Ayrton Senna

There are many ways to measure a driver's qualities. You can't deny results, statistics. And you also can't deny that different eras of different cars racing under different rules and regulations has impacted drivers successes over the decades. I have always thought Senna was great driver, but far from the only one...and in the end, defeated (if not killed) by his semi-religious obsession to win. Fangio won five WDC in four different teams, and not starting in F1 until the age of 40. He retired and lived to ripe old age. Jimmy Clark was also great...and a gentleman. And like Senna, his skills and statistics speak for themselves. My personal two favorites are Lauda and Prost. Both highly skilled, with multiple WDCs, and also with clear visions of where they drew the line. Senna and Clark had childish qualities, in my opinion, while Lauda and Prost were the adults in the room. Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton, and now Verstappen are certainly up there in terms of skills, yet their multi-championship successes have happened in the most modern eras, and are the result of being in teams with dominating cars. And then there are the drivers who won championships, or almost won, and then got out early for whatever their personal reasons were. Mika Hakkinen, Mansell, the Rossbergs, Alan Jones, Dan Gurney...etc., etc., and I'm just skimming the surface. And when they were racing, they were racing against the best of their day. And of course there is Stirling Moss. Always a brides maid, never the bride. He wanted to win in a British car. When he finally agreed to drive a Ferrari, he had the near fatal accident the ended his career. A series on Senna the man/racer will hopefully be interesting. But as a myth, I'd pass.

 

I cannot help you. Apart from listing his results, I don't have anything nice to say about Ayrton Senna.

 

I'm more interested in hearing about Jim Clark being childish. That's the first time I've read that and I am intrigued.

 

Yes, that's a first one for me as well !! It was during a different era, and before F1 became so commercial.
I don't even think Jim Clark was particularly ambitious for his career. He didn't know his worth.
He was so naturally talented that often he genuinely couldn't understand why the others couldn't catch up !
Also, I don't think anyone had a bad word to say about Jim.

 

The only evidence I have seen is him jokingly offering Sally Stokes his half-eaten ice cream because she was upset she didn't get one.
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Sally Stokes went on years later to marry Dutch touring car racer Ed Swart, and they moved to the States where he took on racing sportscars. Swart was several times European touring car champion in his category, racing the diminutive Fiat Abarths.

 

You don't think Senna was up against not only Prost on the track but Jean-Marie Balestre whom favored Prost since both are French? Jean-Marie did run the FIA like a "dictatorship" no at the time?

 

Ayrton Senna totally disgraced himself in my eyes with his aggressive on-track attitude which is well documented.
He thought that his "God given right to win at all cost" permitted him to ram competitors.
I find that totally abhorrent and I think he should have been banned for life. Period.

 

Not you Joe, please; you should know better...
I shall not get into the details of Balestre's war years and his "compromissions" with nazi Germany; he was an immense embarrassment (to put it mildly...) to many of us Frenchmen. I won't go again into those details.
MAYBE (just "maybe") Balestre favored Prost, but Alain didn't court Balestre at all (And nobody would have, considering Balestre's past); Balestre wanted people to obey him, and that's all.

Rgds

 

Agreed. Balestre was not all bad. His past is his past, there was a lot of negative political stuff in F-1 over the years... let's not talk about Mosley, so the Balestre fans are not alone. Balestre was trying to maintain control of Bernie. it was a fundamental fight about control and Money. mostly Money for Bernie, and Control and prestige for Balestre. F-1 was coming out of the private club days, into a much wider economic reality with global TV. Bernie saw it, and Balestre did too, but did not want to cede control to the "British"... in the end the compromises they made, grew F-1. Balestre was unashamedly French, and at the time there were a large number of French drivers in F1, so he saw it as important to keep French pride going in the sport that they ( France) created... I was fortunate to have been to many races in the mid to late 80's, and knew a lot of the Ligier mechanics, so I saw firsthand the politics. While it was popular to say that Balestre was pro-Prost, and pro-French, most of the French teams = and personnel could not stand him. Prost was not well-liked by the French media either ( after Renault ).

 

Senna was a complex character. I dont know what happened to him in 1988, but that was the change over years. Before 1988 - Senna was admired and he was the young lion who just had amazing car control, His races with Lotus were some of the best ever. He was the underdog and was fighting heroically. Once he joined McLaren, and won the championship, he completely changed. Before that, you could see him in the Paddock and he'd speak to you, hed sign autographs, and was generally a nice - shy person. After 1988, he was much more arrogant, dismissive, and seemed more distant. I will say he usually had a larger group of people around him at Mclaren, but even his inner circle was different - his brother who used to almost always be with him, was not usually around as much. Jo Ramirez was there and I credit him with the dramatic change.. coupled with Ron Dennis. Senna also changed on Track... he got way more aggressive and riskier... as was seen in both 89 and 90, accidents. Before he joined McLaren when he had an accident it was usually a car issue. after it was usually him being too aggressive and too arrogant. by 94 he was just way too "important" and too aloof and still had this feeling that he's God's gift and you should just be glad that he even passed you on track. A good friend of mine raced against him in F2... and clearly he was amazingly fast... and just spectacular. but as a person after that, he was not very nice. Regardless of what the movies show, Senna at the end was the worst version of himself. I rate him in the top 10 for sure, but he totally ruined his reputation for ever in my opinion by running into Prost in 1990. The only other glimpse of the real "original" Senna was Donnington 1993. I was not there but I was at Estoril in 85, and he was Spectacular!

 

Memorial is at Imola.

 

Yes. He totally ruined an amazing career with all his aggressive on-track incidents. Its what has lead to today's terrible track manners...

 

I would take Clark as being childish, in that he was very Naive for his age. Jackie Stewart talks about that all the time. He was just such a timid, homebody most of the time. When he moved to Paris for Tax exile, he was finally coming into the real world, but he also had huge personal doubts. He really did not like to travel much, he saw it all as part of the job, and would really have rather been back home taking care of the sheep. My Dad met him once in 1966 after he won the USGP at Watkins Glen. I still have the autograph he signed. He was walking up the hill to the garage from the Pit building and had a huge bulge in his coat pocket - where they had just paid him his winnings in cash.... My dad said you could see the roll of Hundred dollar bills sticking out of his jacket. He stopped to sign my Mom's program, and My dad asked him if he was going to do Indy in 67, to which Clark said" I dont know yet, but I want to, Colin has unfinished business there, Cheers!" ... and walked away.

 

If you haven’t heard it, Beyond the Grid’s interview of Jackie Stewart can give some insight into Jim Clark’s character off-track, and is worth a listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-beyond-the-grid/id1405972616?i=1000422896890

 

There is certainly an element of truth in that. Jim Clark saw himself as a farmer indulging in his past time .
To illustrate this naivity, there is an anecdote reported later by Colin Chapman who says it all.
Soon after the first race with the Cosworth V8, a meeting took place at Lotus between Colin Chapman, and Walter Hayes, the head of Ford UK who had bankrolled the design of the DFV.
Jim Clark arrived, and after exchanging platitudes, Hayes remarked: "Jim, since you are now driving for Ford, we are going to pay you a lot more than what Colin is giving you."
There was a moment of silence during which Clark looked at the floor before replying: "Why ?"
After a period during which Chapman and Hayes looked at each other, Hayes burst out laughing.
"Because we don't want you to go to the opposition, Jim !!"
That's a clear indication that Jim Clark hadn't realised his value on the drivers market, and was still treating motor racing as a hobby.

 

I should have been more thoughtful in comparing Senna and Clark. When I say "childish qualities" regarding Clark, I didn't mean he was behaving badly, but rather had a child like simplicity or purity about him. With Senna, childish would mean obsessive and petulant to the point of bad behavior. With both men, I feel they lacked the more business like and "adult" qualities of Prost and Lauda. As someone pointed out, Clark raced in a completely different era.

 

Balestre and Prost didn’t get on well together believe me.
Indeed Balestre liked to act as a dictator and Senna had the bad habit to open his mouth frequently against him.

 

Watching Senna driving on the rain was amazing - I remember the '84 Monaco GP, that he'd probably have won if it had not been interrupted. This GP had many crashes and only 8 classified; bringing a Toleman-Hart on second place was a real achievement.
Senna's first victory, in Estoril (with Lotus-Renault), was also under the rain.

 

One day I really need to dive into Senna's career start to finish to get a more accurate assessment that isn't based on people simply saying how great he was. I never got to watch him live, but I did see the 92, 93, and 94 seasons played on Speed channel.

My take has always been he was undeniably fast. He was exceptionally quick with the turbo cars, the H pattern cars, and the N/A paddle shift cars. Prost showed he could qualify a dominant car on pole quite easily in 1993, but in 1988 Senna clearly was the faster driver. His speed was highlighted in qualifying and to me this is where his brilliance can be argued as the best of all time.

The races were a different story. Naturally if he was fast in qualifying, he and the car had the outright pace in the race, at least for a lap or two. Was he wreckless in the race, did he over drive the car, the tires, the fuel? Did he simply not have the ability to run that ragged edge lap after lap after lap of the course of a full race? Maybe he simply opted for setups that worked great in qualifying but not so much in the race. Whatever the reasoning, his incredible qualifying performances didn't always translate to the races. There are some drivers that it didn't matter where they qualify, they were going to move forward or get a result that perhaps the car didn't seem capable. Schumacher and Verstappen are prime examples. And then we talk about drivers that do what it takes to win championships. Prost is perhaps the best example. Clearly wasn't the fastest guy, but he would give you a result and points and do it ever race over the entire championship. In 1988 he technically earned more points than Senna. Hamilton and Alonso are also incredible at making championship runs. IMO, Senna didn't have that same skill or mentality.

I think Senna was a likeable character which of course helped his immense popularity. The media naturally took hold of that popularity and fueled the fire of his popularity which of course made him more popularity. And we've seen it time and time again, when someone of greatness and popularity tragically dies, it can create an emotional enhancement of their status among the greats.

He was a very special driver and it's a heck of a lot of fun to watch his onboards.

 

Balestre had nothing to do with this deliberate, dangerous, ****** move… he did this all by himself, guided by the demons in his head and putting at risk the whole field—fully fuelled and bunched together—behind him. Even Ron Dennis called him out on it. This, in a few seconds is Senna exemplified:

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If Balestre was indeed running F1 like a dictatorship or if the FIA had the necessary b***s, they’d have disqualified him for the season and given the championship to Prost.

He should also have been punished for other nonsense too, like this, and wasn’t:

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I'm firmly in the Prost camp. I have no patience for dirty racing, no matter how fast the driver is.