion.

But more importantly it was another great example of his father’s character coming out in the face of bullying tactics.

Just as in Monaco 2006, when the media and most of the paddock were trying to bully him into admitting he’d cheated, he refused to play someone else’s game and instead bullied them right back.

He knew that Senna was a very clever man, but he felt he had also seen enough already to know that he was a match for him on the track.

He would not be intimidated.


Michael Schumacher: The Edge of Greatness is on sale now (published by Hodder Headline).