Ayrton Senna, a legend forever. This Wednesday marks thirty years since the Brazilian passed away due to a severe crash on the Imola circuit. Today, we delve into Senna’s magical weekend in Monaco (1988).
Monaco, the theatre of speed. A labyrinth of precision, concentration, media frenzy, courage, and virtuosity. It’s no surprise that various highs and lows of Ayrton Senna’s career unfolded in Monaco. One year stands out: 1988. That one weekend perhaps provides the most succinct summary of Senna’s magic. His invincibility and his vulnerability.
Thursday, May 12, 1988. The sound of Formula 1 engines roars through the streets of Monaco. It’s time for the annual high mass of Formula 1. It’s the third Grand Prix of the season. Alain Prost won in Brazil, Ayrton Senna in Imola. Both from start to finish. Both in a McLaren. The ultra-sleek McLaren MP4/4 with the 660 hp Honda V6 turbo engine is in a class of its own. There are whispers that McLaren will win all sixteen races this year.
Last year, Senna won the Monaco Grand Prix in a Lotus-Honda. At Lotus, Senna has shown many impressive things over the past three years. Astonishing qualifications, incredible races. But with Lotus, he knows, you don’t become a world champion. That’s why he switched to McLaren in 1988, along with Honda, to become the new teammate of Alain Prost.
Senna, the Fastest in Training
Prost has also won in Monaco before. Three times in a row, in fact, in 1984, 1985, and 1986. All times for McLaren. At McLaren, Prost learned to calculate. Not looking at individual races, but at an entire season. Promptly, he won three times in Monaco and became a world champion twice.
When the first training sessions are over on Thursday afternoon, Senna has clocked the fastest time: 1.26,464. Prost is second, almost two seconds behind. And Senna casually reports: “We’re not coming out of the slow corners fast enough. There’s still something to be gained.”
The Contrasts Between Prost and Senna
Friday, May 13, 1988. It’s quiet in Monaco, the Formula 1 crowd is strolling along the harbor, lunching at Café de Paris, and speculating into the late hours about the outcome of Sunday’s race. Prost or Senna, one of them will win. Former drivers and journalists weigh the two McLaren tenors against each other. Senna is faster. Prost is smarter. Senna is breathtaking, always and everywhere he drives the stars from the sky. Prost is more balanced and only fast when necessary. Senna is obsessed. Prost is cunning. Prost is calmer, he has already been a champion. Senna is more eager, not to say: obsessed.
McLaren team boss Ron Dennis knows why: an entire nation is breathing down his neck. Senna knows that he represents the pride of millions of Brazilians. That pressure and his southern temperament make him so different from Prost. Gerhard Berger suspects that Senna gets his extra concentration and willpower from his belief in God. Senna seems to know no limit. Prost knows his boundaries, he has seen colleagues crash in the past. In Hockenheim, he saw Didier Pironi crash right in front of him on the asphalt, in the pouring rain.
Senna Was Certain It Was a Conspiracy
In the pouring rain, Prost and Senna once collided for the first time, here in Monaco. In 1984, all of Monaco was flooded, but the Grand Prix started as usual. Nigel Mansell took a huge lead, until he crashed in the fifteenth round on the way to the casino. The cautiously driving Prost took the lead. But behind him in the fog, Senna was approaching. In the modest Toleman, finally on equal tires, he danced through the puddles past one Formula 1 veteran after another. Laffite, Rosberg, Arnoux, Lauda. Overtaking in Monaco seemed no problem for Senna. For the first time, he caught the attention of the general public.
The Controversial Race
Prost was signaling that the race should be stopped. It was becoming too dangerous. One after the other, drivers were sliding into the guardrails. Just as Senna was about to overtake Prost, the race was flagged off. Commentator James Hunt referred to it as ‘French timing, to be as polite as possible…’ Senna was furious. He was convinced that this was a conspiracy. By the big sponsors, against him! The feeling that the establishment was out to get him would never disappear.
The Legacy of Prost and Senna
From 1984, the winner in Monaco would be either Prost or Senna for the next ten years. When Formula 1 returned to the theater of speed in 1994, Prost had retired from racing and Senna was dead.
The Shocking Qualification
Saturday, May 14. During the qualification in Monaco, Gerhard Berger reflects, everything comes together. The driving, Monte Carlo, the escalating chaos, the show. The execution is important. Getting on the gas as early as possible, shaving the guardrails a bit, and diving down to the Tip-Top-bar as smoothly as possible. At the decisive moment, you don’t think about that, nor about the engineers who will later angrily point out on the telemetry where you have flown through like a wild man, but still, all that whipped-up madness is preprogrammed – it’s in your gut. Ferrari driver Berger is the best-of-the-rest on Saturday afternoon, more than two and a half seconds behind Senna… Yes, something has happened.
Senna’s Unbelievable Performance
In the first session, Senna immediately clocks 1.25,592. There was still something to gain. Even Prost is surprised. He can’t get under 1 minute 26. For a super-fast qualifying lap, an extra dose of madness is needed, especially in Monaco. Prost doesn’t have that anymore. Senna does. And yet, in the second session, Prost manages to shave off a few tenths of his time here and there. He even goes under 1 minute 26. Promptly, Senna rolls out again and clocks 1.24,439. Everyone is stunned.
A Weekend of Racing Giants
Of course, about twenty other racers are squeezing the last tenths out of their cars. And they are not the least: Michele Alboreto, Nigel Mansell, Riccardo Patrese, Alessandro Nannini, Thierry Boutsen, Derek Warwick, and three-time world champion Nelson Piquet. But they know: this weekend they are merely extras. In the McLaren pits, Senna indicates that he wants to hit the track again. Engineer Jo Ramirez finds it unnecessary: “No one can improve your time!” To which Senna responds: “Of course. I can.” Moments later, he drives out of the pits.
A Mystical Experience
What happens next, Senna has only described much later as a kind of mystical experience.
“I was going faster and faster. One lap after another, faster, and faster, and faster. At one point, I was almost two seconds faster than everyone, including my teammate in the same car. Then I suddenly realized that I was no longer consciously driving the car. I was driving on instinct, in another dimension. It was as if I was driving in a tunnel, not just the tunnel under the hotel, the whole circuit seemed like a tunnel. I just kept going and going and going.
I was really pushing the limit, and still, I found time. Until I suddenly felt a shock. As if I woke up and realized that I was in a different atmosphere than usual. My first reaction was: slow down, take it easy. I drove back to the pits and didn’t leave that afternoon. I was scared because I knew I had gone beyond my rational consciousness.”
Prost: ‘He Wanted to Destroy Me’
Such statements have contributed a lot to the myth, the mysterious magic of Senna. Ramirez dismisses it all as nonsense. “He just could hardly believe that he had beaten ‘Le Professeur’.” That seems to be the point. Not for nothing does Senna subtly mention the time difference with his teammate in the same car. Monaco was only their third race together in one team. Senna was determined to beat Prost. And not just to beat him, but to crush him.
At least, that’s how Prost sees it: “You couldn’t compare Ayrton to an ordinary driver. He was completely different. You didn’t realize that immediately. I don’t remember exactly when I realized that he didn’t just want to beat me, but that he wanted to destroy me. But I was not willing to die in a race car.”
Perhaps that qualification on May 14 was the first time Prost suspected this dark side of Senna. Senna clocks 1.23,998. Prost eventually has to concede one and a half seconds. An eternity in Monaco.
A Turn for the Worse
It’s Sunday, May 15, 1988. Points are distributed on Sundays, and no one understands this better than Prost. This is the kind of understanding you gain when you’ve missed a world title by half a point. At the start of the race, Senna is the quickest off the mark. Prost can’t find second gear and watches as Berger overtakes him at the Ste. Dévote turn. As Senna takes off – leading by seven and a half seconds after just five laps – Prost is stuck behind a Ferrari.
Overtaking is nearly impossible. It’s not until the 54th lap, two-thirds into the race, that Prost manages to overtake Berger. By then, Senna is already 49 seconds ahead, in a winning position. Yet, Prost pushes on, shaving a few seconds off Senna’s lead. “Even if you have a one in a million chance, you have to try,” he believes. Prost knows exactly what he’s doing; he’s trying to make Senna nervous. And it works. Senna responds immediately, pushing harder. He breaks the lap record: 1.26,321. On the pit wall, Ron Dennis grows anxious. He fears something might go wrong. Over the radio, he urges Senna to slow down. “He can never overtake you!” But slowing down doesn’t work. Senna hits a guardrail. He immediately accelerates again, but his rhythm and concentration are disrupted. Then, things really go wrong.
An Angry Senna Walks Away
In the 67th lap, Senna hits the curb on the inside of the Portiers turn. The impact momentarily knocks the steering wheel out of his hands, and the McLaren slides to the outside of the track, its left front colliding with the guardrail. The front wheel and suspension break off, and the car comes to a halt. Reporters scream in shock. Senna climbs out of his car, shaking off the marshals who quickly arrive at the scene. He walks away in anger. Looking back, he sees Prost passing by, on his way to victory.
Senna doesn’t return to the pits. He walks straight to his apartment on Avenue Princesse Grace, not far from Portiers. He knows he’s made a colossal blunder and can’t face his team. It’s not until around 9 p.m. UST that Ramirez manages to get him on the phone. Senna is in tears: “I’m the biggest idiot on earth.”
‘It Brought Me Closer to God’
The discarded victory in Monaco may well be the biggest mistake in Senna’s career. However, he has repeatedly tried to explain the valuable lessons he learned from the crash. “It was the biggest step in my life, as a driver and as a person. It brought me closer to God. Things from my career as a driver have shaped me. I was going through a crisis at the time. Monaco was a low point, which made me aware of a lot of things. It’s hard to explain, it’s something very sensitive. It’s something unique in life, something that holds you, that supports you when you are most vulnerable. It made me a better person.”
Did Senna really change dramatically in Portiers? During the Monaco 1988 weekend, he seems to lose control twice due to his own intensity. Apparently, this happens to him more often: “Sometimes I think I know why I do things the way I do in the car. But sometimes I don’t. There are moments when only a natural instinct in me seems to be working. It’s in me and it takes over with tremendous intensity. When I race against the clock or against my opponents, the anticipation of doing my absolute best and being the best gives me a power that completely detaches me from everything else.”
Sensitive to Pinpricks
The will to always be the best took Senna out of himself. This made him an extraordinary, intense driver, but it also made him hyper-sensitive and vulnerable. Against the clock, this is still manageable – time and the circuit usually don’t do crazy things. Hence the many pole positions. But your opponents are also people, who sometimes do unpredictable things, tricky things, sneaky things that can easily throw you off balance. Intensity cannot exist without vulnerability.
Even after Monaco 1988, Senna remained very sensitive to the slightest pinpricks from his opponents. Of course, especially from Prost, but also from Mansell, and later from Eddie Irvine, from FISA chairman Balestre and finally from Michael Schumacher and the Benetton team.
