Remembering Ayrton Senna

Today marks the 23^rd anniversary of the tragic passing of one of Formula One's legendary heroes, the one many young drivers have moulded their Formula One careers on, the one driver they always strive to be like, Brazilian Ayrton Senna.

Senna lost his life doing what he loved more than life itself, racing. In the fated Imola Grand Prix on May 1^st 1994, there was a suggestion that maybe he shouldn't race after the death of Ronald Ratzenberger the day before.

Spending the morning trying to re-establish the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers Association) to help with safety for the drivers racing in the sport, Senna took to the grid as scheduled and started the race as per normal, keeping ahead of the young rookie Michael Schumacher.

An accident at the start that saw eight fans injured triggered the safety car with the race resuming on lap 6. Keeping up the pace, the following lap as he went into the Tamburello corner his Williams speared off the track and into the concrete retaining wall at 190 miles per hour.

His death was felt worldwide, to the millions of fans watching the race both live and on television and he still has a massive following to this day. His death was the last for a Formula One driver until Jules Bianchi in 2015, who passed away after 6 months in a coma after colliding with a tow truck at a wet Japanese GP in October of 2014.

A brief history

After a very successful test in 1983, Ayrton eventually joined the Toleman team for the 1984 F1 season where he finished 9th He only spent the one season there before moving to Lotus in 1985. He spent the next three years there finishing 4^th, 4^th and 3^rd when the team joined Honda before leaving for McLaren where his Formula One career really took off.

He joined McLaren alongside Alain Prost in 1988 after a very successful partnership with Honda, and the team soon found themselves with a dynamic pairing that saw many on track battles during their two seasons together as teammates.

The two drivers battled hard championship glory as between them they dominated the champion ship taking 15 out of a possible 16 wins between them with Ayrton emerging as champion for the first time in his F1 career at the end of a very turbulent year.

1989 only saw their on track war intensify while their off track war became a battle of wits and mind games. One race that stands out that season was the German GP where they fought each other hard from start to finish, with Ayrton taking the win.

However that year, Prost took the championship after the famous ‘Suzuka chicane incident' that saw the two come together after Senna attempted a somewhat hard pass that eventuated in the two cars coming together. Senna may have won that race, but he was later disqualified, giving Prost the title that he took with him when he moved to Ferrari the following season.

Despite the fact that they were racing for different teams in 1990, Suzuka was a pay back of sorts with the two men coming together at the first right hand corner and both drivers were taken out of the event, meaning that after another hard fought season, Senna, who was teamed with Gerhard Berger after Prost's defection, reclaimed the crown, a title he defended successfully in 1991 with a further seven wins.

1992 wasn't the best of seasons for McLaren and the triple world champion and he only managed to secure three wins throughout the year and dropped to fourth in the standings as the Woking based squad fought hard to challenge the then dominant Williams team.

Wanting to jump ship but unable to due to the fact that his old sparring partner, Prost, was there, Ayrton contemplated a sabbatical, but instead he started on a race by race basis for McLaren in 1993 which ended up to another contract, just for the season, and he went on to claim a further five wins, including the season ending Japanese and Australian events, finishing second to Prost once again.

Sadly, these were the last wins of his career with a move to Williams in 94 and his tragic death at Imola on May 1.