Canadian GP - The Race

Guess who?

#MartinsGridWalk

As good a place as any to start. The one downside about having an evening race is that the build-up is slap bang in the middle of the Witching Hour when the kids are totally feral and the two year old has passed the Point of No Return. But the build-up will be sifted through at a later date for any glorious nuggets. The only bit I spotted from a distance was an interview with Christian Horner. Definitely, definitely not in the golden nugget category.

So over to Martin Brundle. Canada is an old school, super narrow grid. I love the way he sets the scene and gives the viewers at home a flavour of the atmosphere at each track. Whatever Sky pay him it probably isn't enough!

Jean-Eric Vergne wasn’t talking today. So Martin interviewed Michael Fassbender which was a far better outcome all round. Michael F is a fan of Vettel but thought Lewis was one to watch with his excellent record at Montreal. Anyone who says ‘this is the only sport’ is a supremely worthy Random Celebrity at a Race.

Michael Fassbender. We like.

Attempt two to speak to a driver in the unpredictable form of Adrian Sutil. He too was looking forward to the race and in clear conditions (we know…boo). Next up Nico Hulkenberg who was starting in P9 ahead of some ‘fast packages’. The Hulk also was looking forward to the race. No really? I would love a driver to say ‘you know what, I really hate driving here’. Is there any point interviewing drivers who are (understandably) going to chuck out a few soundbites just to get rid of Martin, Tanja & co before they focus on the important matter at hand of racing very fast for two hours.

Bernie was chatting to the Crown Prince of Bahrain. No doubt finessing the details (how many 0000s do you want, Mr Ecclestone?) of the appalling decision to make the Bahrain GP the first race of the 2014 season. The usual interview with Mark Webber mainly about the Isle of Man TT as it turned out. Focus Mark focus. Martin then asked Jackie Stewart if he thought his man could come through. Who is his man?! I was a tad confused given the many several thousand regenerations of Stewart GP and JYS's propensity to support Scottish drivers. Apparently it was Raikkonen. Fair do's.

JYS back in the Lotus days

Martin had a quick chat with Bottas’ engineer who is the purest example of a petrolhead (basically heavy metal cool-hand-luke rocker in overalls) you could ever imagine. Seems mildly affronted when Martin asked about there being a lot of pressure being up near the front. Martin said he meant for Bottas! Cool Hand Luke was having none of it. As they say that didn’t go very well.

I don’t normally comment on national anthems but its not every day you see a grand piano out on track. A bit surreal. Still beats the ear-drum shattering operatic murdering of a national anthem that you get at most tracks. I might start a campaign for Daft Punk to do the anthem at the British Grand Prix. Surely Bernie can make this happen – he can just buy Daft Punk or their record label. But no, we'll probably have Katherine Jenkins assaulting our senses and ears instead.

Campaign starts here for Daft Punk to do the anthem

Five red lights and its Go Go Go! Great start by Vettel but Poor Bottas (as he shall henceforth be known) dropped a couple of places almost instantly as Rosberg and Webber put the frighteners on him knowing he would definitely yield to avoid crashing out. Next in the queue to leapfrog Poor Bottas was Alonso. And all this before DRS was even enabled. Valtteri, welcome to Nico Rosberg’s world where qualifying is as good as it gets (Monaco aside!).

Lap 3 and Vettel already had a 3 second lead. Portents of doom all round.

Time for a barrage of replays of the start from a billion different cockpits and meanwhile Massa was moving up through the field from the back and Grosjean was spectacularly failing to do the same. From nowhere Sutil executed a perfect 180% spin and incredibly he didn’t take anyone out and no one hit him. And then we had a coming together between Maldonado and Di Resta. Bad Driver Maldonado was in the house. Hope Claire Williams was mainlining gin – this race wasn’t going according to the script for Williams. Again.

Claire Williams - will she be able to turn things around? I really hope so.

Kimi and Ricciardo were madly scrapping for 8^th. And then we heard that Kimi had a problem with his car which might be the same problem he had in China or the same problem he had in the previous race. Oh great. And Massa was now into the top ten. Go Felipe baby.

There was a frission of Huge Excitement as Vettel grazed the concrete wall. But alas in that teflon way he has, he was able to continue unscathed. Kimi finally got past Ricciardo and with Massa bearing hard down on him, the Toro Rosso did the sensible thing and pitted. Now Alonso was hunting down Webber and I’m sure Webber was going to strain every sinew in his body to ride shot-gun for his team-mate? Oh yeah that’s right. They hate each other.

On lap 14, the first round of pitstops all started with Webber, Perez, Rosberg and Poor Bottas (and in the case of Bottas simply just to stop being overtaken for 10 seconds!). Lewis Hamilton meanwhile was still out and was told to PUSH. This was, as the commentators advised in serious tones, A Critical Phase of the Race. Into the pits came our race leader, Vettel followed by Alonso. And Hamilton was STILL out burning rubber as if his life depended on it.

Hamilton - right strategy. Wrong car.

Poor Bottas was told to make his tyres last for 25 laps. Good luck with that. Poor old sod, he was slow enough already without being told to preserve his tyres. Finally Lewis pitted on lap 19 for a set of mediums and where did he emerge? Back out in second place some 10 seconds behind Vettel. I might have been getting the teensiest bit bored now and thank god at least for Felipe Massa who was scything through the field in the manner of Ayrton Senna. What they really should have done was to put a red button cam on Massa just so we could follow his race.

Kimi was well off the pace. Boo schmoo. He was told to do what he could to save fuel without losing performance. Like that’s an easy give. He pitted on lap 23 and there was a problem with the right rear. This race was proving to be a total freaking disaster for Kimi and manna from heaven for Vettel.

Coming soon. A Lotus Pitstop Disastometer.

Massa and Sutil were having the most amazing duel out there and Sutil was driving amazingly well to keep the much faster Ferrari behind him. Poor old Jenson Button (remember him?) was going very slowly. I mean more slowly than the admittedly clapped out tractor standards of the MP4-28. To put things into context, he was passed by Poor Bottas, a move which must have surprised them both.

Vettel Borefest Update: Seb was continuing to set a string of fastest laps.

There was an intriguing battle for 3^rd developing between Rosberg, Webber and Alonso. On Lap 31, Webber got past Rosberg with Alonso hot on his heels. Missing Monaco already, Nico? Most depressingly, Kimi was scrapping for 12^th with Poor Bottas. This was not what either of them wanted or hoped for. Still could be worse. They could have been Jenson Button.

And at the halfway point the top order was: 1. Vettel 2. Hamilton. 3. Webber 4. Alonso and 5. Rosberg.

I then [fast-forwarded] [drifted off] [watched paint dry] for a few laps until…we had an Incident. Joy of Joys! Van Der Garde shoved his car into Mark Webber just after being lapped trashing poor old Mark’s front wing into the process. This kind of thing never ever ever happens to Seb (remembers bitterly his mahoosive spin in Interlagos where he miraculously still went on to win the title). So onto the naughty step went Van Der Garde who got a 10 second stop/go penalty.

The official FIA symbol for the naughty step*
*this might not be true

The battle for 3^rd place was still raging on between Webber and Alonso. Finally on lap 42, Alonso passed Webber. Now if some freak thunderbolt (you used to be able to rely on Canada!) could only hit Vettel’s car it would be Game On in the championship. But no such freaking luck.

Grosjean pitted on lap 44 leaving Di Resta as the only non-stopper out on track. <Grits teeth> This was a very good drive by Paul. See there I did it!

Vettel Borefest Update: Seb was continuing to set a string of fastest laps while simultaneously reading the collected works of Nietzsche in the cockpit.

Every car should own one.

Overheard on the radio to Perez ‘Jenson is the car behind and we are racing Jenson’. Fasten your seatbelts dudes and dudettes, battle was commencing. Although in all fairness it was only between two McLarens. Hardly Senna and Prost territory. Poor Bottas was now 15^th – how utterly tragic for him and Williams. We then had the familiar sight of Van Der Garde with a damaged car limping around the track. And we had our first retirement of the race…on lap 48 which really said everything.

Vettel Borefest Update: He pitted again, enjoying a nice hog-roast before returning to lead the race.

What cars? I can't see any cars!

Lap 52 and Paul Di Resta STILL HADN’T PITTED. I bet the beleaguered Pirelli boss is loving this. You dissin’ my tyres? Are you? Are you? In my mind he has morphed a bit into Tony Soprano.

Paul Hembery - the head honcho at Pirelli having a good day at the office for once!

Vettel Borefest Update: He started doing some wild driving with jazz hands to make Christian Horner all panicked. Just for a laugh. Actually the wild driving really did happen.

Alonso was now doing fastest laps and the gap to Hamilton was down to 1.6 seconds with 14 laps to go. Its been said a million times but Alonso is a bloody phenomenal racing driver and the last driver on earth (Lewis pretty much said the same post-race) you would want breathing down your exhaust.

Paul Di Resta - the greatest advert for Pirelli!

And Di Resta finally pitted on lap 58. Wowsers.

Lewis’s engineers radioed him with some technical info (metrics blah something or other) to which Lewis said ‘just let me drive’. To be fair who needs to hear lots of boring data during a race that is boring enough already and you’ve got Fernando Alonso swarming all over the back of you. With eight laps to go, Lewis and Alonso almost touched wheels as Alonso put a sensational move to take 2^nd place.

Alonso closing in on Hamilton.

Next on the naughty step was Sutil who got a drive through for ignoring blue flags. Gutierrez also went out. There are no further details. On the final lap, Massa squeezed past Raikkonen to snatch 8^th place.

Really is that how you say 36 points in Latvian?

Vettel Borefest Update: He was amusing himself in the cockpit by trying out ‘36 point lead’ in a number of languages as he cruised to the finish line. Finally he won the Canadian Grand Prix by a crushing 15 seconds. Well that was a whole load of fun.

Here are the results from the Canadian Grand Prix 2013:

1. Vettel – Led from start to finish. I don’t know how that sentence could be any more harrowing. But a superb drive and he handled the moronic and unwarranted booing with great dignity on the podium.


2. Alonso – A superlative drive. Will those 18 points be pivotal? Lets bloody hope so.


3. Hamilton – Another fine podium for Hamilton and the Silver Arrows.


4. Webber – Not bad. Not amazingly good either.


5. Rosberg – Two Mercedes in the top six. Who’dya thunk it. Certainly not Michael Schumacher this time last year. Life is cruel.


6. Vergne – A fabulous result! Clearly the key is not speaking to Martin Brundle and staying focused. Only joking Martin.

Well that was a real blandathon of a race especially after talking up the unpredictable brilliance of Canada in hysterical fashion. Admittedly there were some stand-out drives – in addition to the above, Di Resta and Massa had superb races to finish 7^th and 8^th. See I did it again!

Next up the British Grand Prix!

And so onto the annual mudbath of the BRITISH GRAND PRIX. Fittingly, the first F1 race in our new house and miracle of miracles, we haven’t managed to double or triple book something for the same weekend unlike the past 75 British Grand Prix races. After a textbook Monaco race (ie. processional with a random bit of madness) and a lacklustre race in Canada, lets hope Silverstone rocks everyone’s world.

Spanish GP - Qualifying

Casa Batllo
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Barcelona…dum di dum di dum di dum…Barcelona!! Was that not the best Olympics song ever?! Mind you I am slightly struggling to think of any other Olympics song. What musical paean will be unveiled for London 2012? Well it seems like there is a whole myriad of songs being recorded for the Olympics. Apparently McFly have penned the official song for the mascots. WTF…even the mascots have a song?! Tinchy Stryder and Dionne Bromfield are doing the ‘Torch Relay’ song and Elbow have written the BBC’s official Olympic theme (nice upbeat choice there from the Beeb). Underworld have been appointed as the musical directors for the opening ceremony with Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Shallow Grave etc) as artistic director. An interesting collaboration if truth be told – all I can visualise are lots of drug addicts and zombies leaping around whilst shouting lager, lager, lager (insert typical Saturday night out in [city of choice] here). And throw Boris Johnson (even literally, perhaps out of a cannonball a la Russell Grant on Strictly) into proceedings and blockbuster ratings would guaranteed.

Apologies, a huge digression (and possible descent into madness) already… I’ve had a small operation this week and been living on a cocktail of painkillers since Wednesday. When the 4 year old says, “Mummy please wear a hat to school” (presumably to avoid scaring small children) you know its not your finest hour.

Anyhow, lets put the flags out, crack open the bolly as the F1 roadshow has arrived in Europe! First stop, Espana. It must really be the start of summer and as if by magic (given the biblical rain of the last few weeks), the sun is finally shining even in England. Stone the flaming crows.

As we settled down to watch the qualifying coverage slightly delayed (as ever we are slaves to the 4 year old’s far superior social life), a unilateral decision was made by myself to pick the Beeb’s coverage. I felt it would be beyond me to wade through the interminable and we-take-ourselves-very-seriously offering from Sky Towers. My fuzzy and slightly numb head was only really equipped to cope with the zany stream-of-consciousness witterings of Eddie Jordan…just.

We opened with a slightly curious montage, which reminded us that Spain used to have a nasty military dictator and people used to say “Europe stopped at the Pyrenees”. But happily those dark days have now gone. Seeing as Franco died in 1975 (the year of my birth so depressingly quite a long time ago), I’m not entirely sure why this seemed relevant and worthy of bringing up. Seems a bit harsh on poor old Spain to rake all that up when Bahrain is currently doing quite a nice line in dictatorships and everyone went into full ostrich ‘we’re just here for the racing’ mode a few weeks back.

Spain is really feeling the love for F1 these days (after many years of not giving an xxxx for the sport). Nothing like having your own double world champion to increase the fanbase hey. There are prawn (or whatever the Spanish for prawn is) sandwiches the world over. Bless Roy Keane for thinking a prawn sandwich was the pinnacle of haute cuisine (I’ll surely get a bonus point from the husband for name-checking Roy Keane).

Jake and DC chatted away about how Fernando Alonso is now on Twitter and how he’s been full of brilliant insights. I recently discovered Alonso on Twitter myself and he seems like a top guy – very funny and very passionate about racing. He has definitely moved onto the List of Drivers that I Didn’t Like But Now Really Like – I’m a sucker for someone driving a rubbish Ferrari really brilliantly (see M Schumacher, 1996). Jake seems to be on a mission to get Eddie Jordan onto Twitter. This absolutely must happen. I might start a petition!

Like raw eggs (apparently)

They all then chewed the cud for a bit about tyres and Schumacher’s recent criticism of them. Basically the Pirellis have been deliberately designed to degrade super-fast to prevent drivers going flat-out and thereby to make racing much closer. Schumacher isn’t the kind of guy who wants to cruise around as if behind a safety car. He simply wants to race flat-out and drive to the optimum (a classic Schuey word) of his ability and the car’s ability. All seems fairly reasonable to me. But according to EJ, Schuey is totally “out of order” for taking this stance. It is the same for everyone blah blah and it just means we have a different kind of racing. What is more important than anything else, so EJ told us (in almost hysterical tones) was “The Show” and so Schumacher was utterly villainous (sub-text – not for the first time) for wanting to deprive us of that.

Well here’s my ha’penneth. Tyres have always degraded the more a driver has pushed. But these Pirelli tyres have placed an artificial limit on how hard the drivers can push – the Pirelli’s performance levels are falling off a cliff before 10 laps have been completed which is ridiculous. The focus has moved away from pure driver skill to a bunch of geeks on the pitlane wall frantically figuring out how to win the race. Do you want to see a race run by someone driving on the ragged limit or by someone ‘cleverly’ conserving his way to the finish line. Basically, are you Senna or are you Prost? Sometimes you might get a dull race with a supremely dominant drive but it would at least be ‘real’. The irony is that the cars genuinely appear to be very closely matched this year and aren’t we as fans losing out by not being able to see the Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, Mercedes, Williams etc racing FLAT-OUT against each other.

Right, I’m getting off my soap-box now and onto the all-important (or is it, see the Q3 debacle) business of qualifying…

Whizzing through Q1 – more or less all the usual suspects doing what they normally do in qualifying except for WILLIAMS who are looking frigging fast! The session ended with Maldonaldo in 5^th place and Senna in…er…18^th and out of Q2. Ok it was just Pastor’s Williams that looked fast. Bad day at the office for Bruno who in an attempt to force his way into Q2 totally over-drove and spun off into some gravel. The husband said that Patrick Head wouldn’t be happy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Patrick Head retired from Williams last year. Its hard for him to keep up sometimes now he is 40 (he’ll kill me for that). So the top six in Q1 was 1. Lewis, 2. Grosjean, 3. Alonso, 4. Rosberg, 5. Maldonaldo and 6. Kobayashi.

Onto Q2. Quite early on, Lewis set a cracking time, so much so that he got out of the car and disappeared off into the back of the garage somewhere. Under 2 minutes to go and both Ferraris were in the drop zone. I made a prediction here that one Ferrari would make it into Q3 and it wouldn’t be Massa. And you know what, I was right. But I didn’t expect that Massa would actually finish in 17^th place. Disgraceful. Somewhere in Maranello, a minion is clearing out Felipe’s locker and posting the contents back to Brazil. Really it would be better if Ferrari just had one driver than the unmitigated disaster that is Massa dragging the once proud (maybe still proud?) name of Ferrari through the mud. Literally. Just at the death, Schumacher hauled his car into 10^th place and the 4 year old rejoiced wildly. Vettel also squeaked into the top ten and shock of shocks, Button and Webber fell into the drop-zone and failed to make the top ten shoot-out. Jenson, where is it all going wrong? Actually we know its something to do with understeer as he has complained about it 20 thousand times so far this weekend on the radio. The fastest driver in Q2 incidentally was Maldonaldo. In a Williams. Good Lord.

So finally Q3 was underway. First out was Vettel who looked quite fast, then lost some time and just scooted off back to the pits without setting a lap-time. It is actually quite difficult to blog about Q3 as there were NO CARS out on the track most of the time. Hooray (eventually) for Lewis who decided to turn rogue and have the audacity to set a lap-time which resulted in him being in 1^st place out of a mighty total of 1 cars. Schuey had a little pootle out on the track but clearly thought to himself blow this popstand and also scuttled back to the pits.

Then incredibly, a SECOND car decided to do a flying lap. It was little Nico. Well done that man. It was England v Germany all over again…and...Lewis still stayed on provisional pole. So under two minutes to go and we had seen two flying laps. Pirelli, this is ALL your fault. Eventually most of the teams blinked and panicked and we had tons of cars all hurtling around at the last minute. Alonso went 1^st, Kimi went 2^nd, Perez went 3^rd, Grosjean went 2^nd, Maldonaldo went 1^st (say what!!!!), Hamilton went 1^st (again) and Vettel just couldn’t be bothered.

So the grid lines up tomorrow like this:

1. Hamilton, 2. Maldonaldo (a Williams is on the front row – the husband nearly fainted with joy), 3. Alonso (how on earth did he manage that?!), 4. Grosjean, 5. Kimi, 6. Perez, 7. Rosberg, 8. Vettel, 9. Schuey and 10. Kobayashi.

I’ll be keeping a careful eye on the cars in 8^th to 10^th at the start. That has First Lap Incident written all over it. Just time for a quick Christian Horner interview (does he actually spend any time in the Red Bull garage?) before the Beeb had to abruptly end its coverage to show Wigan Warriors v St Helens. Some rugby game or other. Whatever.

Lewis (not so smiley tonight)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

NEWSFLASH OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!!!! Just peeked onto BBC Sport (to check the names of those frigging rugby teams) only to discover Lewis Hamilton has been STRIPPED of his pole and will start from the BACK of the grid. Apparently the stewards rejected the McLaren argument of 'force majeure' that a team member had put an "unsufficient quantity of fuel into the car". The husband is currently opining away on the concept of force majeure and apparently the stewards are quite right. Whoever said that lawyers are heartless. POOR Lewis. I feel your pain.

Ok time to wrap up and have a fashion crisis (as off out later…). See you tomorrow or in a day or two later when I have recovered sufficiently from Lewis-gate and the events of the race to do my mighty race blog. Adios amigos.

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.