Monaco Grand Prix – The Race

The clouds of war are gathering

The Monaco Grand Prix of 2014 was one of those rare Monaco races. One which was thoroughly engrossing and tension-packed from start to finish and full of flat out racing. There was even a smidgen of audaciously brilliantly overtaking, most outrageously Hulkenberg on Magnussen at Portiers. No one EVER in the history of Monaco has overtaken at Portiers. Normally you only get epic Monaco races when there are monsoon conditions or multiple pile-ups decimate half the field throwing up a leftfield result.

The top three from qualifying, Rosberg, Hamilton and Ricciardo, ended up on the podium in exactly the same order (admittedly only just and the tightest battle in the closing stages was NOT between the two Mercedes cars). We had yet another Mercedes 1-2 (for the fifth race in a row) and just like last year, Nico Rosberg drove immaculately to lead the race from start to finish.

Rosberg driving serenely to victory around Monaco

And yet the Monaco Grand Prix was so much more thrilling and unpredictable than those stark facts suggest. Rosberg’s victory was the perfect shot in the arm for the title race. Given the immense superiority of the Mercedes and the huge tally of points their drivers have accrued, it is probably already a two horse race for the title. Rosberg’s win in Monaco finally arrested the runaway momentum of Hamilton’s 4 consecutive race wins and not a moment too soon. But far more importantly the controversial events of qualifying (don’t worry, I’m not going there again!) seemed to rattle Hamilton’s fragile psyche to such a point that he openly criticised his team during and after the race. Damon Hill wasn’t far off the mark when he said the only person who could beat Lewis Hamilton was Lewis Hamilton himself. Behind the top 3, there were some remarkable drives and performances and the joyous scenes of a team winning their first points ever in Formula 1 at Monaco of all places.

The start of the Monaco Grand Prix

I was as nervous at the start as I have been for a very long time. And of course after all the talk and hysteria there was no Senna-inspired vengeful coming together between Hamilton and Rosberg in the run to turn one. The fact that Rosberg led coming out of Ste Devote was hugely significant to the eventual outcome but the fact remains he drove faultlessly for 78 laps around the mean streets of Monaco under extreme pressure from his team-mate for almost the entire distance. One error or lock-up or lapse in concentration and Hamilton would have been ready to pounce.

The other crucial development in cementing the order that the two Mercedes cars came home was the decision to delay bringing in both cars to the pits until after the Safety Car was deployed following Sutil’s crash on lap 25. Hamilton was quick to berate his team for not bringing him in earlier and remarked pointedly “I can’t believe we just had to pit. Can you just inform me of what options I have? We should have pitted on that lap before but I knew you wouldn’t call me in, guys.”

No Monaco GP is complete without an appearance from the Safety Car

When asked to elaborate after the race he explained that Mercedes have a centralised strategy and the car in front gets priority. Lewis pointed out it had been completely different at McLaren where they had the luxury and advantage of one strategist each per driver. Imagine how chuffed Mercedes must be to hear themselves upbraided by one of their drivers in front of the world’s media. Not cool Lewis and most definitely not the kind of thing Ayrton Senna would have done. Senna was a team-player through and through. Presumably when Lewis was in the ‘car in front’, he benefited from Mercedes’ rule in Bahrain and Spain. So really he needs to get over himself.

Lewis piling the pressure on Rosberg but he was unable to find a way past

The battle raged on for lap after lap and the outcome was by no means certain especially when we heard that Nico was having to save a lot of fuel. With just over ten laps to go, the cat and mouse race abruptly tailed off as Lewis Hamilton suddenly dropped back. Lewis told the team he had something in his eye affecting his visibility and he was trying to open his visor and clean it out at slow-speed corners. When Mercedes updated Lewis on the gap to Ricciardo in 3^rd place, Lewis retorted that he wanted information on the gap to Nico not Ricciardo.

Turned out that he had far more reason to worry about Daniel Ric who sensed a chance of second place and was driving like a man possessed! Monaco being Monaco, it was nigh on impossible for Ricciardo to overtake but for the first time this season we saw another team almost matching Mercedes wheel for wheel in a race. What an impressive season Daniel Ricciardo is having! Totally outshining, out-qualifying and out-driving his teammate which is all the more mind-bogglingly brilliant as said teammate is the not-too-shabby Sebastian Vettel (of four back-to-back drivers’ titles fame). Vettel’s difficult and frustrating unfortunately season continued at Monaco when he was forced to retire on lap 8 after a string of techical problems.

The immensely likeable Daniel Ricciardo celebrating his first podium at Monaco

Fernando Alonso was the best of the rest in 4^th place with what Brundle rightly called an anonymous race. Kimi Raikkonen had a phenomenal start to move into 3^rd place only for his race to disintegrate when he suffered a puncture just after pitting under the safety car. Desperately bad luck and you sensed his frustration when he attempted a dubious move on Kevin Magussen that ended up terminating his race.

Nico Hulkenberg was an impressive 5^th, Button 6^th, Massa 7^th and Grosjean 8^th (a quite remarkable achievement in the twitchy Lotus). The second biggest talking point though of the day was the tremendous result for Marussia with Jules Bianchi finishing in 9^th place. You wait 83 races for a single point and then two come along together. In the best place to celebrate on earth! Bianchi actually crossed over the line in 8^th place but was awarded a 5 second penalty which dropped him down a place. It is a result which could be worth over £20m to the team when prize money is divvied up at the end of the season. On a day where #magicofmonaco was trending, it was wonderful to have a feelgood, heartwarming story in the paddock. And with so much talk of rivalries and the dog-eat-dog world of F1, it was lovely to see a congratulatory tweet from Fernando Alonso to Jules Bianchi on his fantastic result.

Jubilant scenes at Marussia as they celebrate their first points finish in Formula 1

Oddly, as a massive Benedict Cumberbatch fan, I felt slightly disappointed that he was on interview duty. This was really a race that deserved the incisive questioning of Martin Brundle or even some off-the-wall “Lewis, how gutted are you to come second?” lunatic prattle from Eddie Jordan. But then like gridwalks, Monaco doesn’t really do podiums. Lewis scuttled off presumably to lock himself into a darkened room even while Brundle was still interviewing Daniel Ricciardo. Ideally I think drivers should give other drivers on the podium the small courtesy of waiting until they have been interviewed.

Lovely Benedict manning up though a UN peace-keeping envoy might be advisable for the next race

I think many expected the rivalry at Mercedes to intensify during the season but no one expected relations to implode so spectacularly as they have done. Even Prost and Senna didn’t declare war on each other after only 6 races of a season. After the race Lewis made clear his feelings on Nico Rosberg to the assembled media “We are not friends, we are colleagues”.

Rosberg’s view – "We've always been friends, we always will be friends but friends is a big word. What exactly is friends? We have a good relationship and work well together."

Nico and Lewis - the early years

It was glaringly obvious after the race that the two Mercedes drivers did not shake hands or even acknowledge each other. It is hard to see a way back from this for Hamilton and Rosberg. The boyhood friendship which dated back to when they were 13 is well and truly over. The accusations have already got too personal and this weekend we have witnessed a seismic shift in their relationship. The huge challenge now for the Mercedes Team is how to best harness the considerable talents of two drivers at war in a title-winning car without jeopardising the team as a whole. We may well still see one of the drivers take a ‘page out of Senna’s book’ before the end of the season.

Next up it is the fantabulous Canadian Grand Prix which usually is a cracker. For the statistically minded it is where Lewis Hamilton won his first race and he has triumphed there 3 times in total. Does that give him a slight psychological edge?

To be continued…

Who do you think you are...Stirling Moss?

Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel...a three horse race?

I haven't suddenly catapaulted myself back into the 1950s though the husband does probably dream of another life where the "hi honey, I'm home" is greeted with a gin & tonic, a pristine house and the kids fast asleep in bed. The reality most days is overtired kids in meltdown, a dining room that looks like the scene at the end of that Travis video and a wife who is On The Edge.

But when thinking about who have been the stand out drivers so far this season, it occurred to me that each generation instinctively adds a different name to the end of the rhetorical phrase “who do you think you are...” when talking about someone speeding or driving like a lunatic on a motorway. I think Sir Stirling Moss was the first racing driver whose name became synonymous with fast driving and so "who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?" was supposedly the standard question all British policemen asked speeding motorists. Well allegedly. And come to think of it, I was still hearing this phrase being bandied around even when I was young which is obviously going back a bit but still was many, many years after Moss had stopped racing!

Then at some stage, this saying morphed into "who do you think you are...Nigel Mansell?". The Mighty Moustache was hugely adored by the man (or the odd woman) on the street and I think he was the first to oust Stirling Moss in this everyday kind of banter. I suppose in between there was James Hunt who every man wished that he could be but because most mere mortals were so far removed from the insanely cool and glamorous world of James Hunt, I guess it didn’t really take off.

The best “who do you think you are” story that I have ever heard involved Ayrton Senna. During one British Grand Prix weekend, Senna was running late for free practice. He was pulled over by a police officer for speeding and the officer came to the window (presumably looking Ayrton Senna right in the eye!) and the conversation (apparently) went a bit like this:

Plod:    “Who do you think you are, Nigel Mansell?”

Senna: “Actually no, I’m Ayrton Senna.” Doh.

I think during the 1990s, all the intense Damon love meant that Damon Hill became the next driver to be name-checked for a while. Now I suspect it might be Lewis Hamilton (more so than Jenson Button). Lewis definitely seems more of a speed adrenalin junkie than Jenson which brings me onto my main point. We are now one-third of the way through the season. One of the most tantalising aspects of the 2012 season (as trumpeted over and over again by Sky) was the fact that a record SIX current or former F1 World Champions would be racing alongside each other. Seven races in seems as arbitrary a point as any to rank them on their performances so far.

So who is top of the class with hundreds of smiley faces and who is sobbing in the corner with a pointy dunce hat on? In order of brilliance (descending into mediocre then utterly crud), we have as follows:

1.     Fernando Alonso

He is only 2 points behind the leader (Lewis Hamilton) in a car that is basically a bit rubbish. Those in the know were saying early on in the season this was the worst car Ferrari had produced in 20 years (no mean feat given the diabonical effort that was the 1996 Ferrari). David Coulthard, not someone prone to hyperbole, said in Australia that there was something “fundamentally wrong” with that car. But still Alonso has been stunningly consistent all season picking up points in every single race. This has been one of the craziest, most unpredictable seasons (7 different winners etc) but Alonso seems to cope brilliantly with all tracks, all conditions and whatever chaos is unfolding around him.

2.     Lewis Hamilton

Currently leading the World Championship with a win (in Canada) finally under this belt and like Alonso has been superbly consistent (finished in the points in every race) and so it was very tough choosing between him and Fernando. But given where we are so far and the fact that Lewis has a much superior car (taking nothing away from his racing), Alonso just pips Lewis.

3.     Sebastian Vettel

Lying in 3^rd place in the Drivers Championship. Aside from one aberration in Malaysia (involving an HRT – what else?) he has finished in the points every race (it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that consistency is the key this season…so far). Somehow Vettel hasn’t impressed me quite as much as in previous seasons. A lingering suspicion remains that he is most comfortable and in the zone when leading from the front in The Best Car.

4.     Kimi Raikkonen

No one knew what to expect when Kimi returned. Least of all, I suspect, Kimi himself. He currently has the 4^th most points of all the former World Champions so in a way the stats don’t lie. Not many people would have bet money on Kimi in a Lotus having been on the podium twice already. The last couple of races have been a bit stuttery and (whisper it quietly) Romain Grosjean is giving his more illustrious (if slightly barking mad) team-mate a good old run for his money.

5.     Jenson Button

As with 1 and 2, it was pretty tough ranking 5 and 6 but on the strength of Jenson’s race win a long, long time ago in Australia and another podium in China, he just squeaked into 5^th place. But his last few races have been abysmal (2 points in the last 4 races) and by his own admission he was “lost and confused” after the Canadian GP. A truly great driver will find a way to make the car work for them and while Button is very good, I don’t think he is quite as naturally talented as Fernando or Lewis. Sorry Jenson.

6.     Michael Schumacher

Oh Michael, where did it all go wrong? As much as it pains me (though it would delight many others) to rank the Great Michael Schumacher last, we cannot escape the facts. Seven races. Five retirements. Two 10^th places. Just two paltry pathetic points. Even Jean-Eric Vergne has more than that. It has been a truly terrible season. Aside from his magnificent pole position in Monaco (and even that was hit with a 5 place grid penalty), Michael’s season has lurched from one disaster to another. One massive point in Michael’s defence is that he has been struck with a hideous catalogue of reliability problems (gearbox failure, loose wheel, falling fuel pressure and a jammed DRS flap). I suppose it can only get better. Surely?

The great thing about nailing my colours to the mast so early on is everyone (ie. the husband) can snigger away when Jenson Button wins 4 races on the trot… Still there’s a whopping 13 races to go. Anything can happen!

Senna - My top 5 races

It was 18 years ago today that the world lost Ayrton Senna. He was one of the most naturally gifted racing drivers in the history of motorsport and is right near the top (in many people’s opinion, he is at the very top) of the illustrious pantheon of F1 greats. Above everything else, Senna was a racer.

"Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else."

So I decided to give myself the near impossible task of coming up with my top 5 Senna F1 races. Trawling through the annals of my F1 memories (which do get progressively more hazy with time), my initial short-list comprised 12 races with at least four being in Monaco (to be fair, he did win it 6 times!). After a lot of thought and deliberation and afternoon coffee, I have finally settled upon my Top Five. So here goes…in the following order.

1.      European GP (1993)

At the very top of the pile, it has to be Donington in 1993.

Donington Park was hosting its first Grand Prix in 55 years. Even before the race it had been raining very heavily. Way back in 1993 when the Williams marque reigned supreme, their two drivers, Alain Prost and Damon Hill, were dominating the field. Their state of the art cars had traction control, active suspension and a phenomenal Renault engine.  Michael Schumacher had qualified third in the up and coming Benetton and we all know now what he can do in the rain. Senna qualified 4^th on the grid in a struggling McLaren underpowered by a Ford Cosworth.

After a bit of a tussle at the start between Schumacher and Senna, Karl Wendlinger (remember him?) sneaked past into 3^rd and Senna was down into 5^th place.

But that was all before The Greatest First Lap Ever in F1 history.

Ayrton Senna showed his unbelievable car control and bravery to overtake four cars (three of which driven by future world champions) in the space of A Single Lap to lead the European GP.

Senna eventually won the race in appalling and constantly changing weather conditions. He finished 1:23.199 ahead of Damon Hill who was in 2^nd place (which in Formula 1 terms is akin to around 6 or 7 hours) and had lapped everyone else, including his ultimate arch-nemesis, Alain Prost! His sublime driving skill and prowess in the rain meant he led 71 of the 76 laps on that day.

2.     Portugal GP (1985)

This was Senna’s first race win and one which set a ridiculously high benchmark for the rest. He had qualified his Lotus on pole for the very first time, with Prost and De Angelis right behind him. In atrocious wet weather conditions and in a car with no traction control and a manual gearbox, he opened up a commanding lead. As Senna drove imperiously around Estoril in the most treacherous of conditions, there was utter carnage on the track behind him. Among the many who crashed out were Rosberg the Elder, Lauda and Prost. There is no way F1 cars would be allowed to race in such conditions today. And in a way that is a big shame.

Senna would win by over a minute from the second placed Alboreto in the Ferrari and lapped every single other driver (up to and including Tambay in 3^rd place). In fact he was so dominant that day that he recorded his first grand slam as well – he won from pole, led every lap, and set the fastest lap of the race. What a way to open your race-winning account.

3.     Monaco GP (1984)

Apologies, another appallingly wet race (but they’re always the fun ones!). Senna in a totally rubbish Toleman, in his first season in F1, managed to qualify 13^th on the grid.  Basically at Monaco, where you qualify is where you usually finish, barring multiple pile-ups at the Loews hairpin (just checked out race weekend packages to stay in the hotel that’s right there and they are a mere snip at €4,850) or indeed a bucketload of rain. Guess what happened next?

By lap 19, Senna was in 2^nd place and hunting down Prost like a man possessed. On lap 32, Prost slowed as he approached the start/finish line and Senna went past him. But moments later the race was red-flagged so the track positions as at the end of the previous lap were taken. When Alain Prost was still leading the Grand Prix. The race was ostensibly stopped due to ‘safety concerns’ (like anyone gave a flying toss about that back in the 80s) and the cynical among us might think that The Powerful and Mighty of F1 (some of whom were French) wanted Prost, a Frenchman, to have the race win. It sounds like a dumb cliché but Senna was the real winner that day. This race marked the arrival of a genius on the grand stage of Formula 1.

4.     Brazilian GP (1991)

Unbelievably by 1991, with two world championships under his belt, Senna had never won his home Grand Prix. It cannot be overstated just how adored Senna was in his native country. He was a global icon, a national hero and their greatest ambassador all rolled into one.

It all should have been so easy. Senna started from pole and was comfortably leading for most of the race. Until disaster struck. On lap 60, in the rain (always, the rain), Senna’s car broke. It jammed into 6^th gear. No other gear was available, just 6^th gear. This would make most F1 cars totally undriveable unless they were being driven by Ayrton Senna. Senna pushed himself through and beyond any physical limits known to man to keep his car on course. This was the victory he had dreamt of for years and wanted more than any other. He sealed the win and was so physically and emotionally overcome, he could barely stand or lift the trophy on the podium.

5.     Monaco GP (1992)

This was the Year of Our Nige. He had blown away the rest of field and had won the first five races by a country mile. Next up was Monaco and in the childhood ranch, there was great excitement that Mansell was going to win in Monaco for the very first time. Okay Senna was pretty good in Monaco (ie. he had won it every year bar one since 1987) but this year he was in a unreliable and fairly dismal McLaren. And our Nige had plonked his Williams on pole. What could possibly go wrong?

Mansell zoomed off into the lead and it looked like Senna had settled for 2^nd place until on lap 68, Mansell made an unexpected pitstop. Senna moved into the lead and then as Mansell caught him, there was an almighty battle between the two as Mansell tried literally everything to get past the McLaren. Their duel on the narrow, twisting streets of Monaco was utterly thrilling and compelling but, in the end, Senna of course triumphed with Mansell finishing 0.2 seconds behind him.

That's not a bad top five but I'm sure (in fact I know!) that I have missed off some sensational races. There were so many brilliant, sublime drives by Senna. So thank you, Ayrton.

Ayrton Senna

Any motor-racing fan of a certain age can tell you where they were on 1 May 1994. I was home from university and was watching the San Marino Grand Prix with my parents (yes, the petrolhead gene is inherited). Leading the race, Senna lost control of his Williams car at the Tamburello curve on lap 7 and struck an unprotected concrete barrier. It was to be a fatal accident robbing Formula 1 of its most naturally talented and arguably greatest ever driver.

Ayrton Senna was 34.

Once upon a time, racing drivers used to die young. Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt, Ronnie Peterson, Gilles Villeneuve to name but a few. Before the San Marino Grand Prix, there had been no fatal accidents during an F1 race meeting in 12 years. That weekend there were two fatalities. Roland Ratzenberger was killed during qualifying the day before the race. As officials examined the wreckage of Senna’s car the following day, they found a furled Austrian flag which, had he won, Senna would have raised in honour of Ratzenberger.

I grew up in a house where Nigel Mansell was king. Mansell was the kind of man that all men loved. The moustache, the flat cap, the innate Englishness, the eternal underdog who drove every race like his life depended on it. What was there not to love…if you were a man. I suppose women had James Hunt in the 70s but there were definitely slimmer pickings in the 80s. Prost and Mansell, I ask you?! Anyway this Mansell adoration meant that Senna was The Enemy. I was never quite sure why but his endless pole positions and utterly dominant drives were not well received back at the childhood ranch. I really wanted to like Senna but it was not allowed. Child, thou shalt worship at the altar of The Moustache and no other. I checked with the husband and at his slightly more exotic ranch (in the land of the Springbok), Mansell was apparently also The Man.

Now get don’t me wrong, I think Nigel Mansell was an immense driver and I have the rain sodden programme from a British Touring Cars race at Brand Hatch to prove it (in the name of ‘quality father/daughter time’ – lucky I liked cars hey). However, try as one may, it is hard to imagine a feature-length documentary being made about our Nige. However, the enigmatic and iconic Ayrton Senna is an altogether different proposition. After seeing all the accolades and plaudits that Asif Kapadia’s documentary on Senna received (and totally failing to get babysitter organised in time to see it on the big-screen) the Senna DVD got added to the husband’s Christmas list. I will admit that it was an entirely tactical move to ensure that the DVD did end up in our house (the husband has a slight tendency to go ‘off piste’ and panic-buy me girly stuff he spots other men buying like Mamma Mia DVDs – also still unwatched!). Anyway a mere 3 months after Christmas (and hey this is good going for us – we still have most of the West Wing boxset bought for Christmas 2008 to wade through) we finally sat down and watched Senna last weekend.

And so this brings me to the point of my blog – aside from getting withdrawal symptoms not to mention the fear of losing my one guaranteed reader (the husband – he promised to post a comment on my last blog….did he heck!), I felt so sufficiently moved by watching Senna that I wanted to put pen to paper (finger to keyboard doesn’t sound so literary does it). Obviously the internet is awash with far superior film reviews so best checking out those if you’re expecting a Barry Norman-esque exposition.

In my extremely humble opinion, the film is one of the great sporting documentaries of all time. A measure of its success is that many people I know who have little or zero interest in motor-racing have absolutely loved it. Kapadia’s masterstroke is realising that to best tell the story of Ayrton Senna’s extraordinary and dramatic life, all you actually need is Ayrton Senna. The film is entirely constructed from historical footage and is totally uncluttered by talking heads (the cardinal sin of so many documentaries).

The start of the film propels us back to the early 80s when rightly or wrongly Formula 1 was more real and more dangerous. Like all forms of sport in the last 30 years, it has become sanitised and commercialised to within an inch of its life. You didn’t have to be Lenny Kravitz or Owen Wilson back in the old days to mingle with the drivers, just a fair dinkum fan. Men drove cars not the other way round. Men were like James Hunt. Ah well you get the drift! Still what hasn’t changed are the political machinations that were just as prevalent in the 1980s as now. Jean-Marie Balestre in his Bond Villain glasses is truly Machiavellian and sinister. Some of the most fascinating footage is from the pre-race driver briefings where drivers such as Senna and Berger had fierce showdowns with Balestre. Its safe to say Monsieur Balestre wouldn’t have made too many Christmas card lists. What a pompous douchebag he was!

You quickly realise even when watching the very young Senna that you are watching someone rapidly ascending to greatness. One of the unexpected treats of the film is hearing James Hunt’s wonderfully evocative laconic commentary – “we are watching the arrival of Ayrton Senna” – while Senna was driving spectacularly at Monaco (to finish 2^nd behind Prost) in his first F1 season in a fairly rubbish Toleman car. A film about Lauda and James Hunt is currently in production (with the very respected Ron Howard as director)…suffice to say I’m monitoring the release date obsessively!

The main centre-piece of this film was Senna’s rivalry with Alain Prost. Like all great sporting rivalries, they were the absolute antithesis of each other. The calculating, controlled Frenchman who they named the ‘Professor’ versus the reckless, quixotic and emotional Brazilian. It is incredible to think that they drove for the same team even for 2 years and indeed that Ron Dennis lived to tell the tale. What really struck me watching the film was how eerily insightful Prost was (well before Imola) about facets of Senna’s personality that may have led to his untimely demise.

“Ayrton has a small problem. He thinks he can’t kill himself because he believes in God. And I think that’s very dangerous.” (Prost)

There was an intensely spiritual dimension to Senna as a person and as a driver. He felt at times that he reached a transcendental state on the racetrack, perhaps best epitomised by his victory in the 1991 Brazilian GP. He finally won his home GP in excruciating pain after his car was stuck in 6^th gear for the last few laps. He said afterwards that God had given him the race.

There did seem a terrible Icarian inevitability that Senna’s reckless, on-the-edge driving would only end one way. Looking back on it, the whole race weekend at San Marino in 1994 was a Greek tragedy from start to finish. In practice on the Friday, Barrichello had a spectacular crash, the following day Ratzenberger was killed in qualifying and at the start of the race, several spectators were injured after debris flew into the crowd after a massive pile-up at the start. A more spiritual person might have felt the race was jinxed, as if someone was telling them not to race. Did Senna think this? That weekend, he seemed extremely agitated and full of foreboding. After warm-up, Senna saw Prost in the Williams motorhome and sat down to speak with him (much to the surprise of Prost). Afterwards when recording a lap for TF1 (who Prost was then working for), Senna sent a message to Prost:

“I would like to say welcome to my old friend, Alain Prost. Tell him we miss him very much.”

Was Senna, full of premonition, making his peace with his great rival? Poor old Alain does get a pasting in this film (even down to the utterly cringe-worthy Selina Scott interview!) and so it was almost a shock to see at the end of the film that Prost is a trust of the charitable Senna Foundation. As with great rivalries, Senna was not all right and Prost was not all wrong but the film would at times have you believe otherwise. If you want more balanced, factual accounts of who crashed into who and who did what and who was to blame (answer: both Senna and Prost on different occasions!), then Sky has a continual loop of season reviews on the Petrolhead Channel (408) to peruse.

What this film does is to tell the story of Senna from Ayrton Senna’s point of view. It shines a spotlight onto his complex personality – the boyish innocence, the reckless edge, the obsession with winning, his intense patriotism, his humility and compassion for others are all laid bare in the film. Perhaps most of all, the film showed how much Senna was defined by his strong religious faith. The epitaph on his tombstone simply reads “Nothing can separate me from God”.

Since 1994, no driver has died in F1. Perhaps Ayrton Senna is up there praying for them all.