Senna On ESPN 2

what a cursed weekend. They should have cancelled it after Ratzenberger's death.

Makes me kind of glad that Imola isn't on the circuit anymore. I was there for its last F1 race in 2006 but we didn't know at the time that it would be the last. Honestly, I didn't really like the place.

Senna is on Netflix instant streaming I have it in my queue

Karl La Follette wrote: No one has been killed since Senna and I would have loved to be the guy who jacked Prost nose all crooked and that FIA president needed a belt also .

WTF are you talking about?

racerfink wrote:

Karl La Follette wrote: No one has been killed since Senna and I would have loved to be the guy who jacked Prost nose all crooked and that FIA president needed a belt also .

WTF are you talking about?

pretty sure he's saying Prost was a cockbag who "won" by being a political bitch instead of by being the best driver, and that if Karl had a wayback machine he'd use it to go back to when Prost had a straight nose and punch his nose crooked. i don't always understand Karl, but this time i'm picking up what he's laying down.

AngryCorvair wrote:

racerfink wrote:

Karl La Follette wrote: No one has been killed since Senna and I would have loved to be the guy who jacked Prost nose all crooked and that FIA president needed a belt also .

WTF are you talking about?

pretty sure he's saying Prost was a cockbag who "won" by being a political bitch instead of by being the best driver, and that if Karl had a wayback machine he'd use it to go back to when Prost had a straight nose and punch his nose crooked. i don't always understand Karl, but this time i'm picking up what he's laying down.

Gotta agree on this one.

Prost knew he had an ally in Balestre; no big surprise that a French champ was a "bud" with the French head of FISA who was clearly a megolomaniac. Balestre's attitude and actions are only surpassed by those of Mosely. I really liked the part where Ron Dennis shows video of drivers using escape roads and not getting penalised; the same thing that got Senna DQ'd in Japan. That was rule-bending a la Nascar.

And, I'm not a big fan of Senna......................

Carro Atrezzi wrote: what a cursed weekend. They should have cancelled it after Ratzenberger's death. Makes me kind of glad that Imola isn't on the circuit anymore. I was there for its last F1 race in 2006 but we didn't know at the time that it would be the last. Honestly, I didn't really like the place.

Apparently, it's popular among F1 fans as a previously-run track that deserves a "comeback."

It's fun to read Senna vs. Prost after seeing the movie. I'm about halfway through. Caution, it's pretty pro Prost.

Senna was a fantastic self promoter (I do not mean this in a bad way at all, it's crucial in motorsports) and had photographers and I would assume, filmmakers/videographers on payroll.

I watched the movie and came away thinking that Senna was a beyond brilliant, talented driver, a prima-donna whiney bitch like Massa only with mad skills. He didn't have any restraint when in the car and would likely win or crash which isn't a good strategy if you want to survive your career. He was very young - maybe if he had lived to be a little older/wiser he might have shown a more thoughtful approach but... he didn't.

He did manage to inspire a whole generation of Michael Schumacher / Vettel robot type douch-nozzles for which I am not grateful.

I see a lot of Senna's talent, passion and drive in Alonso but executed with more mature decision making.

I watched the movie previously, really liked it, but would have really liked to see a better explanation of what caused the crash.

I don't have a link, but if you search youtube there is a documentary (National Geographic? or maybe History Channel?) that does a good job at explaining a very likely cause. There is an assumption (not sure if it was in the movie) that is was a steering failure but the explanation of heavy fuel load and too low of a ride height seems pretty reasonable.

I watched it on streaming Netflix a while back, and thought it was very well done. Seeing his talent in some of the rain scenes sent chills down my spine. My two favorite parts of the movie were the driver's meeting where he spoke up and ended up getting the consensus of the other drivers, and the interview with Jackie Stewart. The movie really captured his passion for what he was doing and his brilliance behind the wheel. I wished we could have seen him mature throughout his career, similar to Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant.

I really enjoyed watching it. I was a fan of Senna, and remember watching a bunch of the races that were in the movie, including the '94 Imola race. I don't think he was any different than the other drivers of his day as far as his racing attitude. I don't think he was a complete "bin it or win it" driver and believe the risks he took were calculated and/or reasonable. IIRC, in his last few years he was the winningest driver over that time period and he won 3 championships in 10 full seasons and probably lost a 4th due to his teammate wrecking him and then protesting to the officials after he came back to win the Japanese GP in 1989. Prost was at least as much of an shiny happy person and would do anything to win just like everyone else in F1. I think the two were closely matched as far as talent, but Prost had more experience in the off-track system while Senna was more passionate and confident behind the wheel so he took a few more risks on course.

I would have loved to see a few more years with Senna vs Schumacher. That could have been some incredible racing as Michael developed.

I miss the days when F1 involved racing instead of qualifying and pit strategy determining the victor.

Ditto all the above and my wife really, really enjoyed it.

I was surprised to see it was Schumacher pressuring Senna. We never got to see any footage of them dueling just before the crash. Did he have something to do with it?

carguy123 wrote: Ditto all the above and my wife really, really enjoyed it.

Apparently my wife didn't enjoy it. She asked about halfway through if I was really watching this. I told her that I was totally engrossed and she should wait for a commercial to carry on a conversation.

I guess I need to order flowers...

carguy123 wrote: I was surprised to see it was Schumacher pressuring Senna. We never got to see any footage of them dueling just before the crash. Did he have something to do with it?

Senna was leading by a car-length or so; Schumacher was never close enough to initiate contact but he was pressing.

Maybe Senna made an error, maybe something on the car broke but the Chin was just an observer that time. There's footage out there from his in-car camera and it shows the Williams veering driver's-right and off the track.

Secretariata wrote:

carguy123 wrote: Ditto all the above and my wife really, really enjoyed it.

Apparently my wife didn't enjoy it. She asked about halfway through if I was really watching this. I told her that I was totally engrossed and she should wait for a commercial to carry on a conversation. I guess I need to order flowers...

And some chocolate.......

I watched most of it last night. I made it about an hour and a half into it, then I woke up to see the credits rolling. What did I miss?

shhhh, don't tell him how it ends.

oldsaw wrote:

carguy123 wrote: I was surprised to see it was Schumacher pressuring Senna. We never got to see any footage of them dueling just before the crash. Did he have something to do with it?

Senna was leading by a car-length or so; Schumacher was never close enough to initiate contact but he was pressing. Maybe Senna made an error, maybe something on the car broke but the Chin was just an observer that time. There's footage out there from his in-car camera and it shows the Williams veering driver's-right and off the track.

The FW16 was a "re-do" of the FW15 (which had active suspension) instead of a brand new design to make the best of the new rules (active suspension outlawed). Honestly, I was surprised that Senna was doing that well in the damned thing. I was watching that day, whatever feed ESPN was using had selected the onboard in Schuie's Benneton with Senna right in front of him.

I was thinking, "man, that car handles like crap.." when it bottomed out and skated off the road drivers' right.

Like he says to Patrick Head and Adrian Newey the car is understeering and oversteering. That car was a handling nightmare.

In his less than 11 years in F1, Senna had 16 collisions with other drivers. He was out 11 times because of such collisions with other drivers and it seems that he didn't learn of his faults: In his last seven years in Formula 1, he had 13 collisions! (Source: Guinness GP Who's Who)

In his 13 years in F1, Alain had just 7 collisions, most in the beginning of his F1-career. He was out every time he had a collision, which means 7 times. But he learned of his faults: In the years 1988 - 1993 he had not even one collision with another driver, except two times, when Ayrton Senna hit him (1989, 1990)... His crash-percentage in general is lower as well...

Senna's win percentage is 25.47. Prost's win percentage is 25.63.

Points per race, Senna: 3.81 Points per race, Prost: 3.99

I was not following F1 at the time (racing motorcycles instead) so didn't really form an opinion before I watched the movie. My take away :

Senna was a very talented natural driver, as evidenced by his rain performances. If he got beat, he learned from it and did better the next time. He didn't go crying to race control.

Prost was a very good driver but more cautious and definitely the type to win in the tech shed.

When they were on the same team, the personalities conflicted badly for that reason, I think Senna came to view his teammate as underhanded and untrustworthy; honestly after seeing how Prost tried to block his pass in the dumbest of dumb places, thus bending the crap out of both cars and setting up the whole 'runoff road' controversy I would have to say he was right. Particularly when the first thing Prost did was go to race control while the race was still under way. The really dumb part was it was his teammate. Sure, it's OK to race against your teammate, but to block in such a dumb fashion? I'm surprised Prost still had a job with McLaren the next year.

The drivers' meeting the next year where the general consensus was that Senna had gotten the shaft in that incident bolsters that view.

Both were prima donnas with inflated and fragile egos but both were also very capable drivers. The one thing which redeems Prost a little in my view is that he is a trustee of Senna's memorial education fund.

The argument over what caused Senna's final accident will continue till the sun cools to a cinder. I personally think the FIA did cover some stuff up, since as noted the car was hastily modified to be driven without the active suspension. Since that was a direct result of the FIA banning the system it could have been argued that they were in large part responsible for his death.

Watching it again right now. Thanks, DVR!

I actually streamed this on Netflix several months ago and enjoyed it so much that I watched the entire thing again the other night.

Jean-Marie Balestre was lucky that he died before this documentary was released.