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Originally Posted by herowassenna
First went in 1986, when I was old enough to drive myself and stood opposite the pits watching Senna chatting to different people. On track sublime but what blew me away at the time was the Williams Honda, the ground shook. I loved brands ever since, it had been my first GP in 1982.
Every year after that, I'd go to tyre tests and until the late 90's used to get across to the paddock.
Those were wonderful time, access to drivers and teams during testing was so different than at a Grand Prix.
We could see him and Alesi inside de-briefing and the crowd had gone, I asked on of the mechanics in Italian ( I'm Italian BTW) if Alesi could come out for a moment for autographs.
The man was all smiles, chatty and delighted to pose for photos. He was French too. Just some of my memories...
Now, I never witnessed it but have read about it in Senna biographies, iirc, Brundle and Senna had an altercation, Brundle himself said he leant on him hard and Senna ran off the track. There was a report to the Clerk of the Course, which resulted in no penalty to Brundle. Senna felt it unjust and as Brundle himself stated, " He was hardly likely to get a local driver penalised in Norfolk." Brundle being a local from about 40 miles away.
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Watching F1 'for free'...now that's living! The 80s & 90s sure were the days when it was still 'motor racing', not 'sports entertainment' as it's now known......not to mention the security/lack of access, which some current stars have taken to believe they are literally above the rest of society.
I suspect Alesi's friendly nature would be thanks to his Sicilian/Italian side!
Brundle certainly played on his 'home ground' advantage when he needed to. British F3 racing was away from a global audience so the '83 season was more of an English series, with one rogue Brasilian (no doubt cast as the villain). From what I've read it was some of the fiercest racing ever seen.
Yes agreed, team tactics can sometimes go way too far. Senna always regreted the Monaco deal & vowed never to do the same again. In fact it probably drove him to become even more in control of what he did behind the wheel. (Monaco '88 was definitely the final straw!)
There's a great moment in the "Season with McLaren" doco when Ron gets on the radio to Ayrton (at the Adelaide GP) & says:"Stop for tyres!".........there's a brief pause, then Ayrton replys....."NO!!" Funniest part is Dave Ryan then muttering "He's saying NO", as if to say how dare he say 'NO' to Marlboro McLaren International!
I guess in the heat of battle they sometimes forgot that he's Ayrton Senna!
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