Quote:
Originally Posted by chunder
I guess my opinion of racer is slightly different from yours Ayes.
I call a racer someone you as a fair man can race against.
I dont call Senna fair, he was marginally dirty and ushered in a whole new era of forceful contact style driving.
His will to win was able to overpower his common sense and survival instinct in a way that a Clark, Hill, Fangio, Moss, Stewart, never could have done.
And for that Alain will always be more of a man on the racetracks, not at all off the track as Ayrton was the consumate pro and gentleman. Just not on the track.
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I respect your view chunder, but Senna's era of cars were infinitely safer than the other greats you mention. They were likely to be killed by making a mistake, the Nurburgring for example was lined by trees in their era, by the 70's they started fixing guardrails all round.
Regarding Alain being a fair man and Senna being marginally dirty, wasn't it 1989 when Prost turned in on Senna at the Suzuka chicane? His reasoning being that he'd given way too often so as to avoid an accident at the first corner.
People recall Suzuka 1990, but it was payback
Alain played the media brilliantly and made Senna seem slightly unhinged with comments about his faith, something that was mentioned greatly throughout the film, culminating with the quote from his sister re: greatest gift, something I have never heard previously.
Don't misunderstand my points, I still feel that Senna's driving at Suzuka in 1990 was the most disgusting piece of driving I've ever seen, but it shows just how angry he became at the politics within the sport at that the time.
He was still angry at the whole organisation, at the 1991 Japanese GP when he famously swore during an interview over the PA system, because Balestre had been replaced by Mosley.
Today, I like Hamilton, Alonso, in fact any driver who shows emotions. Seeing Vettel doing the screw loose signal at Webber last year was brilliant because it shows emotion.
I have suffered every emotion watching F1, indescribable sadness to tearful joy, but never am i indifferent.
Even something like the Spanish GP this year, seeing Alonso take the lead had me shouting and yet by the end of the race I was gutted by how far off the pace Ferrari were.
I want to see these guys share that feeling, who can forget Senna's 1st win, he was climbing out of the car on the warm down lap... or when he won the Japanese GP and the WDC, you know from his body language that he was crying.
With Prost, it always felt like he was happy with a job well done.
Last point, Senna is seen as a "consumate pro and gentleman". At the time, this wasn't very apparent, but 17 years of new books and literature have re-shaped peoples memories of him.