Ayrton Senna before the San Marino GP at Imola in 1991. ‘His skill set was very rare. He had that ability to do it in qualifying, to do it in a race, in the wet or dry.’Ayrton Senna before the San Marino GP at Imola in 1991. ‘His skill set was very rare. He had that ability to do it in qualifying, to do it in a race, in the wet or dry.’
Senna was driving for Williams at Imola. He had already won three titles and was recognised as the pre-eminent talent of a generation with no shortage of great drivers before what proved to be one of the most calamitous weekends in F1 history. During the first qualifying session on the Friday, his fellow Brazilian Rubens Barrichello suffered a huge accident that left him unconscious. Then in qualifying on Saturday the Austrian Roland Ratzenberger was killed when he crashed at Villeneuve.
“That made him very very special and that’s why we are still talking about it today, which is unbelievable.”Much has been made of how Senna applied this talent, that alongside the extraordinary skill he was dangerously uncompromising, arguments over which still rage, but he was without doubt a singular and driven man.he asked a distressed Senna why he felt the need to go on, that he had nothing left to prove. “Give it up and let’s go fishing,” Watkins told him.
“He had his aggressive side in the car but I don’t agree with people who say he was over-aggressive, he just drove very, very hard. As he said: ‘If there is a gap I am going to go for it’. He had that aura just by people seeing the helmet in their mirrors. That’s what he created.”