Just re-watched 'Senna'

Great movie but the ending sucks

I was mostly left wondering how accurate the portrayal of Prost as a tool was.

Prost was a tool

Nick_Comstock wrote: Prost was a tool

He was a fast tool!

but keep in mind … Senna wasn't a saint … the movie painted him as one … he was, in his own way, just as much of tool as Prost

One of the things that the movie actually made less clear to me, was the actual relationship between Ayrton and Alain Prost. Theoretically, they hated each other, but Prost was a big wheel in Sennas foundation, and was one of his pallbearers. Not the typical things a mortal enemy would do.

Do you suppose the media maybe made a big deal out of nothing? I suppose there's a first time for everything...

In reply to Streetwiseguy:

I've always thought it was just business or perhaps even friendly competition, trumped up by the media. Or as David Lee Roth said on the whole brown M&Ms/trashing the dressing room thing "Who am I to get in the way of a good rumor?".

There's a longer version that goes into some of that in greater depth. Search around and you'll find it online. Prost was a tool, but you kinda have to be to get ahead in F1.

Look at Hunt/Lauda or Heir Schumacher, etc.

Keep in mind that here was a lot of politics with Prost being French along with the head of FIA, so that added to it all as well.

At the end of the day the FIA is just a club like your local SCCA. Politics will abound and while they did white wash Senna a bit and pointed the finger towards Prost I found the decisions of the race officials most odd. Kind of like enforcing a rule to not talk to drivers about how to drive faster!? What?

I have read a few books on the subject and watched teh movie.

Every book I read makes me unsure which one of those guys was a tool. The more I read, the more I realize they were both very good at manipulating situations.

I do think Senna would have won a few more championships if he had just been okay with finishing 2nd or 3rd.

I do NOT like that Senna ushered in this modern era of F1 that says "I am going to pass you and if you block me I will hit you". Not a direct quote or anything, but something similar was said by Senna on many occasions.

Rob R.

If Prost was a tool then Senna was a pile of harbor freight throw away's. No one who gets to the top in F1 is a saint, but having lived through it and watched every race as it happened I'll side with Prost 99 times out of 100. In the day I was a die-hard Mansell fan being a Brit, but with hindsight I'm Prost all the way. Senna was a dangerous egotistical ass who ushered in the era of dangerous drivers and should have been banned years ago. I never wish ill on anyone, but I was always amazed that Senna didn't kill himself or someone else years before his horrible accident. No doubt that Senna was one of the greatest natural talents ever and off track he was supposedly a great person, but on track he was a complete tool through and through for I had/have no respect as an overall driver. Talent yes, sportsman no.

You have to remember with the film that it was a film about Senna, made with the permission of his family, using information and footage provided by his family. Did you expect that to be an unbiased film? I haven’t seen the film in a couple of years, but I seem to recall they played pretty fast and loose with the facts around changing the side of the track for Pole indicating that it was changed to favor Prost over Senna, forgetting that Senna had it changed to suit him by the local organizers against the rules and the FIA was just putting it back to how it should have been. Not that Balestra was a saint, he was a member of the French arm of the German SS during WWII, he later claimed to have actually been an resistance but no one has ever been able to back that up. He was they replaced by another Nazi sympathizer in the form of mad Max.

prost heifeld post crash

diff view

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:

I knew that would get you going

In reply to Adrian_Thompson:
I'm aware that the film is openly pro-Senna.
I'm also not old enough to have lived through either of their careers...
Knowing some of you were alive and paying attention at the time, I figured I'd ask

SnowMongoose wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: Knowing some of you were alive and paying attention at the time, I figured I'd ask

Ouch!

Adrian_Thompson wrote: ... Not that Balestra was a saint, he was a member of the French arm of the German SS during WWII, he later claimed to have actually been an resistance but no one has ever been able to back that up. He was they replaced by another Nazi sympathizer in the form of mad Max.

Totally agree that nobody got to the top of F1 by being a good person. Also admired Senna's talent and drive for No1. Sadden that his life ended abruptly. His driving style is a poetry of fireworks that burns brilliantly and leaves us with great memories.

Senna is a driver who ages well in our memory when the acid and harshness vanishes.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Not that Balestra was a saint, he was a member of the French arm of the German SS during WWII, he later claimed to have actually been an resistance but no one has ever been able to back that up.

Came back in here when I remembered this, actually a Nazi, same guy who killed group B.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

SnowMongoose wrote: In reply to Adrian_Thompson: Knowing some of you were alive and paying attention at the time, I figured I'd ask

Ouch!

No reason to opine about one's age, Adrian. I can remember watching Villeneuve, Rosberg and Rahal battling in Formula Atlantic. Those are memories I embrace because I witnessed the foundations of what occurred in the following decades.

Both Senna and Prost were "tools", one blessed with a greater natural driving talent and the other with better interpersonal skills. But both were very, very good in the two disciplines. Senna was lucky in that he didn't kill himself or someone else because he believed in his destiny. Prost was lucky because Jean Marie Balestre was (arguably) the most political and nationalistic a-hole to ever preside over the FIA. Mosley and Todt are pretty close, though.

The crap we see today isn't much different than what we saw then.

Bruno Senna drives in Formula E as well...

Anyway, I followed F1 heavily in those days. I was a big Mansell fan before he went to Indy Car. Then I became a Schumi fan. When he won his first championship with Bennetton I had a poster of it on my dorm room door. Those days I didn't like Prost, and I really didn't like Senna. Why? Because they could beat Schumi, simple as that.

I've watched the Senna movie numerous times, and I like it. It seems to capture those days of F1 nicely (not that I ever lived them). There is another documentary called The Right to Win, but it is much like the Senna movie.

At that level of competition, it seems that things are still the same now as they were then- big egos, lots of press and politics...

Karl La Follette wrote: prost heifeld post crash

paranoid_android74 wrote: Bruno Senna drives in Formula E as well... Anyway, I followed F1 heavily in those days. I was a big Mansell fan before he went to Indy Car.

Was and still am a Mansell fan, just I now recognize Prost as the better all-rounder. I loved it when Mansell went to Indy car and won. What people forget about him going back to F1, was that at the end of 94 he came back for three races with Williams before signing for McLaren in 95. In those three races he retired, got a 4th and then won the last race.

paranoid_android74 wrote: Then I became a Schumi fan. When he won his first championship with Bennetton I had a poster of it on my dorm room door. Those days I didn't like Prost, and I really didn't like Senna. Why? Because they could beat Schumi, simple as that.

Those that know me already know what I’m about to say Yes I can be a bit of a broken record. Schumi is a bigger tool than Senna. He didn’t win the 94 WDC, he stole it while driving an illegal car. Damon Hill is the rightful winner if Schumi hadn’t punted him off the track in his normal low life cheating manor. Once I’m benevolent dictator to the universe and once Schumi has fully recovered from his skiing accident I’m going to punch him in the face, take the 94 WDC trophy from him and give it to the rightful winner

Allow me to summarize most of Adrian's F1-related posts: "If it's not Brit, it's E36 M3!"

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Schumi is a bigger tool than Senna.

Yes I have never understood the aura that surrounds him. I think like JP Montoya, if I was ever in F1 with Schumi we would have crashed anytime we were near each other. MS just drives dirty. That being said he was fast which made it worse because he probably didn't have to race that way.

I loved every time Hakkinen beat him.

At the same time I pray that MS gets back on his feet with enough function to enjoy his family.

Tom_Spangler wrote: Allow me to summarize most of Adrian's F1-related posts: "If it's not Brit, it's E36 M3!"

PPSSTTTT

Prost is a Frog, and he's my all-time favorite. You know as well as anyone that as a Brit I'm genetically required to hate the French just for being French. If I can root for and admit that Prost is the best ever, then I can root for any nation.

Having said that I just hope there's never a Brit and an American going head to head for the WDC then I'm really screwed. That is unless one of them drives for Ferrari (automatic looser) or McLaren (automatic winner). The worst possibly scenario is if they are team mates at McLaren, then my head will simply explode.