During the three decades since the sickening image of the blue-and-white Williams striking the Tamburello wall was broadcast to a global audience of millions, Ayrton Senna has been transformed.
On May 1 1994 he was already a racing superstar, regarded justifiably by many as the greatest of his generation, but since then the name Senna has grown into so much more. It’s a global brand, a name on countless T-shirts and caps in every corner of the globe that stands for something, even for those who’ve never so much as watched a racing car in anger.
Those five letters, S-E-N-N-A, have become iconic, an idea, a philosophy of racing that transcends the name of a mere mortal. He has become less a man, more a god who walked among us for 34 years before his very public ascent to the heavens.
For a generation, Senna is not merely a great racing driver but so much more than that. Senna has escaped the limitations of his own sport to become a hallowed figure. The legend has overwhelmed the memory.
It didn’t happen instantly. The day Senna died he was perceived almost universally as one of the great racing drivers, but he was also a divisive and controversial figure.
Over the years, the life and sporting achievements of a very human character have coalesced into a canon of moments and images. His second place in Monaco in 1984, the first victory at a sodden Estoril in 1985, those Suzuka collisions with Alain Prost, his pole lap in Monaco 1988, Easter Sunday at Donington Park in 1993… these have become the venerated stories that comprise the legend of this almost holy figure.
Venerated moments like Senna’s 1988 Monaco pole lap have elevated his perception beyond that of a mere mortal
Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images
If you had to zero in on the biggest factor in this process, it’s surely Asif Kapadia’s documentary Senna. The film, which premiered in 2010, has become the bible of the Senna cult.
It’s a well-constructed piece of film-making, one that focuses on the key moments of Senna’s career and sets them in stone. It’s all there – the heroism, the superhuman skill, the will to win and the dark forces that conspired against him. It’s a compelling piece of storytelling, one that codifies the myth and builds on it.
Prost, one of the key antagonists in Senna, exists solely as a mechanism for the rivalry. In the film, there is no mention of the moment when hostilities between the two began with Senna shoving…
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