Category: Formula 1

“I’m not going to celebrate like some people that it’s 20 years on,” says Alain Prost of the anniversary of Ayrton Senna’s death at Imola on May 1 1994. “I can answer these questions about him, no problem – he was an exceptional guy – but I just don’t see it the same way as the other guys do.”

To understand why, you have to appreciate the background of their shared history: Prost and Senna fought out what was arguably Formula 1’s greatest rivalry. After becoming team-mates at McLaren in 1988, the first spark flew when Senna aggressively shoved Prost towards the pitwall at Estoril, later prompting the Frenchman to state: “Sometimes I admit I was frightened by him; he was prepared to do anything.”

Apart from several media spats that occurred before Senna was crowned world champion in 1988, the true ignition point for their bitter conflict was Imola ’89. Senna passed Prost on the approach to Tosa at the restart after Gerhard Berger’s fiery crash, breaking what Prost saw as an agreement not to pass each other there. But Senna was adamant he had the move completed before the corner, so in his mind that didn’t count.

Whether it was gamesmanship on Senna’s part or twisting logic in his own favour, Prost was furious and their enmity would run and run. Their successive title-deciding collisions at Suzuka in 1989 and ’90 tarnished F1’s reputation and moved the goalposts in terms of the lengths drivers would go to win.

Both felt hard done by: Senna that the FIA had manipulated the ’89 result in Prost’s favour – “a result of the politics we had,” he’d claim – while Prost questioned Senna’s ethics and sanity. But the antipathy that rumbled for half a dozen years was ended by Prost’s retirement following his 1993 title success with Williams.

From that point on, these sworn enemies became friends. Which is almost unbelievable, given what had gone before when Senna had often refused to refer to Prost by name, never mind shake his hand or speak to him directly.

Senna and Prost had a frosty relationship while both were active, not least due to several on-track clashes

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

“I don’t keep the bad moments or any bad souvenirs in my mind about him,” Prost says today. “I keep the last six months [of his life] in mind. That’s when I knew Ayrton much more than ever before. He was a completely different person, I understood who he was and why he was acting sometimes.”

When you considered the ferocity of their duel, encapsulated by Senna launching his McLaren flat-out into Prost’s Ferrari at the first corner at Suzuka in 1990, this is quite a reversal in their relationship to comprehend.

“I look back on how he was [when they were rivals] as a compliment,” he adds. “I came to understand that Ayrton’s main motivation, almost his sole motivation, was to focus on me and on beating me.

“Near the end, when we were close, it was very strange because we would talk about the bad safety and this kind of thing” Alain Prost

“That is why when we were on the podium together in Australia in ’93, when I stopped, just a few seconds later he was already a different person [recall that following what would be his last-ever victory, Senna insisted that Prost stand with him on the top step of the podium after Alain received his runner-up trophy, physically pulling him up to stand arm-in-arm together].

“That is the souvenir of our relationship that I carry with me today.”

Prost recalls his post-retirement dealings with Senna fondly, and acknowledges the irony that their conversations of the time were often about the need to increase car and circuit safety with what transpired.

“Near the end, when we were close, it was very strange because we would talk about the bad safety and this kind of thing,” says Prost. “He would ask me many times to take the lead of the GPDA, and I said no. We had some very private discussions together around this time. It was very strange.

Prost attended Imola in 1994 for French TV and met Senna twice during the fateful weekend

Photo by: Sutton Images

“I keep this souvenir [of him] from then right until his last day, because I met him two or three times, and just before [the race at Imola] – and of course he was already this different person to me. That is why I prefer to think about that alone.”

Of the terrible events of Imola that dark weekend in 1994, a race Prost attended to commentate on for French TV, he spoke to Senna on numerous occasions – twice on the morning of the race: once when Senna sought him out in the TV compound; and a second time when Prost went to see him in the Williams garage.

Read Also:

Recall too that Senna had sent the radio message (“a special hello to my dear friend Alain – we all miss you Alain”) from his car to the commentary box over the radio during a lap in practice.

Prost confirms: “Ayrton called me on Saturday, so I met him on Saturday, and I met him on Sunday twice – the main constant [of their conversations] was safety and the fact that he was not happy with the situation, thinking that the Benetton was not legal. He was very focused on that, but it was very weird… Very weird.”

Prost believes Senna was a very different man in 1994

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

 Sponsored by  

The tiny Principality is undoubtedly one of the most legendary destinations on the F1 calendar and MoneyGram is giving one fan and their guest the chance to experience the race weekend in a very unique way, with a package that includes viewing from onboard a yacht moored trackside in the harbour.

The circuit offers a rare opportunity to get right up close to the cars and this unique vantage point will present an astonishing insight into how the world’s top drivers make it through the barriers within the tightest of margins, time and again.

In a city famed for its magnificent casino, three-time race winner Hamilton admitted to media in last year’s press conference that every corner is a bit of a gamble, but that is what makes the race what it is.

“You throw it into the corner and come out with your eyes open and hopefully you’ve made it round,” he said. “It’s an amazing place to race and we’re so privileged to be one of the only 20 to do it here at the peak of the sport. So epic.”

Epic is also one of the best words to describe the prize on offer in the MoneyGram Monaco Dream Weekend competition – with TWO days of exciting racing action on offer from TWO different vantage points around the spectacular Monaco circuit.

Saturday will be spent in the harbour, right beside the track aboard the exclusive Eleni Superyacht, while Sunday switches to the Ermanno Terrace, a seventh-floor covered venue at Sainte-Devote with wide-reaching views of the racetrack.

The prize winner and a guest will be flown into nearby Nice from their nearest major metro airport to enjoy a four-night stay at the luxurious Hyatt Regency Hotel, with two days of transport to, and attendance at, the Monaco event.

This incredible package is the ultimate luxury, with a privileged position and an array of food and beverages on offer, including spirits, sparkling wine, beer, wine and soft drinks, plus live entertainment and an appearance by an F1 personality.

The winners will also get two MoneyGram Haas F1 Team polo t-shirts, a pair of autographed MoneyGram Haas F1 Team caps and €2,000 in spending money. And all you need to do is answer the question: ‘What drives your dreams?’

Head to moneygram.com now and fill in the entry form for the chance of a lifetime to experience the ultimate MoneyGram Monaco Dream Weekend with MoneyGram Haas F1 team

Red Bull announced on Wednesday morning that Newey would be leaving the world champion outfit early next year after deciding that he no longer wished to remain a part of the team.

He will continue working for the Milton Keynes-based operation until the early part of 2025, which will involve finishing his RB17 hypercar, and will in the meantime attend specific races to work trackside – including this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix.

However, it is understood that he will no longer play an active role in technical developments at the team and will not be involved in meetings on future car progress.

While Newey originally had a contract that ran until the end of 2025, and had a further non-compete clause that could have sidelined him for another 12 months, his legal representatives have agreed with Red Bull to an earlier parting of ways.

Red Bull has announced that Newey’s contract will end in the first quarter of next year, with it understood that from March he will in theory be free to join a rival outfit.

Other teams have inevitably been interested in luring Newey on board, with Aston Martin and Ferrari both known to have made lucrative offers to secure his services.

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR24, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

It is understood that Newey has ruled out any interest in going to Aston Martin, but Ferrari does remain an option – with it suggested that team principal Fred Vasseur met privately with the famed F1 designer on Tuesday to try to move things forward.

And while no deal is in place yet, negotiations are likely to continue as Vasseur makes a personal push to try to convince Newey to join him in time for Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at the squad next year.

The timing of Newey’s availability is not perfect in terms of hitting the ground running with the new 2026 car rules, as much of the design concepts will already be in place by the time he can provide his input.

However, it still comes early enough for Newey’s influence to be felt and potentially have an impact in how things shake up for F1’s new rules era.

One of Red Bull’s rivals says it is flabbergasted that the door is open for Newey to be available early enough to help for 2026 – as it could hurt the world champion squad so much in helping one of its main competitors move ahead.

The situation has been likened to how then McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh agreed to let Brawn GP have customer Mercedes engines in 2009.

This decision helped Brawn go on to win the world title and grab the works Mercedes deal from McLaren’s grasp – consigning its rival to years in the wilderness.

A team principal, who did not wish to be identified, said: “It would be an unmitigated disaster for Red Bull if Adrian was let go early to join a competitor.

“Christian would look like a complete fool. Just as Whitmarsh did at McLaren when he handed Brawn the keys to Mercedes, which kickstarted their years of dominance in F1.”

Rubens Barrichello, Brawn GP BGP001 Mercedes battles with Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren MP4-24 Mercedes

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Red Bull turmoil

Newey’s departure from Red Bull comes off the back of early season turmoil from a power battle for control of the team.

This was originally triggered by a female employee making a complaint about the behaviour of Horner, with the subsequent developments escalating into a civil war involving the Thai and Austrian energy drink’s owners, plus other senior figures within the operation.

Horner has tried to keep things under control at the team, but Newey’s exit will do little to calm those who fear that there could be further upheaval in the future.

Rival teams have suggested that there has been an influx of interest for jobs from Red Bull personnel in recent months, while the future of star driver Max Verstappen remains uncertain.

While Horner himself insists that the Dutchman is committed to the squad for the short term, this has not stopped Mercedes doing all it can to try to lure him away.

Adrian Newey, Chief Technology Officer, Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, Team Principal, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Verstappen’s father Jos had already warned earlier this year that Red Bull risked exploding if Horner stayed in charge, and the Newey development has done nothing but further embellish his thought.

Speaking to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf on Wednesday, Jos Verstappen was quoted as saying: “The team is in danger of falling apart. I was afraid of that earlier this year.

“For internal peace, it is important that key people stay on board. That is not the case now. Newey is leaving and earlier this year it also looked like Helmut [Marko] would be sent away. For the future that is not good.”

Factions within Red Bull that have tried to get rid of Horner over recent months may renew their efforts now to see through on their bid in the wake of Newey’s departure, and use it as a warning of the need for change at the top to stop the squad breaking apart.

Additional reporting by Laurens Stade

Ferrari revealed last week that its Miami livery would feature two tints of blue to commemorate the 70th anniversary of its entry into the American market.

In a limited tweak to its traditional red livery, the so-called Azzurro La Plata and Azzurro Dino hues have been applied on the wings, engine cover, halo, rear-views mirrors, as well as on the wheel rims of the SF-24 driven by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz this weekend.

The colours hark back to Ferrari racing in the US under the N.A.R.T. (North American Racing Team) banner, including John Surtees’ blue and white 158 F1 from 1964.

The one-off livery coincides with American tech giant Hewlett-Packard coming on board as Ferrari’s new title sponsor. From Miami onwards, the HP logo will grace the engine cover and both the front and rear wing.

Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Ferrari

The Azzurro La Plata, the celestial blue that adorns the Argentinian flag, is a tribute to Alberto Ascari, who wore a helmet and shirt in the colour as a lucky charm. That tradition would carry over, with many more drivers and mechanics wearing blue overalls in the 60s. In Miami, Leclerc and Sainz will also wear overalls in the colour.

The brighter Azzurro Dino was last worn by Clay Regazzoni and was similarly adopted by mechanics through the 70s until the early 80s.

Ferrari said its trackside team would wear the Azzurro La Plata on Sunday only, with the pit crew needing fireproof overalls decked out in the Azzurro Dino colour.

“The upcoming Miami Grand Prix will be one to remember in the history of our team, as in Florida we will be celebrating our heritage through a unique livery, rediscovering two colours that are part of our history,” said team principal Fred Vasseur.

“It will also be a very special race as we are glad to welcome the arrival of our new title partner HP. Scuderia Ferrari and HP share many values, including a winning mentality and a clear line of thought that forms the basis of our partnership.”

Ferrari SF-24, Miami GP livery

Photo by: Ferrari

During the three decades since the sickening image of the blue-and-white Williams striking the Tamburello wall was broadcast to a global audience of millions, Ayrton Senna has been transformed.

On May 1 1994 he was already a racing superstar, regarded justifiably by many as the greatest of his generation, but since then the name Senna has grown into so much more. It’s a global brand, a name on countless T-shirts and caps in every corner of the globe that stands for something, even for those who’ve never so much as watched a racing car in anger.

Those five letters, S-E-N-N-A, have become iconic, an idea, a philosophy of racing that transcends the name of a mere mortal. He has become less a man, more a god who walked among us for 34 years before his very public ascent to the heavens.

For a generation, Senna is not merely a great racing driver but so much more than that. Senna has escaped the limitations of his own sport to become a hallowed figure. The legend has overwhelmed the memory.

It didn’t happen instantly. The day Senna died he was perceived almost universally as one of the great racing drivers, but he was also a divisive and controversial figure.

Over the years, the life and sporting achievements of a very human character have coalesced into a canon of moments and images. His second place in Monaco in 1984, the first victory at a sodden Estoril in 1985, those Suzuka collisions with Alain Prost, his pole lap in Monaco 1988, Easter Sunday at Donington Park in 1993… these have become the venerated stories that comprise the legend of this almost holy figure.

Venerated moments like Senna’s 1988 Monaco pole lap have elevated his perception beyond that of a mere mortal

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

If you had to zero in on the biggest factor in this process, it’s surely Asif Kapadia’s documentary Senna. The film, which premiered in 2010, has become the bible of the Senna cult.

It’s a well-constructed piece of film-making, one that focuses on the key moments of Senna’s career and sets them in stone. It’s all there – the heroism, the superhuman skill, the will to win and the dark forces that conspired against him. It’s a compelling piece of storytelling, one that codifies the myth and builds on it.

Prost, one of the key antagonists in Senna, exists solely as a mechanism for the rivalry. In the film, there is no mention of the moment when hostilities between the two began with Senna shoving his team-mate towards the Estoril pitwall in 1988, or Senna defying a team agreement not to overtake at Imola in 1989. In an intensely personal battle where both were guilty of transgressions, Prost is portrayed as the villain.

Everyone, no matter how great, makes mistakes. But for the mythological Senna, these mistakes are cast as rare and almost as a reflection of his brilliance

At times he was – the collision caused when he turned in on Senna at the Suzuka chicane in 1989 was unacceptable. But did that really justify Senna ploughing into Prost at the first corner a year later at great speed at the start of the race? The Senna myth would say yes, but reality is muddier than this.

Prost lived on to become a failed Formula 1 team owner, this flesh-and-bones man no match for the Senna myth. While Senna stays immaculate, undimmed by time, Prost at 69 remains a familiar paddock figure – respected but not deified.

Senna also offered holy wisdom that is passed down through the ages. His reminiscences on the purity of kart racing against old rival Terry Fullerton have become emblematic of the purity of competition.

“If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver” has become Senna’s great commandment. Senna said that in response to a question from Jackie Stewart not about a specific incident, but about his propensity to get involved in clashes with rivals. It has now become the touchstone for a racing philosophy Senna encapsulates, one that’s been used both for good and bad in the years since. Some abuse it as a manifesto for recklessness.

Senna was not above misjudgements, such as his move on Prost at Suzuka’s first corner in 1990 to settle the world championship

Photo by: Sutton Images

The mistakes Senna made have also been distilled into one moment of fallibility – crashing while leading in Monaco in 1988. This is where the Senna myth can become problematic because he did make mistakes. One example is at Monza in 1993, where he rear-ended old Formula 3 rival Martin Bundle’s Ligier under braking. Today, a driver would be mercilessly pilloried on social media for such an incident, but it’s almost forgotten.

Senna did have it in him to make misjudgements. Everyone, no matter how great, makes mistakes. But for the mythological Senna, these mistakes are cast as rare and almost as a reflection of his brilliance.

Read Also:

He crashed in Monaco in 1988 because he was so far ahead, not because he was under pressure. It’s simplifications like this that do Senna a disservice, because Senna was not a god, but a human being. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that, and there is something so much more magical about how a flesh-and-blood person, with the flaws and limitations all of us are lumbered with, could do what he did.

No one would deny Senna a place as one of F1’s fastest. As a qualifier, arguably only Lewis Hamilton can stand comparison for virtuosity over a single lap. As a racer, Senna was outstanding but ruthless. Again, ruthlessness is to be admired in great champions, but on several occasions he did stray beyond the boundaries of what is, or should be, acceptable.

That’s what makes him such a fascinating character. We talk about the self-belief of the great sporting champions, but in the case of Senna it wasn’t just will to win – it was his certainty that he should win that made him what he was.

This is why it’s so much more valuable to appreciate Senna the human than the myth. Look at the way he inspired a nation, in Brazil. It’s not hard to grant a god that status, but for one of us to become that important to the identity and wellbeing of a nation of, at the time of his death, around 160million is a far more compelling story.

So too is his wet-weather virtuosity. This is addressed more often, but how much more fascinating is the reality that Senna was once poor in wet conditions, so took to the track in a kart in such conditions whenever he could to master his craft? A driver who simply has superhuman powers is one thing, but to have the sheer will to take a weakness and make it into a strength – to date, only Michael Schumacher and Hamilton have more victories in rain-affected grands prix than Senna’s 13 – is so much more enthralling.

Senna became known as a wet weather master, but it wasn’t always a strong suit

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The Hamilton comparison is a fascinating one. He’s often cast as the modern Senna, understandable given his speed and success – especially given that Hamilton cites Senna as his hero. But in recent years Hamilton has made good on a desire to win in the right way and prove that the ruthlessness of a champion need not overstep the bounds. Hamilton today is the epitome of clean on track, something Senna could not lay claim to.

And now we come to the sacrilege. The more convincing modern reincarnation of Senna would be Max Verstappen – sensationally fast, stunning in the wet and surely destined to win more than his current Senna-matching tally of three titles. But he’s also a divisive figure. Imagine the reaction to Senna on today’s social media – it would be divisive in the extreme.

The deification of Senna takes that complex, compelling, contradictory and fascinating character and makes him into something one-dimensional. That does him a disservice.

Instead, the Senna we see online is the godlike one. The same videos, the same quotes, the same stories are recycled again and again like a holy text. In that sphere, Senna is not a person, but an idea – and a wonderful idea for all who love racing.

The real Senna was more complicated than that. He had more than his fair share of abilities and had a global impact that the rest of us can only dream of. But like all of us, he had his flaws. The deification of Senna takes that complex, compelling, contradictory and fascinating character and makes him into something one-dimensional. That does him a disservice.

Ayrton Senna the legend will endure. But it’s important that the man behind the myth is not forgotten. Yes, he was a great racing driver, an icon in his native Brazil and across the globe – but that he achieved all of this while battling the same human frailties we all must overcome makes his legend all the greater.

The man behind the Senna myth was fascinating and should not be forgotten

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

Sponsored by  

The narrow barriers around the city-centre circuit, coupled with extreme climate that pushes the drivers to the limit of exhaustion, make it one of the toughest races of all and there has been plenty of action under lights over the years. 

As F1 prepares to return for this year’s race, here is a rundown of the biggest moments of the last 14 years and where they happened. 

Start line: Hulkenberg in a spin 

There was drama on the start line in 2016 when Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India ended up in the pit wall having been squeezed by two Toro Rossos. The German driver’s car snapped left and only narrowly avoided being hit by Max Verstappen before ending up sliding backwards as the rest of the field flew past. 
 
Six years before, in 2010, Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus had burst into flames on the straight after a fuel valve broke. The Finn had to grab a fire extinguisher from the pits to put it out while the rest of the field continued to race and after the incident, he quipped: “Maybe they need to pay me more as I’m now a fireman as well!” 

Turn 1: A first corner collision 

There was a frightening moment for Max Verstappen in 2017 when he found himself in a Ferrari sandwich heading into the first corner. He and pole sitter Sebastian Vettel had got a slow get-away on a damp track and Kimi Raikkonen shot out from behind to make a move. However, three-into-one simply did not go and when Verstappen was squeezed into Vettel, he speared into Raikkonen who then collided with Verstappen and took Fernando Alonso’s McLaren out with him. 

Turn 3: Hamilton halted 

It was here in 2012 when Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren ground to a halt, putting him out of the race after he had built a dominant lead. At a time when the Briton was considering a move to Mercedes, that broken gearbox on lap 23 not only lost him vital ground in the championship battle, it also potentially influenced a decision that defined his career.

The Singapore Sling  

This section of the track, which was reconfigured in 2013 from a chicane to a single apex left-hander, saw a lot of drama. The high kerbs that were once in place often launched cars into the air and it caught out many drivers including Giancarlo Fisichella, Adrian Sutil and Kamui Kobayashi. Hamilton once called it the ‘worst corner he has ever driven in F1’. 

Turn 7: Webber catches a lift 

It was here in 2013 that Mark Webber hitched a lift with Fernando Alonso, having ground to a halt on the final lap in his Red Bull. The Australian left his stricken car and jumped onboard the sidepod of the Ferrari – only to later be handed a 10-place grid penalty for illegally entering the race track, with Alonso also penalised for picking him up. 

Michael Schumacher ended his race here two years earlier, in 2011, after a battle with Force India driver Sergio Perez. Schumacher, in the Mercedes, got a better run out of the preceding corner but failed to pull across enough and his front left wheel went over his rival’s rear right, sending his car flying into the air and straight on into the barriers. 

Turn 13: Webber’s gearbox failure 

Mark Webber’s Red Bull retired from the 2008 race at Turn 13 due to a gearbox failure. Red Bull’s team principal Christian Horner claimed that the failure was caused by a sudden electrical surge, which could have been due to the underground train system running beneath. However, a spokesperson for the public transport provider set the record straight that there was no underground train track directly underneath. In addition, they said: “train wheels and running rails are made of metal and therefore do not generate static electricity charges during train operations.”     

Turn 14: Schumacher goes flying 

Michael Schumacher experienced an embarrassing exit here in 2012 when he rear-ended the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne. Carbon fibre went flying as the two cars went straight onto the escape road and the drivers were lucky to escape unscathed. The former champion apologised immediately and said afterwards that he was “not totally sure why it happened” as he complained of reduced braking power on his Mercedes. 

Turns 16, 17, 18, 19 

This group of corners was re-aligned in 2023 into a 397.9m long straight, due to the redevelopment of The Float @ Marina Bay into a community and events venue. This change brought the total number of turns at the Marina Bay Street Circuit to 19. The change was welcomed by the drivers, including George Russell, who said that it made the final sector and the lap as a whole “much more flowing.” He added: “it definitely improves the experience behind-the-wheel and should help create better racing.” 

Final corner: Stroll’s lucky escape 

Last year, Lance Stroll missed the race after he crashed heavily at this corner during the first part of qualifying. The Canadian lost control at high speed and went straight into the barriers, destroying much of his Aston Martin but, thanks to the incredible safety levels of F1, he was able to walk away. Unfortunately, the car was too damaged to repair in time and Stroll was too sore to race and sat it out to recover so he will be keen to get back on track here and make amends this year. 

Pit lane: Massa’s fuel hose failure 

In that debut race, there was also drama here when Felipe Massa was released from his box too early after a stop for refuelling and drove off with the fuel hose still attached to his Ferrari, with mechanics running after him to release it at the end of the pit lane. Many years later, in 2022, there was a fire in the pits when Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri caught light. 

Special moments: Hamilton’s pole, Vettel’s victories and some very special helmets 

On top of the corner-by-corner action, there have been some very special laps and races down the years. The drivers have also always gone the extra mile to make racing at night extra special for the fans. 

There were few more spectacular qualifying moments than Lewis Hamilton’s pole lap in 2018, which was described by Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff as “the most epic lap I have ever seen from him.”  

And in the races, Sebastian Vettel has two very happy memories – the first when in the dominant RB9 he crushed the opposition to finish more than half a minute ahead of his nearest challenger and the second in 2019, when he sliced through the field after an early pit stop to secure what would be his final Grand Prix win.

There would be a whole other article about the lengths F1 drivers go to make the Singapore race so special. Who will ever forget Vettel’s light-up helmet in 2012? The special lid contained a number of small white battery-powered LEDs in the top and as night fell, these flash for the entire race. They have never appeared since, however – because the use of lights and batteries on helmets was banned from the next race onwards! 

There were some more special lids on show in 2022, when Lando Norris sported a Halo-inspired ‘Master Chief’ helmet while Alex Albon wore one based on a drawing created by children at the Wat Sakraeo orphanage. Leclerc brought back the sparkle that year too, not with flashing lights but instead with a golden lid covered in glitter that reflected the bright track spotlights. 

Watch the Formula 1 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2024 live this 20 to 22 September, where nothing else comes close. Book now at www.singaporegp.sg.

The F1 FORMULA 1 logo, F1 logo, FORMULA 1, F1, FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP, SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX and related marks are trademarks of Formula One Licensing BV, a Formula 1 company. All rights reserved.

“Ayrton Senna is joining Williams…” I have to say that even though I was the team manager at the time, I had a certain feeling of trepidation when I heard this news. It was pretty daunting, because he was Ayrton Senna… he was coming with a little bit of a reputation.

I suppose we thought he might be difficult to work with – all of the top drivers were demanding, but it was something we’d got used to. We’d had Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost at the team, but nobody quite knew what Ayrton would be like. Still, we were professional and we knew what we were doing.

I first met him at Williams’s factory over the winter, probably at the start of 1994. He popped in for five minutes to say hello and he was quite quiet and extremely polite. That was the thing that immediately struck me about him. He was very calm. He was direct and matter-of-fact.

You could see he was trying to weigh the place up because we were different to McLaren, where he’d been for six years. McLaren had been moulded around him and he had to start that process all over again with us, but we were determined to make him feel as welcome as possible.

The relationship was very new at the first race and, after first practice, we were in the debrief room looking at the time sheets. Ayrton’s race engineer, David Brown, said something like, “Bloody Senna is always there or thereabouts isn’t he?” to no one in particular. Ayrton, who was sitting next to him, just looked sideways with an enquiring look. David turned the colour of a beetroot. “Sorry mate, force of habit,” he said. There was a good atmosphere about the place.

Although things hadn’t been going well over the start of the season, there was no panic from Ayrton himself. He was calm and determined to help the team get to the root of any problems we had with the car. He got his head down, worked with the team and was pulling us in the right direction. He was prepared to work – and to work hard. He wasn’t jumping up and down when things weren’t going right.

Williams team manager Harrison was just starting to get to know Senna as the Imola weekend arrived

Photo by: Motorsport Images

After he spun off in Interlagos chasing Schumacher, he came back into the garage where I was with David Brown. He apologised for going off and said that it wouldn’t happen again. I think that really summed up the bloke.

Still, working at Williams, the pressure was always on. And after two non-finishes in the first two races of 1994, it was really on. There wasn’t a ‘let’s wait and see’ attitude. Things had to change and we were pushing hard.

It had become clear that something was not right with the pace of the car Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill had, and the engineers were trying to figure out what it was. It was down to the powers that be, Adrian Newey and Patrick Head, to sort it out and they’d identified that there was something amiss and that it was an aerodynamic issue of some kind. There was a frustration and we were wondering why the car wasn’t quicker because, by rights, it should’ve been.

I didn’t think Ayrton’s actions in going to the scene of the [Ratzenberger] crash were strange at the time because he was the man in motor racing

It wasn’t that the car lacked outright pace. Ayrton had put the thing on pole for the first two races, but it was a struggle when the green light came on; we didn’t seem to have race pace and Ayrton had retired from the opening two grands prix of the season. We’d only had one podium with Damon Hill, but Williams weren’t the sort of team who panicked. We started going through everything properly and methodically and we’d put some upgrades on the car for the race in Italy. By the time we got to Imola that weekend, everybody was gagging for a result.

Qualifying on Friday went well for us. Senna went out and did 1m21.5s, which was half a second faster than Michael Schumacher’s Benetton; Damon was seventh. Apart from a spin by Damon, I can’t remember any huge dramas for our team, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. Rubens Barrichello had a major off at Variante Bassa and was knocked unconscious. It was a big accident but he survived it and things carried on as usual.

Then we got to Saturday qualifying and Roland Ratzenberger’s accident. It was 20 minutes into the final session of the day and Ayrton hadn’t even gone out to do a time by that stage. Damon had done some laps and was second fastest in the session, which was enough to put him fourth on the grid. Then there was a red flag and the news began to filter back to us that Roland’s accident had been a big one.

Ayrton went to see for himself what had happened in Ratzenberger’s accident and he also went to the medical centre afterwards. You might think that this was an unusual reaction, but he was a humane guy. I didn’t think Ayrton’s actions in going to the scene of the crash were strange at the time because he was the man in motor racing. He was the top man. He was a bloke who was passionate about motor racing and Formula 1.

Senna had set the pace in qualifying, but already it was overshadowed by events elsewhere

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

He was interested in the sport and he wanted to know what was going on with everybody. He was wrapped up in it and this was one of his ways of showing it. Ayrton was always up front with everything and he wasn’t a bloke who shied away from saying what he thought, which for me was great. I think going to the scene and then to the medical centre was just his way of dealing with it. He was interested in safety and deeply concerned with humanity. He had a thing about that.

One thing that struck me about Senna’s reaction, though, was that we didn’t really know him – we didn’t know him at all. The relationship was just beginning to get there. It was starting to get to the stage where if he wanted something, he would just come and ask me.

I remember before Imola, Frank Williams had asked me how it was going with Ayrton and I said that the bloke was fine but that I wished he would just come and speak to me if he wanted something. That was what I was there for.

During the early part of the season, his manager would come and speak to us if there was something Ayrton wanted but for it to have worked properly, I knew that we needed to build up that personal relationship with him so we could give him what he wanted. Well Frank must have had a word in his ear because during that weekend at Imola, he was different. He was asking me “Can we get this?” and “Can we do that?” It wasn’t a problem.

I remember that after the Ratzenberger accident, Charlie Moody, who was the team manager at Simtek at the time, came to see Adrian. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sat in our awning and I just think he needed someone to talk to. I remember going back to our garage afterwards and thinking, ‘Christ, what on earth must this poor bloke be going through?

We didn’t take part in the second part of qualifying after the red flag. Schumacher had improved his time but it wasn’t enough to take pole position away from Ayrton, while Damon was on the second row. We had a shock on that Saturday with the accident, but the Williams team were a bunch of professionals and they just put their heads down and got on with the job. It’s just the way the team were – there was still a race to prepare for.

F1 was a lot less complicated in those days and it’s quite amusing to think back now about how we used to prepare. On the Sunday morning, we would cycle through a programme that isn’t a patch on modern racing. It was almost like, ‘Off we go, here we are chaps, let’s go motor racing!’

Damon, Ayrton and myself went to the drivers’ briefing in race control and then straight after that we went into an engineering meeting. Engineering was the core of Williams; that’s what made it what it was. I went through the rules – just the petty stuff like ‘watch the pitlane entry’, ‘don’t go over this line or that line’ and things like that. It was easier back then because there weren’t nearly as many rules in Formula 1 at that stage as there are today. We went through the warm-up session and, again, Ayrton was first and Damon second. It was all going well.

Senna continued with the business of preparing for the race as normal after speaking to Watkins at the scene of Ratzenberger’s crash

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

In the build-up to the race, we did practice pitstops because it was the first year of refuelling. While the guys were doing that, me, David Brown and John Russell, the engineers, sat down and worked out the final calculations for the fuel stops. It wasn’t like today where you can press a button on a computer and it works it out for you.

We had to look at the fuel usage from qualifying and from the warm-up and then we were looking to see what other factors we’d have to take into account at Imola. We thought about whether the guys would have to turn up their mixture at any stage, what the weather was likely to do and things like that. Ayrton and Damon were involved in the decisions too, and we came to a conclusion that we were all happy with.

I had these little cards printed up, and I wrote down what laps the pitstop window would be on and then I went around and handed one to every member of the pit crew so there could be no confusion. The cards also said what fuel loads Ayrton and Damon wanted in their cars.

Ayrton himself was convinced that there was something different about Schumacher’s car. I know that because I’d gone to meet him after his first-corner accident at Aida in Japan

Finally, before the race, we had a strategy meeting so that everybody knew exactly what was going on. Whenever you do that, you have to build in a degree of flexibility in case something happens or something changes during the race but that was all agreed. All I remember was that it was a pretty flat-out build-up to the start. Race days were always a blur and it was usually a rush to get my overalls on at the start because I’d be working right up until the last minute.

I remember one of the things the paddock was getting obsessed with at the time was Schumacher’s Benetton and its electronics. There was all sorts of paddock gossip about traction control, which seemed to be the norm at the time. Ayrton himself was convinced that there was something different about Schumacher’s car. I know that because I’d gone to meet him after his first-corner accident at Aida in Japan and we walked back to the pits together.

Senna was still on a suspended ban after decking Eddie Irvine after the race at Suzuka the year before, so I thought I’d better go and find him after the Aida crash to make sure nothing else kicked off.

When I got to him, he was walking back and he was very calm. We stopped for two minutes to watch in the infield section. Ayrton said to me that he thought there was something different about Michael’s car. Whether there was or not I don’t know, but Ayrton was utterly sure that there was. On race morning at Imola, I got Richard West, who was the commercial manager of Williams, to get a video camera and go up onto the roof of the garages to record Schumacher’s start to see if he left thick black lines on the Tarmac, like you’d expect.

A key priority before the race for Williams was to observe Schumacher’s start amid concerns Benetton was using illegal driver aids

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Everyone was pretty matter-of-fact about the weekend. Ratzenberger’s accident had already cast a dark gloom over the paddock, and then there was another huge accident at the start when JJ Lehto, who’d qualified fifth, stalled on the grid and Pedro Lamy’s Lotus smashed into the back of him. Bits flew into the grandstands, people were hurt and there was crap flying everywhere. I turned to someone in the garage and said that I thought the whole weekend was getting a bit like chariot racing. It was just ‘wham, bam!’ Things were happening everywhere.

I was the lollipop man that day, like I always was. Ultimately, we had all the top crew at Williams and it just fell to me to do that particular job. I didn’t mind – I wanted to do it. I was the last of the old school and it meant I was responsible for releasing my car back into the race, with no pitlane speed limit in those days, which suited me fine.

Besides, there was John Russell, Patrick Head, David Brown and Adrian Newey up on the pitwall. What the hell was I going to do up there apart from point out the bloody obvious? They were the top men in their field at that time, so I ran the pitlane side of it. That way I could make sure that the fuel was right, that we were ready to go, and that the pitstops went OK.

Frank used to give us a hard time about not being fast enough in the pitstops, so I concentrated a lot on trying to improve that aspect of the team. It was crucial. Not to the level it is now, but it was vital.

After the shunt at the start, the safety car came out. It had been in the rulebook for 12 months and had only been used twice before, so the whole scenario was new to everyone and threw a spanner in the works as far as fuel calculations for the race were concerned. We had to think on our feet a bit but not for long, because the race restarted after five laps. I was in the garage watching on the monitor. Senna held the lead from Schumacher for a lap until he got to Tamburello on lap seven.

We saw the TV pictures… actually the only live TV picture I saw was one where the car disappears behind a wall. I couldn’t see it properly because it was a shot looking back from Tosa. I couldn’t see the actual impact but I could see the shit flying up and all the rest of it. Then there was another camera shot of the crash and I immediately thought, ‘That was a big one.’ There’d been some big crashes at that corner before, like Nelson Piquet in 1987 and Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari in 1989. Those drivers had walked away.

I remember looking at it and after probably about 10 seconds I just started saying, “Move, move.” We’d seen Ayrton twitch inside the car and that represented movement. So there was hope. Initially. Then there was nothing. It just stopped. It became obvious that there was a bit of an issue but nobody knew how serious it was.

Senna continued to lead Schumacher once the safety car peeled in until his accident

Photo by: Motorsport Images

They stopped the grand prix and I went up to race control. I walked the length of the pitlane from where we were based in the middle of the pits, because we were the world champions and we had the biggest garage. As I walked, I started to register that it didn’t look very good and one of the guys from Arrows, I think it was, patted me on the back as I went past. I didn’t acknowledge it at the time but that made me think. I was beginning to realise that this could be really serious.

I got to the officials’ office and it was a scene of controlled panic. The officials could see that there was something big unfolding. There was loads of talk going on in garbled Italian; people were speaking at 100mph and it certainly wasn’t as organised as it is now. It was all a bit different at Imola. No disrespect to the guys there, but this was a massive incident and there was total pandemonium.

I was up there with a radio in communication with the team, because Damon had gridded up ready for the restart and the crew needed to know what was going on. After a few minutes in race control Bernie Ecclestone turned up and started organising it. He was talking to everyone, sorting things out. He became the focal point of the whole thing.

I’m adamant it happened because it was one of the first times a safety car had been used; the tyre pressures were low, the car was running low anyway and it was full of fuel

He turned around to me as it was all getting a bit fraught and said, “What are you doing here?” I told him that I’d come to see what was happening with my driver and he just turned around and carried on with what he was doing. He was organising it and I hope he thought ‘fair enough’ and didn’t answer me. He left me there, which was fine.

A couple of unofficial reports came through that Ayrton had a broken shoulder and that he had been knocked out, something along those lines. It came from someone in the control tower who could speak English. Once I had heard that, I decided to go back to the team because I needed to go and tell Frank what was happening. I told him that although I’d heard it third-hand, the report was that Ayrton was basically OK.

In the meantime, Patrick and Adrian had been getting on with checking the remote data, trying to see what had happened because, by this time, there was a picture of the steering column sitting on the sidepod of Ayrton’s car. They quite rightly went through the data and told Damon that they couldn’t see anything fundamentally wrong with his car.

Eventually, Ayrton’s car came back to the garages. The officials impounded it, but somebody, and I don’t know who it was, insisted that we could pull the data off the car – or at least get what we could because it was all smashed up on that side. We were able to get some data from it; it wasn’t a massive amount, but it was enough from what I understand, and Damon decided to continue in the second part of the race. A big man’s decision.

Hill bravely elected to continue after Senna’s accident once he’d been assured by the team that there was no nothing failure in the data

Photo by: Motorsport Images

I went back up to the organiser’s office but I can’t really remember anything about the race from that point onwards. I spent most of the time in race control trying to find out from the people there what was going on. I knew by that stage that Ayrton had been taken off in a helicopter, obviously, but everybody was hoping for the best. We thought he might have been a bit smashed up, but that was the extent of it.

After a while in race control, I was called into a little side room where there was this Italian lawyer who spoke really good English. He told me what the situation was. He told me that Ayrton had died in hospital.

In Italy they treat it as a road traffic accident and so all of a sudden I was the ‘responsible’ person in the eyes of the law… I had to sign a load of papers. The lawyer was very good and he went through it all with me. It was a total blur. I had to go and get my passport, which they then took off me. Eventually, they gave it back and they were OK with everything. The people at the track were good but it took a while to go through the whole process.

By the time I got back down to the garage, the flyaway Williams crew had gone home and it was just me and the truckies left, packing the things away. I went in to see [Ecclestone’s Austrian caterer] Karl-Heinz Zimmermann as he was in the next bit of the paddock to me and we were quite pally because I could speak the lingo.

He was in his little unit, very upset, but having a schnapps while he was at it. He’s a proper bloke. He kept saying to me, “Come on Ian, you’ve got to have a drink.” I remember saying that I shouldn’t because the boys were still there packing up and I really needed to be there supporting them. I had to make sure they were alright and I guess I was on autopilot.

We’d been staying in Faenza and the people at the hotel had been great. I managed to book the remaining crew back into a hotel in Imola overnight rather than go to the airport, which was no easy task in the days before proper mobile phones and internet access. We’d all missed our flights, what with the delay.

I guess there were about six of us, and we went out for a pizza. When I got back to the hotel, I managed to get hold of Ann Bradshaw, who was Williams’ PR. She was at the airport and she told me that they’d managed to find a side room for the crew to get them out of the way of the press and everything and that the guys had got back to the UK without a problem.

PLUS: The PR legend who lived through Williams’ triumph and tragedy

Early the next morning I got a call from one of the lawyers to say he was coming to pick me up and take me to the mortuary. I’m still not sure why they needed me to go, but I did what they said.

Harrison is convinced that the slow pace of the safety car was a contributing factor to Senna’s accident

Photo by: Motorsport Images

When I arrived, Senna’s manager Julian Jakobi was there as well as the guy from Senna’s sponsor, Varig Airlines. It became clear that they were organising everything and it was all under control. The people at the mortuary asked if I’d like to see Senna, but I said no. I squared everything with Julian. I took a taxi back to the airport. Finally, I got on the flight home.

I got back to Heathrow and nobody was there. Normally there would be someone to collect you but there wasn’t so I got a cab from Heathrow to Didcot. It was hugely expensive. I got in and the driver was a typical good old London cabbie.

He looked at my kit and saw I was from Williams. He said, “Hey mate, bit of a shit weekend.” I just automatically responded, “Yeah, yeah, it was,” and he told me that he had the daily newspapers in the cab if I wanted to read them. So I sat and read the newspaper reports on the way back to the factory. I was just thinking that the whole situation was so sad. So utterly sad.

It wasn’t until I got home and my wife and kids came to meet me at the front door that I just fell apart. I absolutely lost it big time

When I got back to the factory on Basil Hill Road in Didcot, it was amazing. There were about 200 people there and this was about 4pm. The front gates were just covered in flowers. I’d never seen anything like it. I actually had to get out of the cab to move all the flowers so that the security man could open the gates to let me in. Luckily no one knew who I was.

I got into the factory and there was no one there except Patrick Head. Normally everyone would be in getting ready for the next race, but the place was virtually shut down. Although I was still on autopilot, it started to hit home when I went to the deserted factory.

It was a bit strange. Up until then, I’d just been doing my job, and then I started to come out of that mode. Patrick asked how it had gone after the team left and I told him everything was sorted out. It wasn’t until I got home and my wife and kids came to meet me at the front door that I just fell apart. I absolutely lost it big time.

Then we were into work at 8.30am the next day. Peter Goodman, who was our company lawyer, came in and took statements from everybody about what they could remember from the weekend. The company offered everybody counselling but not one person took it. The T-car and Damon’s car arrived back on Tuesday and by the Wednesday morning, everyone was back in and we got on with getting ready for the next race.

By Thursday night, the team had run tests on the rig at Williams and tried to replicate Ayrton’s accident from the data they’d been able to get from his car. They tried to simulate a mechanical failure and, from my understanding, couldn’t get it to look the same as the data taken off the car.

Senna’s absence was keenly felt when the paddock reconvened in Monaco

Photo by: Sutton Images

I’m adamant it happened because it was one of the first times a safety car had been used; the tyre pressures were low, the car was running low anyway and it was full of fuel. If you looked at the in-car footage from Schumacher’s Benetton you could see the car was bottoming out really badly from the restart. It was probably a combination of all those things that caused the shunt. I’m not an engineer but I think the thing bottomed out and Ayrton lost the front end.

After Imola, we went to Monaco with just one car. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted to be there. Of any race that you’ve got to do after what had just happened, we had to go to bloody Monaco – the most difficult one logistically on the calendar. The team had to schlep 10 tonnes of kit up to the garages each morning and 10 tonnes back in the evening. What an awful set-up.

On the Friday, Karl Wendlinger went into the end of the barrier and hurt himself badly. To a man, the Williams crew all went and had dinner with the Sauber guys – and we did it quite deliberately I suppose. We sat in their awning and tried to make conversation and support them because of what we’d been through two weeks before. That was Williams and that’s the kind of people they had. It was a nice gesture.

The whole atmosphere of the place was down. I remember at the drivers’ briefing that people were talking about the start and the first corner and the likelihood of an accident there. I sort of lost it a bit. I said we should start the race under a safety car because they were concerned about accidents at Ste Devote. I remember Gerhard Berger saying no and we had what you might call ‘a full and frank discussion’ about it. Looking back, I think it was just the emotion coming out.

Damon put the car off on the first lap with broken front suspension after a clash with Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren. The mechanics packed up straight away and I sat back in the motorhome, having a beer with Patrick Head and the engineers. We weren’t watching the race. I remember Patrick just turning round and saying, “Bloody hell, these things are noisy.” None of us wanted to be there. It was a hard weekend to get through and Damon going out early wasn’t such a bad thing.

When we got to Barcelona, the fifth race of the year, we were back up to full strength and David Coulthard was in the second car. It was an incredible race and Damon won. Schumacher had been stuck in fifth gear for most of the race and even then you could see the bloke was going to be special – but we didn’t care. We’d won. Williams had finished first and that was the race that got the momentum going. After that, we really started to compete. It was a massive result for us.

I’ve actually got a Renault video that was taken from just over the other side of the pitwall. As Damon’s car crosses the line, there’s a shot of me, Adrian Newey, John Russell and David Brown. In it, you can see that Adrian and I just fall apart with the emotion of it all – although Adrian recovered a lot quicker than I did, I have to say.

Joining the victorious Hill on the podium in Barcelona, Harrison admits he wore shades to hide the emotion in his eyes

Photo by: Motorsport Images

I had to go on the podium with Damon to collect the winning constructors’ trophy. It was one of the great privileges as team manager at Williams that I had to go and do it. I had my Ray-Bans on because I was a mess. I didn’t want people to see what a state I was in.

I just kept feeling that we were back and the car was better. It felt like we’d seen the light at the end of an awful tunnel. After I’d climbed on the podium and got the trophy, I returned to the team, went straight out to the back of the garage and just bawled my eyes out. It got to the stage where some of the boys were telling me to get a grip and toughen up, but after all we’d been through I just couldn’t help it.

We were just beginning to understand him, beginning to see how hard he worked and how determined he was

It’s funny how the emotion of that day comes back to me when I see a crash in Formula 1. It really makes me wince, and just takes me straight back to that weekend at Imola. With Ayrton, we were just beginning to understand him, beginning to see how hard he worked and how determined he was. I’m totally convinced that if he hadn’t been killed that weekend, he would’ve won the 1994 world championship.

Like I said, it was just so utterly sad. And do you know one of the biggest regrets I have? We didn’t really have time to get to know Ayrton Senna at all.

Ian Harrison was talking to Matt James

Harrison laments that Williams didn’t get to spend longer with Senna

Photo by: Motorsport Images

“Ayrton Senna is joining Williams…” I have to say that even though I was the team manager at the time, I had a certain feeling of trepidation when I heard this news. It was pretty daunting, because he was Ayrton Senna… he was coming with a little bit of a reputation.

I suppose we thought he might be difficult to work with – all of the top drivers were demanding, but it was something we’d got used to. We’d had Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost at the team, but nobody quite knew what Ayrton would be like. Still, we were professional and we knew what we were doing.

I first met him at Williams’s factory over the winter, probably at the start of 1994. He popped in for five minutes to say hello and he was quite quiet and extremely polite. That was the thing that immediately struck me about him. He was very calm. He was direct and matter-of-fact.

You could see he was trying to weigh the place up because we were different to McLaren, where he’d been for six years. McLaren had been moulded around him and he had to start that process all over again with us, but we were determined to make him feel as welcome as possible.

The relationship was very new at the first race and, after first practice, we were in the debrief room looking at the time sheets. Ayrton’s race engineer, David Brown, said something like, “Bloody Senna is always there or thereabouts isn’t he?” to no one in particular. Ayrton, who was sitting next to him, just looked sideways with an enquiring look. David turned the colour of a beetroot. “Sorry mate, force of habit,” he said. There was a good atmosphere about the place.

Although things hadn’t been going well over the start of the season, there was no panic from Ayrton himself. He was calm and determined to help the team get to the root of any problems we had with the car. He got his head down, worked with the team and was pulling us in the right direction. He was prepared to work – and to work hard. He wasn’t jumping up and down when things weren’t going right.

Williams team manager Harrison was just starting to get to know Senna as the Imola weekend arrived

Photo by: Motorsport Images

After he spun off in Interlagos chasing Schumacher, he came back into the garage where I was with David Brown. He apologised for going off and said that it wouldn’t happen again. I think that really summed up the bloke.

Still, working at Williams, the pressure was always on. And after two non-finishes in the first two races of 1994, it was really on. There wasn’t a ‘let’s wait and see’ attitude. Things had to change and we were pushing hard.

It had become clear that something was not right with the pace of the car Ayrton Senna and Damon Hill had, and the engineers were trying to figure out what it was. It was down to the powers that be, Adrian Newey and Patrick Head, to sort it out and they’d identified that there was something amiss and that it was an aerodynamic issue of some kind. There was a frustration and we were wondering why the car wasn’t quicker because, by rights, it should’ve been.

I didn’t think Ayrton’s actions in going to the scene of the [Ratzenberger] crash were strange at the time because he was the man in motor racing

It wasn’t that the car lacked outright pace. Ayrton had put the thing on pole for the first two races, but it was a struggle when the green light came on; we didn’t seem to have race pace and Ayrton had retired from the opening two grands prix of the season. We’d only had one podium with Damon Hill, but Williams weren’t the sort of team who panicked. We started going through everything properly and methodically and we’d put some upgrades on the car for the race in Italy. By the time we got to Imola that weekend, everybody was gagging for a result.

Qualifying on Friday went well for us. Senna went out and did 1m21.5s, which was half a second faster than Michael Schumacher’s Benetton; Damon was seventh. Apart from a spin by Damon, I can’t remember any huge dramas for our team, but that wasn’t the case everywhere. Rubens Barrichello had a major off at Variante Bassa and was knocked unconscious. It was a big accident but he survived it and things carried on as usual.

Then we got to Saturday qualifying and Roland Ratzenberger’s accident. It was 20 minutes into the final session of the day and Ayrton hadn’t even gone out to do a time by that stage. Damon had done some laps and was second fastest in the session, which was enough to put him fourth on the grid. Then there was a red flag and the news began to filter back to us that Roland’s accident had been a big one.

Ayrton went to see for himself what had happened in Ratzenberger’s accident and he also went to the medical centre afterwards. You might think that this was an unusual reaction, but he was a humane guy. I didn’t think Ayrton’s actions in going to the scene of the crash were strange at the time because he was the man in motor racing. He was the top man. He was a bloke who was passionate about motor racing and Formula 1.

Senna had set the pace in qualifying, but already it was overshadowed by events elsewhere

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

He was interested in the sport and he wanted to know what was going on with everybody. He was wrapped up in it and this was one of his ways of showing it. Ayrton was always up front with everything and he wasn’t a bloke who shied away from saying what he thought, which for me was great. I think going to the scene and then to the medical centre was just his way of dealing with it. He was interested in safety and deeply concerned with humanity. He had a thing about that.

One thing that struck me about Senna’s reaction, though, was that we didn’t really know him – we didn’t know him at all. The relationship was just beginning to get there. It was starting to get to the stage where if he wanted something, he would just come and ask me.

I remember before Imola, Frank Williams had asked me how it was going with Ayrton and I said that the bloke was fine but that I wished he would just come and speak to me if he wanted something. That was what I was there for.

During the early part of the season, his manager would come and speak to us if there was something Ayrton wanted but for it to have worked properly, I knew that we needed to build up that personal relationship with him so we could give him what he wanted. Well Frank must have had a word in his ear because during that weekend at Imola, he was different. He was asking me “Can we get this?” and “Can we do that?” It wasn’t a problem.

I remember that after the Ratzenberger accident, Charlie Moody, who was the team manager at Simtek at the time, came to see Adrian. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sat in our awning and I just think he needed someone to talk to. I remember going back to our garage afterwards and thinking, ‘Christ, what on earth must this poor bloke be going through?

We didn’t take part in the second part of qualifying after the red flag. Schumacher had improved his time but it wasn’t enough to take pole position away from Ayrton, while Damon was on the second row. We had a shock on that Saturday with the accident, but the Williams team were a bunch of professionals and they just put their heads down and got on with the job. It’s just the way the team were – there was still a race to prepare for.

F1 was a lot less complicated in those days and it’s quite amusing to think back now about how we used to prepare. On the Sunday morning, we would cycle through a programme that isn’t a patch on modern racing. It was almost like, ‘Off we go, here we are chaps, let’s go motor racing!’

Damon, Ayrton and myself went to the drivers’ briefing in race control and then straight after that we went into an engineering meeting. Engineering was the core of Williams; that’s what made it what it was. I went through the rules – just the petty stuff like ‘watch the pitlane entry’, ‘don’t go over this line or that line’ and things like that. It was easier back then because there weren’t nearly as many rules in Formula 1 at that stage as there are today. We went through the warm-up session and, again, Ayrton was first and Damon second. It was all going well.

Senna continued with the business of preparing for the race as normal after speaking to Watkins at the scene of Ratzenberger’s crash

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

In the build-up to the race, we did practice pitstops because it was the first year of refuelling. While the guys were doing that, me, David Brown and John Russell, the engineers, sat down and worked out the final calculations for the fuel stops. It wasn’t like today where you can press a button on a computer and it works it out for you.

We had to look at the fuel usage from qualifying and from the warm-up and then we were looking to see what other factors we’d have to take into account at Imola. We thought about whether the guys would have to turn up their mixture at any stage, what the weather was likely to do and things like that. Ayrton and Damon were involved in the decisions too, and we came to a conclusion that we were all happy with.

I had these little cards printed up, and I wrote down what laps the pitstop window would be on and then I went around and handed one to every member of the pit crew so there could be no confusion. The cards also said what fuel loads Ayrton and Damon wanted in their cars.

Ayrton himself was convinced that there was something different about Schumacher’s car. I know that because I’d gone to meet him after his first-corner accident at Aida in Japan

Finally, before the race, we had a strategy meeting so that everybody knew exactly what was going on. Whenever you do that, you have to build in a degree of flexibility in case something happens or something changes during the race but that was all agreed. All I remember was that it was a pretty flat-out build-up to the start. Race days were always a blur and it was usually a rush to get my overalls on at the start because I’d be working right up until the last minute.

I remember one of the things the paddock was getting obsessed with at the time was Schumacher’s Benetton and its electronics. There was all sorts of paddock gossip about traction control, which seemed to be the norm at the time. Ayrton himself was convinced that there was something different about Schumacher’s car. I know that because I’d gone to meet him after his first-corner accident at Aida in Japan and we walked back to the pits together.

Senna was still on a suspended ban after decking Eddie Irvine after the race at Suzuka the year before, so I thought I’d better go and find him after the Aida crash to make sure nothing else kicked off.

When I got to him, he was walking back and he was very calm. We stopped for two minutes to watch in the infield section. Ayrton said to me that he thought there was something different about Michael’s car. Whether there was or not I don’t know, but Ayrton was utterly sure that there was. On race morning at Imola, I got Richard West, who was the commercial manager of Williams, to get a video camera and go up onto the roof of the garages to record Schumacher’s start to see if he left thick black lines on the Tarmac, like you’d expect.

A key priority before the race for Williams was to observe Schumacher’s start amid concerns Benetton was using illegal driver aids

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Everyone was pretty matter-of-fact about the weekend. Ratzenberger’s accident had already cast a dark gloom over the paddock, and then there was another huge accident at the start when JJ Lehto, who’d qualified fifth, stalled on the grid and Pedro Lamy’s Lotus smashed into the back of him. Bits flew into the grandstands, people were hurt and there was crap flying everywhere. I turned to someone in the garage and said that I thought the whole weekend was getting a bit like chariot racing. It was just ‘wham, bam!’ Things were happening everywhere.

I was the lollipop man that day, like I always was. Ultimately, we had all the top crew at Williams and it just fell to me to do that particular job. I didn’t mind – I wanted to do it. I was the last of the old school and it meant I was responsible for releasing my car back into the race, with no pitlane speed limit in those days, which suited me fine.

Besides, there was John Russell, Patrick Head, David Brown and Adrian Newey up on the pitwall. What the hell was I going to do up there apart from point out the bloody obvious? They were the top men in their field at that time, so I ran the pitlane side of it. That way I could make sure that the fuel was right, that we were ready to go, and that the pitstops went OK.

Frank used to give us a hard time about not being fast enough in the pitstops, so I concentrated a lot on trying to improve that aspect of the team. It was crucial. Not to the level it is now, but it was vital.

After the shunt at the start, the safety car came out. It had been in the rulebook for 12 months and had only been used twice before, so the whole scenario was new to everyone and threw a spanner in the works as far as fuel calculations for the race were concerned. We had to think on our feet a bit but not for long, because the race restarted after five laps. I was in the garage watching on the monitor. Senna held the lead from Schumacher for a lap until he got to Tamburello on lap seven.

We saw the TV pictures… actually the only live TV picture I saw was one where the car disappears behind a wall. I couldn’t see it properly because it was a shot looking back from Tosa. I couldn’t see the actual impact but I could see the shit flying up and all the rest of it. Then there was another camera shot of the crash and I immediately thought, ‘That was a big one.’ There’d been some big crashes at that corner before, like Nelson Piquet in 1987 and Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari in 1989. Those drivers had walked away.

I remember looking at it and after probably about 10 seconds I just started saying, “Move, move.” We’d seen Ayrton twitch inside the car and that represented movement. So there was hope. Initially. Then there was nothing. It just stopped. It became obvious that there was a bit of an issue but nobody knew how serious it was.

Senna continued to lead Schumacher once the safety car peeled in until his accident

Photo by: Motorsport Images

They stopped the grand prix and I went up to race control. I walked the length of the pitlane from where we were based in the middle of the pits, because we were the world champions and we had the biggest garage. As I walked, I started to register that it didn’t look very good and one of the guys from Arrows, I think it was, patted me on the back as I went past. I didn’t acknowledge it at the time but that made me think. I was beginning to realise that this could be really serious.

I got to the officials’ office and it was a scene of controlled panic. The officials could see that there was something big unfolding. There was loads of talk going on in garbled Italian; people were speaking at 100mph and it certainly wasn’t as organised as it is now. It was all a bit different at Imola. No disrespect to the guys there, but this was a massive incident and there was total pandemonium.

I was up there with a radio in communication with the team, because Damon had gridded up ready for the restart and the crew needed to know what was going on. After a few minutes in race control Bernie Ecclestone turned up and started organising it. He was talking to everyone, sorting things out. He became the focal point of the whole thing.

I’m adamant it happened because it was one of the first times a safety car had been used; the tyre pressures were low, the car was running low anyway and it was full of fuel

He turned around to me as it was all getting a bit fraught and said, “What are you doing here?” I told him that I’d come to see what was happening with my driver and he just turned around and carried on with what he was doing. He was organising it and I hope he thought ‘fair enough’ and didn’t answer me. He left me there, which was fine.

A couple of unofficial reports came through that Ayrton had a broken shoulder and that he had been knocked out, something along those lines. It came from someone in the control tower who could speak English. Once I had heard that, I decided to go back to the team because I needed to go and tell Frank what was happening. I told him that although I’d heard it third-hand, the report was that Ayrton was basically OK.

In the meantime, Patrick and Adrian had been getting on with checking the remote data, trying to see what had happened because, by this time, there was a picture of the steering column sitting on the sidepod of Ayrton’s car. They quite rightly went through the data and told Damon that they couldn’t see anything fundamentally wrong with his car.

Eventually, Ayrton’s car came back to the garages. The officials impounded it, but somebody, and I don’t know who it was, insisted that we could pull the data off the car – or at least get what we could because it was all smashed up on that side. We were able to get some data from it; it wasn’t a massive amount, but it was enough from what I understand, and Damon decided to continue in the second part of the race. A big man’s decision.

Hill bravely elected to continue after Senna’s accident once he’d been assured by the team that there was no nothing failure in the data

Photo by: Motorsport Images

I went back up to the organiser’s office but I can’t really remember anything about the race from that point onwards. I spent most of the time in race control trying to find out from the people there what was going on. I knew by that stage that Ayrton had been taken off in a helicopter, obviously, but everybody was hoping for the best. We thought he might have been a bit smashed up, but that was the extent of it.

After a while in race control, I was called into a little side room where there was this Italian lawyer who spoke really good English. He told me what the situation was. He told me that Ayrton had died in hospital.

In Italy they treat it as a road traffic accident and so all of a sudden I was the ‘responsible’ person in the eyes of the law… I had to sign a load of papers. The lawyer was very good and he went through it all with me. It was a total blur. I had to go and get my passport, which they then took off me. Eventually, they gave it back and they were OK with everything. The people at the track were good but it took a while to go through the whole process.

By the time I got back down to the garage, the flyaway Williams crew had gone home and it was just me and the truckies left, packing the things away. I went in to see [Ecclestone’s Austrian caterer] Karl-Heinz Zimmermann as he was in the next bit of the paddock to me and we were quite pally because I could speak the lingo.

He was in his little unit, very upset, but having a schnapps while he was at it. He’s a proper bloke. He kept saying to me, “Come on Ian, you’ve got to have a drink.” I remember saying that I shouldn’t because the boys were still there packing up and I really needed to be there supporting them. I had to make sure they were alright and I guess I was on autopilot.

We’d been staying in Faenza and the people at the hotel had been great. I managed to book the remaining crew back into a hotel in Imola overnight rather than go to the airport, which was no easy task in the days before proper mobile phones and internet access. We’d all missed our flights, what with the delay.

I guess there were about six of us, and we went out for a pizza. When I got back to the hotel, I managed to get hold of Ann Bradshaw, who was Williams’ PR. She was at the airport and she told me that they’d managed to find a side room for the crew to get them out of the way of the press and everything and that the guys had got back to the UK without a problem.

PLUS: The PR legend who lived through Williams’ triumph and tragedy

Early the next morning I got a call from one of the lawyers to say he was coming to pick me up and take me to the mortuary. I’m still not sure why they needed me to go, but I did what they said.

Harrison is convinced that the slow pace of the safety car was a contributing factor to Senna’s accident

Photo by: Motorsport Images

When I arrived, Senna’s manager Julian Jakobi was there as well as the guy from Senna’s sponsor, Varig Airlines. It became clear that they were organising everything and it was all under control. The people at the mortuary asked if I’d like to see Senna, but I said no. I squared everything with Julian. I took a taxi back to the airport. Finally, I got on the flight home.

I got back to Heathrow and nobody was there. Normally there would be someone to collect you but there wasn’t so I got a cab from Heathrow to Didcot. It was hugely expensive. I got in and the driver was a typical good old London cabbie.

He looked at my kit and saw I was from Williams. He said, “Hey mate, bit of a shit weekend.” I just automatically responded, “Yeah, yeah, it was,” and he told me that he had the daily newspapers in the cab if I wanted to read them. So I sat and read the newspaper reports on the way back to the factory. I was just thinking that the whole situation was so sad. So utterly sad.

It wasn’t until I got home and my wife and kids came to meet me at the front door that I just fell apart. I absolutely lost it big time

When I got back to the factory on Basil Hill Road in Didcot, it was amazing. There were about 200 people there and this was about 4pm. The front gates were just covered in flowers. I’d never seen anything like it. I actually had to get out of the cab to move all the flowers so that the security man could open the gates to let me in. Luckily no one knew who I was.

I got into the factory and there was no one there except Patrick Head. Normally everyone would be in getting ready for the next race, but the place was virtually shut down. Although I was still on autopilot, it started to hit home when I went to the deserted factory.

It was a bit strange. Up until then, I’d just been doing my job, and then I started to come out of that mode. Patrick asked how it had gone after the team left and I told him everything was sorted out. It wasn’t until I got home and my wife and kids came to meet me at the front door that I just fell apart. I absolutely lost it big time.

Then we were into work at 8.30am the next day. Peter Goodman, who was our company lawyer, came in and took statements from everybody about what they could remember from the weekend. The company offered everybody counselling but not one person took it. The T-car and Damon’s car arrived back on Tuesday and by the Wednesday morning, everyone was back in and we got on with getting ready for the next race.

By Thursday night, the team had run tests on the rig at Williams and tried to replicate Ayrton’s accident from the data they’d been able to get from his car. They tried to simulate a mechanical failure and, from my understanding, couldn’t get it to look the same as the data taken off the car.

Senna’s absence was keenly felt when the paddock reconvened in Monaco

Photo by: Sutton Images

I’m adamant it happened because it was one of the first times a safety car had been used; the tyre pressures were low, the car was running low anyway and it was full of fuel. If you looked at the in-car footage from Schumacher’s Benetton you could see the car was bottoming out really badly from the restart. It was probably a combination of all those things that caused the shunt. I’m not an engineer but I think the thing bottomed out and Ayrton lost the front end.

After Imola, we went to Monaco with just one car. Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted to be there. Of any race that you’ve got to do after what had just happened, we had to go to bloody Monaco – the most difficult one logistically on the calendar. The team had to schlep 10 tonnes of kit up to the garages each morning and 10 tonnes back in the evening. What an awful set-up.

On the Friday, Karl Wendlinger went into the end of the barrier and hurt himself badly. To a man, the Williams crew all went and had dinner with the Sauber guys – and we did it quite deliberately I suppose. We sat in their awning and tried to make conversation and support them because of what we’d been through two weeks before. That was Williams and that’s the kind of people they had. It was a nice gesture.

The whole atmosphere of the place was down. I remember at the drivers’ briefing that people were talking about the start and the first corner and the likelihood of an accident there. I sort of lost it a bit. I said we should start the race under a safety car because they were concerned about accidents at Ste Devote. I remember Gerhard Berger saying no and we had what you might call ‘a full and frank discussion’ about it. Looking back, I think it was just the emotion coming out.

Damon put the car off on the first lap with broken front suspension after a clash with Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren. The mechanics packed up straight away and I sat back in the motorhome, having a beer with Patrick Head and the engineers. We weren’t watching the race. I remember Patrick just turning round and saying, “Bloody hell, these things are noisy.” None of us wanted to be there. It was a hard weekend to get through and Damon going out early wasn’t such a bad thing.

When we got to Barcelona, the fifth race of the year, we were back up to full strength and David Coulthard was in the second car. It was an incredible race and Damon won. Schumacher had been stuck in fifth gear for most of the race and even then you could see the bloke was going to be special – but we didn’t care. We’d won. Williams had finished first and that was the race that got the momentum going. After that, we really started to compete. It was a massive result for us.

I’ve actually got a Renault video that was taken from just over the other side of the pitwall. As Damon’s car crosses the line, there’s a shot of me, Adrian Newey, John Russell and David Brown. In it, you can see that Adrian and I just fall apart with the emotion of it all – although Adrian recovered a lot quicker than I did, I have to say.

Joining the victorious Hill on the podium in Barcelona, Harrison admits he wore shades to hide the emotion in his eyes

Photo by: Motorsport Images

I had to go on the podium with Damon to collect the winning constructors’ trophy. It was one of the great privileges as team manager at Williams that I had to go and do it. I had my Ray-Bans on because I was a mess. I didn’t want people to see what a state I was in.

I just kept feeling that we were back and the car was better. It felt like we’d seen the light at the end of an awful tunnel. After I’d climbed on the podium and got the trophy, I returned to the team, went straight out to the back of the garage and just bawled my eyes out. It got to the stage where some of the boys were telling me to get a grip and toughen up, but after all we’d been through I just couldn’t help it.

We were just beginning to understand him, beginning to see how hard he worked and how determined he was

It’s funny how the emotion of that day comes back to me when I see a crash in Formula 1. It really makes me wince, and just takes me straight back to that weekend at Imola. With Ayrton, we were just beginning to understand him, beginning to see how hard he worked and how determined he was. I’m totally convinced that if he hadn’t been killed that weekend, he would’ve won the 1994 world championship.

Like I said, it was just so utterly sad. And do you know one of the biggest regrets I have? We didn’t really have time to get to know Ayrton Senna at all.

Ian Harrison was talking to Matt James

Harrison laments that Williams didn’t get to spend longer with Senna

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The Spaniard is the only driver other than Max Verstappen to have won a race in 2024 and is just seven points behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc in the standings despite having missed the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on medical grounds.

His strong form has made him a key player in the F1 driver market silly season for next year, having been linked with Red Bull and Mercedes, while Audi is known to want him on board.

The way in which he has been better able to deliver results for Ferrari this season has been noticeable and prompted some to suggest that there has been a change of approach or revised driving style.

But reflecting himself on why things are clicking better so far, he says it is all down to the way that Ferrari’s new SF-24 is more benign in its handling than last year’s peaky challenger.

“There is nothing in particular in the car that I like or dislike, apart from a more stable platform that gives you less bad moments across a lap, that gives you less scares,” explained Sainz.

“Last year, during a qualifying lap or during a race, we would have a lot of big moments that we didn’t understand where they were coming from. It was taking away confidence in general.

“This year, since winter testing in Bahrain, you could already see in the three days of testing that we had very little of those moments.”

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari, 3rd position, in the Press Conference

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Sainz explains that having a car that is not so nervous on the edge means that there is increased driver confidence, which in turn means he can push harder.

“The car just seems a more stable platform that allows you to stay closer to the limit more often,” he said.

“And that, in the end, means more confidence, and more confidence means better performance.

“In terms of driving style and all that, it’s a very similar car to last year. We drive it in exactly the same way as last year’s car.”

Despite having learned over the winter that his contract would not be renewed for 2025, with Ferrari having opted to sign Lewis Hamilton, Sainz feels he is delivering at the best he ever has during his four years with the squad.

However, he is not sure if he is enjoying the form of his career to date.

“For sure, it has been my strongest start to a season since I joined Ferrari,” he explained. “This is no secret. Am I at my best? I don’t know. It’s a difficult thing to answer.

“Obviously, it looks like it, because the podiums are coming, and the results are showing. But I have been at my best at McLaren, I have been at my best in Toro Rosso.

“What changes is the car – some years you have a better car than others. Some years you have a better qualifying car or a race car. This year, we have a good compromise between quali and the race it seems.

“Yeah, I’m driving at a very good level I think but I have been in F1 at a good level before, so I don’t know. Honestly, I would need to go through all of my last nine years to think about it.”

For many, Ayrton Senna is the greatest Formula 1 driver of all time, and the passing of years since his death – at the peak of his powers aged 34 in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix – has only strengthened that conviction.

To mark the 25th anniversary in 2019, Autosport decided to pick out and rank the three-time world champion’s 10 finest race performances.

Senna made 161 F1 starts and took 41 wins, so the pool of candidates was large. For this top 10 we considered the quality of the cars at his disposal, the circumstances of the races, the opposition, and the views of some of those involved.

We’re sure many fans will have different selections, but here is our list of Senna’s 10 greatest F1 drives.

10. 1988 British GP, Silverstone

Car: McLaren MP4/4
Started: 3rd
Result: 1st

The domination of 1988 by Senna, Alain Prost and the McLaren-Honda MP4/4 was well-established by the time they arrived at Silverstone for round eight. Prost was four-three ahead on wins, but the British Grand Prix would mark the start of a run of victories that set Senna on the path to his first world title.

For the first time that season a McLaren wasn’t on pole position. Ferrari locked out the front row, but Senna added to his burgeoning reputation in the wet race.

He quickly swept into second and followed Gerhard Berger – the Ferrari making a race of it despite fuel concerns – for the first 13 laps. As conditions improved, Senna increased the pressure and forged past Berger at the Woodcote chicane as they lapped the second McLaren of Prost.

Senna’s team-mate was never a factor, eventually retiring with handling problems, possibly as a result of chassis damage from his kerb-hopping in the previous week’s French GP. But Autosport’s F1 reporter Nigel Roebuck reckoned Prost had helped Senna in one way as the Brazilian dived for the lead.

“It was chancy for it also meant ducking by his team-mate and, in the spray, Prost hadn’t seen him and turned in on his normal line,” wrote Roebuck. “Fortunately, Alain flicked his wheel right, gave his team-mate room.”

Thereafter, Senna pulled away. At one stage his lead was over a minute before he backed off to save fuel and a charging Nigel Mansell brought the gap down to 23.3 seconds at the finish.

“Senna guided the McLaren with sanded fingertips, never made a mistake, nor looked like it,” added Roebuck. “If he takes the title, he took it here.”

9. 1986 Spanish GP, Jerez

Car: Lotus 98T
Started: 1st
Result: 1st

‘Spanish Thriller!’ said Autosport’s cover after Senna pipped Mansell to victory at Jerez by 0.014s.

Senna had comfortably taken pole on this new circuit to F1, helped by an uprated Renault engine in his Lotus, but the race was much more of a contest.

“Undoubtedly the competition at the top of F1 has a degree of edge I have not known before,” wrote Roebuck. “Ayrton is up there, and a lot of people are aiming to shoot him down.”

Nevertheless, Senna made a good start and led the early stages. Williams duo Nelson Piquet and Mansell and the McLarens of Prost and Keke Rosberg tracked the Lotus.

Shortly before half-distance Mansell, who had fallen to fifth early on, started his charge. On lap 33 of 72 he took Piquet for second and started pressuring Senna. On lap 40 the Williams snatched the lead as they lapped Martin Brundle’s Tyrrell.

Mansell pulled away, but he then started struggling with his tyres. Senna caught the Williams and dived ahead with nine laps to go, and Mansell was delayed enough for Prost to nip past too.

Now Mansell pitted for fresh rubber. With nine laps to go he was third, 20.5s behind Senna. He started catching at a rate that suggested he would arrive on Senna’s tail with time to spare, but he lost crucial time battling Prost on lap 69.

Senna’s lead was 7.2s at the end of that tour, 5.4s next time around and 1.6s going on to the final lap. Under braking for the hairpin Mansell arrived on the Lotus’s tail. He popped out on the drag to the line, but Senna held on in one of F1’s closest finishes.

8. 1984 Monaco GP, Monte Carlo

Car: Toleman TG184
Started: 13th
Result: 2nd

Senna never won a grand prix from worse than fifth on the grid, but he was almost victorious from row seven on just his fifth F1 start.

In the dry, Senna had qualified the nimble-but-underpowered Toleman-Hart 13th. Race day was appallingly wet and gave Senna the opportunity to demonstrate his prowess in the rain.

PLUS: The underdog F1 squad that thrust Senna into the limelight

Senna rose to ninth on lap one, helped by the demise of both Renaults. Fellow rising star Stefan Bellof was also on the move, reaching 10th (from 20th) on lap two in his normally aspirated Tyrrell.

On lap three Senna passed Jacques Laffite for eighth and on lap seven the Toleman overcame Manfred Winkelhock’s ATS. Senna gained another spot when Michele Alboreto spun his Ferrari. Now he was up with some of the big names.

On lap 12 he overtook Rosberg, fighting to hang on to the peaky Williams-Honda, and two laps later Senna got by the misfiring Ferrari of Rene Arnoux. When leader Mansell infamously lost his Lotus on the climb up the hill, Senna inherited third and was not far behind Niki Lauda’s McLaren. Bellof was now sixth, and closing on Rosberg.

Exiting Rascasse at the end of lap 18, Senna launched an attack on Lauda. “Ayrton flicked to the left,” reported Roebuck. “It was dead reckoning, this, overtaking in a dense mist of spray, putting your head down and going for it. Niki made no serious attempt to defend in the braking area for Ste Devote, and the Toleman driver’s perfectly executed manoeuvre had him up to second.”

At the end of lap 19 Senna was 34.4s behind Prost. Initially, the gap did not change very much, but then Senna started to close as the McLaren struggled with a brake vibration.

On lap 24 Lauda crashed out, promoting Bellof to fourth, and the Tyrrell driver overtook Arnoux for third on lap 27. At this point, Senna was 21.7s behind Prost and 17.2s ahead of Bellof. Both gaps now reduced. Four laps later, Prost’s advantage was only 7.5s and Bellof was 13.7s behind Senna.

Then red flags flew and the race was stopped, Prost pulling over on the start-finish line shortly before Senna swept past. The Frenchman had decided not to fight the young chargers and, with almost an hour still left to run, the prospect was for a Senna v Bellof fight for victory.

But the premature finish denied fans the chance to see how that would play out and Senna was furious. Given the conditions it is perhaps not surprising that two young chargers with something to prove stood out.

A number of factors prevent this race from being higher on this list. One is Bellof’s pace, another is the fact that Prost had brake issues and a championship to think about. And another is that Senna had hit the kerb at the chicane and damaged the suspension, which might not have allowed him to finish if the race had continued.

But few – if any – rookies have ever put down such an impressive marker in such difficult conditions.

7. 1993 Brazilian GP, Interlagos

Car: McLaren MP4/8
Started: 3rd
Result: 1st

Some of Senna’s 1993 performances were among his most memorable. Aside from the obvious European GP victory, his second win in front of his home crowd also came before McLaren started making inroads into Williams’s supremacy. “In a car not truly on the pace, he did everything we have come to expect, and more,” noted Roebuck.

Having qualified 1.8s slower than poleman Prost, Senna dived down the inside of Damon Hill’s Williams at the first corner to snatch second, but he could do nothing about Prost. At the start of lap 11 Hill underlined the Williams advantage by slipstreaming past Senna to retake second.

Worse was to come. Senna was handed a 10s stop-go penalty for overtaking under yellows, following the nasty lap-one crash involving his team-mate Michael Andretti and Berger’s Ferrari. Senna came in to serve what he felt was a fatuous penalty on lap 24 of 71. At the end of the following tour he was fourth, 44.8s behind Prost.

But now the weather intervened, a downpour creating chaos, and Senna pitted for rain tyres. One of the cars that had been ahead – Michael Schumacher’s Benetton – was delayed by a troubled pitstop, and then Prost retired. A miscommunication with his pit meant Prost stayed out when he should have stopped, aquaplaned and slid into Christian Fittipaldi’s spun Minardi.

The safety car came out and, when racing resumed on lap 38, Senna was second behind Hill. He remained there until his switch to slicks on lap 40 – one earlier than Hill – helped him jump into the lead.

Hill showed his pace on a clear track, but Senna’s characteristic progress through traffic kept him clear. “It was the backmarkers – or, rather, Senna’s peerless ability through them – that put the issue beyond doubt,” reckoned Roebuck.

“No one works the traffic like Senna. He has what amounts to genius for picking other drivers off at the right moment, and is marvellously adept at placing another car between himself and his pursuer immediately before a corner.”

Hill – in his fourth GP – knew he was beaten and settled for second as Senna scored McLaren’s 100th world championship race victory.

6. 1992 Monaco GP, Monte Carlo

Car: McLaren MP4/7A
Started: 3rd
Result: 1st

In one way, this was a lucky win – Senna would never have beaten Mansell without the runaway leader suffering a wheel problem that forced a pitstop. But it was also a great example of maximising what he had and taking advantage of any opportunity that came along.

First the maximising. Senna had qualified third, over a second behind Mansell, and knew a good start was his best chance of making progress. He managed to snatch second from Riccardo Patrese’s Williams into Ste Devote.

“I went for it at the last moment, so as not to give Riccardo any indication,” said Senna. “It was a good manoeuvre. If Patrese had been ahead of me out of the corner I doubt I would ever have got past him.”

Then the grabbing of an opportunity. Senna wasn’t able to hang on to Mansell but was close enough to take the lead when the Williams made a tardy pitstop on lap 71 of 78.

“I knew there was no way to catch Mansell,” admitted Senna, who had also lost time avoiding a spun Alboreto. “So what I tried to do was go hard enough to be in position to benefit if anything happened to Mansell but still try to conserve my tyres.”

Emerging in second, the pace of Mansell’s FW14B on new rubber was sensational. On lap 74 he took 2.4s out of Senna’s lead – with a time 1.8s faster than anyone else managed in the GP – and was on the McLaren’s tail next time through.

“Even given the problems overtaking at this place, Senna looked vulnerable,” reckoned Roebuck.

Mansell jinked and darted around the McLaren’s gearbox looking for a gap. On the penultimate lap Senna almost came to a stop at the chicane, but there was no way through. Despite worn tyres Senna held on to take his fifth Monaco GP win by 0.2s.

Senna believed he’d had many more difficult races, but others were impressed.

“Nobody but Senna could have won,” said his team-mate Berger. “Anybody else would have made a mistake.”

5. 1988 Japanese GP, Suzuka

Car: McLaren MP4/4
Started: 1st
Result: 1st

Although Prost arrived leading the points table, the dropped-scores rule meant that Senna could become 1988 champion if he won the penultimate round at Suzuka. He pipped Prost to pole, but the race was rather less simple.

“So many McLaren-Honda battles have been won and lost in the first few seconds this year, and now came the most crucial one of all,” reported Roebuck. “And Senna blew it.”

Senna barely moved at the start and almost stalled – “I thought it was over for me” – but he managed to get the car going on the downhill straight. “I was so lucky,” he added.

Senna briefly fell to 14th and was eighth at the end of the first lap, nine seconds behind Prost. Senna’s charge took him to sixth on lap two, fifth on lap three and ahead of Alboreto’s Ferrari on lap four.

The gap to Prost was 12.9s and, with both McLarens now in clear air, they set a similar pace for the next few laps. But, shortly after Senna overtook the other Ferrari of Berger for third, it started to drizzle.

Now Senna started carving into Prost’s lead, which had been 12.6s after 11 of the 51 laps. And the leading McLaren-Honda soon had its hands full with Ivan Capelli’s March. Capelli briefly led at the end of lap 16 when Prost, nursing a sporadic gear-selection problem, missed a shift. He soon powered back by, but Senna was closing on the leading duo all the time.

When the March hit electrical trouble on lap 20, Senna inherited second and crossed the line just 0.7s behind his team-mate. “Senna had driven a quite inspired series of laps on the slippery track, relying on instinct and response and improvisation,” wrote Roebuck.

The rain now abated and Prost was able to maintain the lead for a few laps. But when the Frenchman was delayed at the chicane by Andrea de Cesaris on lap 27 and had more trouble changing gear, Senna got a run and took the lead on the sprint to the first corner.

Although they were evenly matched in clear air, Senna was characteristically quicker through traffic and edged away. Prost closed and, with 10 laps to go, had brought the gap down to 1.7s, but then rain returned. Senna pulled clear to win by 13.4s and secure his first world title.

“Everyone was on slicks, and when the track was at its most treacherous he was in a class by himself,” said Roebuck. “No race driver on Earth flourishes in the wet like Ayrton. It was a world champion’s drive, a title hard earned, hard won.”

Senna had made the error at the start and had been helped by Prost’s gear issues – there was just a tenth and a half between their respective fastest laps – but rated the performance as one of his best.

“The race was amazingly hard, because of the circumstances right from the start: through traffic, through the slippery conditions,” said Senna.

“Until today, I said my best drive was at Estoril in 1985. But not any more: this was my best.”

4. 1989 Monaco GP, Monte Carlo

Car: McLaren MP4/5
Started: 1st
Result: 1st

The bald facts of this event are that Senna beat team-mate Prost to pole by 1.1s and in the race by 52.5s, but they are not the main reasons this race is here. This GP demonstrated both Senna’s ability to slice through traffic and to drive around car issues.

The Monaco GP was also the first after the infamous falling-out between Senna and Prost at Imola – arguably the true start of their feud – and a year after the Brazilian had thrown away victory by crashing while well in the lead.

In the 1989 race, poleman Senna led Prost from the start. Prost looked quicker at times, but lost time in traffic, particularly with Arnoux’s Ligier. Prost later admitted he needed to be more aggressive.

“Ayrton has no equal in the art of making room for himself,” reported Roebuck. “That killed the race, really.”

Prost was also delayed by a traffic jam at Loews following a collision between Cesaris and Piquet, but Senna also had his problems.

The leader was suffering with gearbox issues, losing first and second gears. “I had to keep Alain from knowing I was in trouble, so he wouldn’t push,” explained Senna.

“What I had to do was go very close to the barriers in the slow corners, keeping the revs up, sliding a little bit.”

It worked – Senna took a dominant victory, despite Prost being in a healthy McLaren and setting a fastest lap 0.5s quicker.

3. 1993 European GP, Donington Park

Car: McLaren MP4/8
Started: 4th
Result: 1st

This is almost certainly Senna’s most famous performance. Ranged against the technically superior Williams FW15Cs of Prost and Hill, Senna produced a devastating first lap and victory by an incredible 1m23s.

PLUS: The rushed McLaren F1 car that elevated a reluctant Senna’s legacy

Senna, blocked by Schumacher’s Benetton, briefly fell to fifth at the start, but then began the charge that made the first lap of the 1993 European GP one of the most famous in history. Senna passed Schumacher on the exit of Redgate, swept around the outside of Karl Wendlinger’s Sauber down the fearsome Craner Curves, then dived underneath Hill at McLean’s.

Prost, who later claimed to be suffering from gearbox problems from the start, was several lengths ahead, but Senna was on him quickly. The McLaren outbraked the Williams into the Melbourne hairpin and took the lead.

“The opening minute had been breathtaking, but somehow you felt that the race was already over,” wrote Roebuck in Autosport’s report.

After four laps Senna was 7s clear of Prost but, as the track dried, that started to creep down. Senna came in for slicks after 18 of the 76 laps and had a lead of 5.1s after Prost came in the next time around.

Then it started to rain again and Prost, then Senna, came in, only for the track to soon dry and force both back in again. Senna’s third stop was slow and so, at half-distance, it was Prost who led by nearly 6s. Nobody else was in contention.

The race now became farcical, at least for Prost, for the rain returned and both Williams drivers came in for wets. This time Senna stayed out and he extended his lead as the track started to dry once more. On lap 48 Prost came in from second to switch to slicks, but this time stalled and the FW15C got stuck in gear. This dropped Prost to fourth and he pitted again just five laps later, believing he had a puncture.

Senna had his one piece of good fortune on lap 57, when he came in with the intention of changing to wets but the team wasn’t ready and waved him through. On returning to the track, Senna changed his mind and stayed out until the rain really returned with 10 laps to go and he made his fourth actual stop. Hill and Prost came in shortly afterwards, meaning that Prost had now stopped seven times.

Senna came home to take his 38th F1 victory. Everyone except Hill had been lapped.

“This was Senna at his most majestic,” enthused Roebuck. “His drive I thought mesmeric, beginning to end, for it seemed to contain every card to which a racing driver’s hand can aspire. It was a victory as consummate as they get.”

So why isn’t it number one? Firstly, Senna didn’t rate it as his best. Secondly, he had traction control when many others did not, including Schumacher. Finally, Williams did not maximise what it had, in terms of set-up, strategy or pitstop efficiency.

“While the Williams drivers never got the dry conditions in which to assert their car’s superiority, their cause was scarcely aided by a run of tyre stops which proved uncannily out of sync with what the weather gods had in mind,” noted Roebuck.

If those reasons sound harsh, it is only in the context of how many contenders there are for this list. Whatever way you look at it, Senna’s 1993 European GP remains one of the most outstanding F1 drives.

2. 1991 Brazilian GP, Interlagos

Car: McLaren MP4/6
Started: 1st
Result: 1st

‘Hometown hero’ was Autosport’s report headline, and that was apt as Senna finally took the Brazilian GP he had coveted so dearly, and in remarkable fashion.

Bad luck and bad judgement had combined to deny him a success at home before, but things looked promising as Senna led from pole after one of his great qualifying performances. When Mansell’s chasing Williams, his only real challenger, hit gearbox trouble, the win looked straightforward.

PLUS: The V12 experiment that yielded Senna’s final F1 title

Then Senna started losing gears. “The gearbox went completely crazy,” he said. “That was seven laps from the end and I decided to leave it in sixth and drive around the circuit completely differently.

“In the high-speed corners it was not so bad, but in the medium and slow-speed sections it was a disaster. I really didn’t think I’d make it.”

Senna was also suffering from cramps and muscle spasms through the sheer effort of driving around the anti-clockwise circuit, and Patrese’s Williams – itself with gearbox issues – started closing at a great rate.

With 17 of the 71 laps to go he had been 42.5s behind. Going on to the final tour it was 3.7s, but Senna held on to win by 3s as rain arrived.

“After the chequered flag I lost the engine completely,” added Senna, who had to be helped from his car. “And then the pain was unbelievable. I had such a huge pain in my shoulders, in my side, and I didn’t know whether to shout, to cry, or to smile.”

That victory had taken more out of Senna than any other.

1. 1985 Portuguese GP, Estoril

Car: Lotus 97T
Started: 1st
Result: 1st

This race was a special one for Senna personally. Not only was it his first F1 world championship victory, it was scored in brilliant style in terrible conditions.

His 1993 European GP performance is more famous, but the win at Estoril was secured without traction control, with a difficult turbocharged engine, and there were more potential winners in the field. Only three teams won races in 1993, but five did so in 1985. And the 1985 Portuguese GP was only Senna’s 16th F1 start.

PLUS: Ranking F1’s greatest wet-weather drives

Senna led from pole on an appallingly wet track, completing the first lap 2.7s clear of team-mate Elio de Angelis. The two Lotuses pulled away, with Senna edging clear of de Angelis, before Prost’s McLaren moved forward to challenge for second.

Just before half-distance, the rain got so bad that even Senna – now 37s ahead – started gesticulating that the race should be stopped. It wasn’t and Prost, who was still trying to pass de Angelis, simply aquaplaned into retirement on the main start/finish straight.

“The big danger was that conditions changed all the time,” said Senna, who admitted to surviving one grassy moment of his own. “It was difficult even to keep the car in a straight line sometimes and for sure the race should have been stopped.

“It was much worse than Monaco last year. Once I nearly spun in front of the pits, like Prost, and I was lucky to stay on the road.”

PLUS: How Senna’s first F1 winner gave Lotus life after Chapman

Only nine of the 26 starters were classified, around half of the retirements due to spins or crashes, and Senna lapped everyone except Alboreto’s Ferrari, which finished 1m03s behind the Lotus. Senna’s fastest lap was 0.7s quicker than anyone else’s.

“Senna’s victory will be remembered as a classic,” wrote Roebuck. “It was a mesmeric performance. Without Senna, a lot of the drivers would have impressed with their ability and courage: as it was, they seemed inept, tentative.

“Just occasionally comes a race when one driver makes the rest look ordinary, and this was one such. He was in a different class right from the green light.”