Ayrton Senna began his legendary career with the small Toleman outfit, but giant Lotus saw an opportunity.
We are approaching the shock milestone of thirty years since we lost the great and incomparable Ayrton Senna. FormulaNerds will pay tribute to the legend with a special series dedicated to the Brazilian’s glittering career to commemorate this momentous and tragic anniversary.
The legacy of Senna’s untimely departure still echoes in F1. The very design of the cars and their fundamental safety features bear the indelible imprint of the crash that claimed his life on May 1st, 1994.
To those new to the sport, the name “Ayrton Senna” will be nothing more than a footnote from history. He is so much more than that. Ayrton Senna is, without question, one of the most important and iconic drivers to have graced the F1 grid.
Cataloguing Senna’s illustrious career could easily fill several anthologies, such is the amount of stories available. Here, we highlight the important moments and races from his career.
Disappointing debut leads to memorable Monaco
Senna’s debut in F1 came in 1984 for the humble Toleman team. The Toleman team’s DNA still exists in F1 today, as the team morphed into Benetton and Renault, now running under the guise of Alpine.
When it made its debut in 1980, this team was a small operation, but it set the foundations for a massive impact on the sport. It not only gave Senna his F1 break in 1984 but also set off the careers of legendary Ferrari designer Rory Bryne and Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds.
Senna worked on the wording of own first F1 contract, in a similar way that Lewis Hamilton did with Mercedes today. Back in the 1980s, however, this was unheard of.
The main clause he desired was simple: As revealed in Senna vs Prost by Malcolm Folley, Senna wanted the ability to leave the team at a time of his choosing should an offer from a rival team appear. A deal thrashed out; a soon-to-be legend now graced the F1 grid.
Toleman failed to get the new TG184 ready in time for Senna’s debut in Brazil. Qualifying down in P17 in the 1983 car, his race ended after just eight laps with a failed turbo on his Hart engine. The first car to retire, this debut masked his true talent, which came shining through in the next few races.
Hard-earned P6 finishes in South Africa and Belgium attracted the attention of the grid. But Monaco undoubtedly catapulted Senna to the top of the leading team’s shopping list.
Qualifying a lowly 13th, it initially seemed Senna would have to endure a tough race in the principality. But the weather came to his aid. Sunday saw a drenched track and a delayed start.
Carving through the field, Senna mixed with Niki Lauda’s McLaren, passing the Austrian sensationally. But by now, the conditions had deteriorated dramatically. Leader Alain Prost waved frantically to get the race stopped, believing the track had become too dangerous.
The stewards stopped the race on lap 32, waving the red flag. Senna had passed Prost to take the lead before the cars crossed the start line. On paper, Senna was now a winner in only his fifth Grand Prix.
However, rules stipulated the race would be classified from the last complete lap. This put Senna back into a disappointing P2. A podium and the fastest lap were scant consolation on a day that belonged to the Brazilian.
Senna was livid at losing the race in such a controversial fashion. Sensing a political element to the decision to stop the race, he told Team Principal Alex Hawksridge, “Well, what do you expect? This is the establishment we are taking on”. The seeds of the toxic rivalry with Prost can be traced back to this moment.
Podiums and an acrimonious end with Toleman
Sadly, following his iconic Monaco performance, Senna returned to uncompetitive outings. Two consecutive retirements followed P7 in Canada in Detroit and Dallas.
A brilliant podium at Silverstone provided a brief reprieve from the misery, but he retired from the following three consecutive rounds. However, behind the scenes, the Brazilian worked on an escape plan from Toleman. His sights set on a top team, he secured his future by the Dutch Grand Prix.
The news that he had signed for Lotus for 1985 surprised the paddock and Toleman Team Principal Alex Hawkridge. Senna signed for Toleman on a three-year deal and served notice, having not completed a full season. Toleman responded to Senna’s resignation by suspending him for the next race in Monza.
Senna said the announcement of his imminent arrival at Lotus could have been handled better. Criticising Team Manager Peter Warr, the Brazilian’s emotional side showed:
“The whole thing at Zandvoort was disgusting. I was very annoyed with Peter Warr – no release, no news was supposed to go out at all. Before anything could be said, it was my duty and desire as a professional to inform Toleman that I was one hundred per cent leaving, plus where I was going.
It was a bad start to my relationship with Warr, but this is Formula One, and I have learned from it”.
Retiring on his return, Senna completed his first year at Toleman with an omen of what was to come. Qualifying the underperforming TG184 in third place, he converted this into P3 at the chequered flag. A statement of intent for his Lotus debut in 1985. 1985 proved to be Toleman’s last year in F1. The team struggled for reliability and consistency, withdrawing at the end of the year.
Driving prowess shines on Lotus debut
Senna demonstrated in his second race why Lotus quickly snapped him up to race in the iconic black-liveried cars. Qualifying almost half a second clear of Prost’s McLaren at the Portuguese Grand Prix, conditions rivalled the atrocious weather seen in Monaco.
Without the barriers of Monaco to restrain him, the Brazilian simply disappeared into the distance in the race, which resembled a monsoon hitting an ocean. Such was his prowess in the wet; Senna won by over a minute from Michele Alboreto’s Ferrari, the only other car on the same lap.
Sadly, reliability woes were never far away. In 1985, the Renault turbo engine suffered from appalling reliability. Senna retired from six of the 16 rounds that year, four of which were engine-related.
He won again in 1985, taking a dominant win in Belgium. He ended the year with two wins, four podium finishes, and seven pole positions. Senna matched his two-win record again in 1986. The Brazilian was rarely off the podium, visiting the rostrum six times. He became an outsider in a four-way title fight, an example of the turbo era at its finest.
He produced blinding drives, including a dramatic win of just 0.014s at the chequered flag from Nigel Mansell’s Williams Honda. Mansell would lose the 1986 title in spectacular style in Adelaide, suffering a tyre blowout.
But yet more retirements caused Renault’s unreliability to scupper any serious title challenge. Despite the challenges, Lotus seemed to be on the up after a difficult period following the death of team founder Colin Chapman.
Mixed year sets up iconic move
Senna’s final year at Lotus acted as a springboard for a move to a bombshell move at the end of the season. Honda replaced Renault power in 1987, but frustration became a familiar emotion for the Brazilian as his season fizzled out.
Williams Honda was the class of the field in 1987, but Senna acted as best of the rest. Politics came into play, with Senna’s contract dictating preferential treatment over new teammate Satoru Nakajima. But this was not enough to guarantee continuing with Lotus.
The team’s competitive edge had begun to ebb away, and Williams began to streak clear of the rest of the field after the early races. The year started with a sense of deja vu, as his Honda engine expired on lap 3—an all the more frustrating disappointment considering he qualified in P3.
Senna pushed hard to keep up with the charging Williams duo of Mansell and Piquet. Colliding with Mansell in Belgium, he and Senna had a dramatic altercation, including Mansell grabbing Senna by the throat. Such exchanges are consigned to history.
Senna’s legendary emotional temperament also raged again in 1987. Qualifying a lowly tenth, his car stalled ahead of the start. Raging at a marshall who refused to assist him, he punched him in the face. The FIA took a dim view of this, fining him $15,000, or circa £41,000 in today’s money.
This appeared to trigger a performance run, as two consecutive wins followed. However, these would be the highlight for Senna in 1987. Disillusioned, he signed for McLaren at Monza, though this was not straightforward. He quite literally flipped a coin with Ron Dennis to settle a disagreement over salary details.
Speaking to formula1.com, Dennis recalls the exchange: “We started to butt heads on money, half a million, and couldn’t agree, and this got really tense – it was becoming relationship-threatening. Everything had to be black and white for him and the concept of chance didn’t enter his psyche, so I said let’s flip a coin.
“He completely lightened up; this was fun. After a bit of a debate about who would do it, I flipped the coin and won the bet. What neither of us had twigged at the time was that it was a three-year contract, so it was a $1.5 million flip.”
“I know it has been seen as a total disrespect for money, but in fact it was a great respect because it was the only way to break our log jam. After that, everything cascaded and off we went.”
With the challenges beginning before Senna had turned a wheel in a McLaren, the start of one of F1’s most iconic partnerships and rivalries was now set to take off.
Feature Image Credit: @abcf1world on X
