Ayrton Senna Dies After Crash;
Peerless Racing King Was 34
By JOSEPH SIANO
THE NEW YORK TIMES NEWSPAPER, MONDAY, MAY 2, 1994
Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian whose laser-like focus on driving race cars made
him a three-time Formula One world champion, died yesterday after a crash
during the Sam Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy.
Senna, 34 years old, died of multiple skull fractures in a hospital in a
Bologna, Italy, hours after his race car veered off the Ferrari Autodrome at
almost 200 miles an hour and struck a concrete wall almost head on. The
cause of the accident was not immediately known.
Ayrton Senna da Silva was born in S?o Paulo, Brazil, on March 21, 1960, and
divided his time between homes there and in Monte Carlo, Monaco. He began
his career in kart racing as a youth, eventually rising to auto racing's
highest level, the international Grand Prix circuit, in 1984. He won the
circuit's world championship in 1988, 1990 and 1991.
He was considered the world's best driver at the time of his death.
Possibly the Greatest
He started 65 Formula One races on the pole position, the coveted spot at
the head of the field reserved for the driver who had the fastest qualifying
times for the race. His total was a record, and his 41 Grand Prix victories
was second only to the 51 victories of Alain Prost of France.
"He might have been the greatest driver of all time," said Michael Andretti,
who was Senna's Formula One teammate last year. "There was not a weakness in
Ayrton Senna."
Michael Kranefuss, the head of Ford Motor Company's international racing
activities, recalled yesterday watching Senna during a Monaco Grand Prix
practice a few years ago, going against such great rivals and fellow world
champions as Nelson Piquet, Niki Lauda and Prost.
"It was like you were watching photographers," Mr. Kranefuss said of Senna's
rivals, "and then you were watching a painting done by Michelangelo."
His success, built on an uncompromising approach in which he demanded
everything of his self and those who designed and built his race cars, made
him one of the highest-paid athletes in the world. His annual salary the
past few years was generally thought to be above $10 million, with
commercial endor***t deals adding much more.
In his native Brazil, he was a hero of the same stature as the soccer star
Pel.
"I think that just about everything can be improved," Senna said in an
article in The New York Times in March 1991. "I think as the time goes by
you have to exploit your own limits and the machine's limits."
Even when he thought he was at his limits, he said, "Perhaps if I try again,
if I concentrate even more, focus on that single thing, I might be able to
go further."
Preferred No Publicity
But success and wealth - combined with the *** politics of the Formula One
circuit and the oppressive news media focus it received - eventually made
Senna more reclusive and less revealing.
"I think he was a more relaxed person than he became after his success,"
said Raul Boesel, a fellow Brazilian now racing in the United States.
Besides being the target of an unsuccessful *** plot in Brazil a few
years ago, Senna shut himself off from the news media and other non-racing
outsiders because of intense conflicts with other drivers, most notably
Prost.
In 1989 and 1990, they took turns edging one another for the world
championship - Prost won in '89 and Senna in '90 - and had a collision with
each other in the final race each year.
"He was very intimidating," Mr. Kranefuss said of Senna's driving style. "On
the race track, he was not always a nice guy."
A Study in Concentretion
The worldwide news media attention surrounding Senna's encounters with
Prost - along with run-ins with Piquet - made him keep to himself on race
weekends so he would not loose the concentration that lifted him into a
near-translucent state when he got behind the wheel.
"Ayrton was the most misunderstood person out there because he got such a
bad rap in the media," Andretti said yesterday. "I can assure you he was a
good person. He was very supportive of me last year."
Mr. Kranefuss said, "He was very loyal to people who helped him early in his
career."
Senna was aware of his image as being difficult (he did speak to reporters
more often than Prost), but was willing to accept it in order to win
"In our activity, unfortunately, there is a lot of ego and confrontation,"
he told The Times. "That is not good for making friends."
His response to bad press was always the same: focus on driving.
"My choice is simply to do what I believe is right according to my mind and
heart," he said. "Choosing that, you are bound to make some difficult
relationships."
Senna is survived by his parents, of Tatui, Brazil, 70 miles away from S?o
Paulo.
