THE GOLDEN BOY
“His
rise was irresistible, he grew into the part
His
explanation simply that he suffered for his art No
base consideration of some glittering reward The
prize was knowing that his work was noticed and adored”
|
Lyrics
by: F. Mercury, M. Moran and T. Rice
"LONELINESS
IS THE PRICE I HAVE TO PAY"
Ayrton
Senna
One
book, in which the author described the life of a man who died more than 2.300
years ago, but who is still living until today, begins with the words:
"The
first thing we found out about him was that he was lonely. Not that he was left
to shift for himself because he was always surrounded by people. He was lonely,
alone with his thoughts."
These
are the words Harold Lamb used to introduce to us Alexander of Macedonia who
irresistibly suggests himself as a worthy comparison to Ayrton despite the
millenniums which separate them because there are many things that seem to be
common to these two great people. There aren’t many people in history who
would dream about great achievements and do great achievements, who would be
mystics and practical realists in the same time. But these precisely were the
characteristics both of Ayrton and Alexander. Even the words which were added to
their names are exactly the same which can't be mere coincidence. Alexander is
also known as The Great and his contemporaries called him the madman, while
Ayrton was called the great Brazilian but also the crazy Brazilian. And this is
how this Brazilian once described his feelings under influence of speed:
“It
is a situation when you tend to go further and further to find a new level. The
situation takes you to entirely different world. It is like discovering unknown
worlds and places where you have never been.”
And when he was asked what person would he like to meet most, here’s what he answered:
"I would like to go back
in time, to many different periods, not of my life, but of mankind. To the
Seventies, Sixties, Fifties, Forties, 1900, 1800, 1500, the year before Jesus -
and to meet all kinds of people who made history or did good things. Just to be
able to observe them, to see what they were really doing, why they were doing
certain things, good things and not so good things. I think that would be the
optimum thing to understand better life and human beings."
Yes,
that would really be a good way because, for example, Alexander is to this day
mistakenly considered a conqueror, a warrior craving for glory to that extent
that he wanted to conquer the whole world although the truth is that he was only
loyal to his own law in searching "the place where the gods dwell".
And it was this quest to discover the unknown and to gain knowledge which was
motivating him and not the wish to conquer or to gain fame. That was the reason
he set out on his to this day to people incomprehensible voyage eastwards. And
he died there. He was 32 years and 8 months old. After he was gone nothing
stayed the same because by following his inner voice he changed history, he took
down barriers, he mixed people and cultures and made way for new times which
followed.
Ayrton would have comprehended Alexander completely since their psychical structures were amazingly similar, but who understood Ayrton? People in Formula One whom he worked with thought he was craving for victories and world titles to that extent that they proclaimed him "crazy", a danger to his peers, because allegedly he wasn’t choosing his ways or means in achieving his goals. The milleniums between them don’t mean anything here, the lack of understanding is the same to this day as it was then. But certain similarities are also obvious, even in what the two loved the most - the Macedonian his black horse Bucefalos and the Brazilian once said, half joking:
"I’m in
love twice every week; with my racing car and my spare car."
And
when did this love start? It started very early, still in his earliest childhood
when he was given small car and he was playing with it. "I
was just doing it for myself, for my own feelings. I hardly knew who I was",
Ayrton was remembering his first emotions at one occasion.
When
talking about his career people usually stress the fact that he was born into a
wealthy environment and they also say that his financial independence ensured
his way to success. It’s certain that due to money he was spared of many
painful problems that poor people are faced with but then it is also certain
that he only gave money the importance it deserves and nothing more. There was
something else that motivated him and pushed him forward.
He
was driving go-carts and all different sorts of formula cars throughout his
childhood and youth and he was doing it with so much dedication and love that it
all at the end became part of him, and he told us about it:
"A car is
part of me, my extension, the extension of my body, because I’m with it, it
became part of my body."
At
the age of 13 he officially entered the world of racing and went straight to
victory, because that was the only thing which interested him. He didn’t only
want to participate - he wanted always to be the first. Many different people
have tried to explain this characteristic of his but no one’s explanation is
satisfactory. Why did he always drive the fastest he could, no matter if it was
a simple practice session or the actual race? People believed it was a big
mistake because by doing so he wouldn’t be the fastest when it was needed most,
he would wear himself out too early.
It’s
difficult to give a logical explanation because at first impression this
behavior seems contradictory and so another comparison with Alexander might be
of help. Young Alexander would offer sacrifice to gods every day returning from
his morning run and he would offer precious and exquisite frankincense. He would
always take it handful and throw it plentifully on the live coal. But his cousin
Leonidas then use to reprimand him coldly: "Consecrated frankincense isn’t
sand to be thrown by the handful." Alexander would feel as if he was
inhibited in his thoughts - it was true that frankincense was precious, but he
was offering sacrifice to gods, he was thanking them for his life, so how could
he take it only with the tip of his fingers so it would last a certain number of
days? He thought that if you offer sacrifice it should be all or nothing. But he
couldn’t explain his feelings to his royal cousins. (10 years later Alexander
sent Leonidas an enormous load of frankincense from distant
What
do you think, how would the often reported story from Fullerton’s tent (when
Terry didn’t want Ayrton to look into his books with racing times) have played
itself out if we changed their roles? What would Ayrton have done if Terry had
wanted to look at his books? Most certainly the following: he would very
seriously, entirely devotedly, compare his and
"In this
book you will learn many of my race-craft secrets: how to overtake, how to drift
and skid in a controlled manner on fast bends, how to concentrate at the start
of the race, how to set up the suspension and save your tires, what I do to win
pole position, and how to get fit for racing."
He
noticed the lack of valid textbooks on this subject in bookshops all over the
world and he wanted to fill out this vacancy.
There,
he shared what he knew with others in this way, too. That was his style of
living, that was his way of working. But this is not the way one can live long
without getting hurt. And one of the moments when he got hurt was with Terry,
too - he never entered his tent again. Nevertheless later on he used to remember
his racing duels with Terry with joy.
And
also otherwise in this early go-cart period he had to swallow few more bitter
pills mostly due to different regulations and their alterations. It was only a
mild indication of what was bound to come - his constant fight with the
authorities. He was always able to recognize vanity and with time he learned how
to avoid to be forced to participate in it. There were more episodes in his life
which added brick by brick to his imaginary wall he erected around himself and
which was the topic of many discussions. The truth was that he did fence himself
off but only because of one reason: it was his self-protection. He had to build
it to be able to function according to commonly accepted rules at all and, at
the same time, to stay loyal to more important ones - his own. Without this
protection that would be impossible. "And
that was how I got my other face", Ayrton explained it once. Due to
this isolation he himself was suffering the most as he was cheerful by nature,
sociable, gifted with a very lucid sense of humor, and he had to repress all
this into the depths when he found himself in F-1 world. Motor racing, and
especially F-1, is chiefly business, modern gladiator games and there is very
little room there for living according to one’s personal rules, especially to
those embracing a spiritual character. Despite all this Ayrton lived his life
primarily spiritually and he even managed to force this ice-cold F-1 world to
respect this spirit, which is a real accomplishment.
And
how did Ayrton enter the F-1 world? In 1981 the desire to follow racing career professionally took him to
Senna & Liliane, his ex-wife
When he definitely decided to follow that road
he was also forced to change his surname. His real surname da Silva was very
common in
Senna & Brundle (on the right)
Years 1982 and 83 were in fact a progressive preparation for transfer to F-1 (because he didn’t wish for rash jumps, he knew he had to learn). His embittered duels with Martin Brundle in F-3 Championship were again an indication of some more famous future duels known to all the motor racing world. He won the ‘83 F-3 championship followed by Brundle and both of them joined Formula one. Brundle of all people could be quoted as completely honest when speaking about Ayrton Senna: "I have to admit", he said, "that I’ve never really known him. In my opinion only very few people actually did." This could be said for almost everybody around him, they simply didn’t know him, no matter what they were saying.