Ayrton Senna
"I am not designed to come third, fourth, or fifth.
I am designed to win."
Even though I'm a huge-ass sports fan I don't really write about a lot of sports heroes on this site. There are a few reasons for this, most of them involving the fact that any sports hero you write about would require a long string of stats and numbers that aren't going to make any sense to someone who doesn't give a shit about sports, but even if you don't give a shit about sports you can watch this legendary on-board video of Brazilian superstar racecar driver Artyon Senna qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix in 1990 and be like, "yeah, holy crap balls, that's top-shelf bonkers" The stuff he's doing where he's flying into turns at 180 miles an hour while holding the wheel with one hand? That wasn't normal then and it isn't normal now. Those cars didn't have power steering, either.
One of the most revered legends in one of the biggest sports in the world, Artyon Senna was a ruthless competitor who wore a flashy neon-yellow helmet, fearlessly drove 200 miles an hour in a 1200-horsepower manual-transmission turbocharged monster racecar so badass that it was 400 horsepower more powerful than modern F1 cars, hooked up with Brazilian models and multiple Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Models, gave away millions of dollars of his own money to help underprivileged children, and then went out in a blaze of glory so legendary that when he died Brazil shut down for three days to mourn his passing.
He also once heroically saved a fellow racer's life by braving oncoming traffic and risk of explosion in the middle of a race – Erik Komas had crashed out during a qualifying lap for the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix, smashing a wall at 200 miles an hour and then getting knocked unconscious with his foot still on the gas pedal. Senna first managed to avoid the wreck while tearing ass around a blind corner at 170 miles an hour – no small feat for a normal human being – and then, when he noticed the danger, Senna stopped his car, got out, sprinted across the track, dodged a couple oncoming cars, and got Komas's car switched off before the gas pedal injected enough fuel into the engine to blow the car up into a monster fireball. Then he administered first aid to the guy until the ambulance showed up. To this day, Komas credits Senna with saving his life.
That's also something you don't need to be a hardcore racing fan to appreciate.
Ayrton Senna da Silva was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on March 21, 1960. He was racing cars roughly around the time his grip strength was powerful enough to hold onto a steering wheel, starting at the age of four when he would tear ass around his family farm in a homemade go-kart his dad built him using a one-horsepower lawnmower engine and presumably whatever other spare parts he managed to scrounge up and assemble into a vaguely car-shaped object. By thirteen Senna was racing for money in those little Mario Kart-looking things, coming in second in the World Championships in 1979 and 1980, and after that he graduated to single-seater race cards and won the Formula Ford 1600 his first year on the circuit. In 1983 Senna won Formula Three, including a span of 9 straight first-place race finishes on the circuit (one of many records Senna would break in his career), and later that year he tried out for some minor Formula One team – and literally the first time he got behind the wheel of an F1 car he drove it around the track a full second faster than that team's top driver.
Naturally Senna got picked up for F1, signing with Toleman, and if you've never heard of a Toleman car before it's because they weren't a very good team and the only good thing that ever happened to them was Ayrton Senna. He got divorced, quit his day job, gave up his inheritance, moved to Europe, and dedicated himself entirely to racing and knowing everything about racing. The guy had an insane memory and would memorize every detail of his car, the track, the conditions – he could recite specs on every data point on his car, personally made tweaks and adjustments to the vehicle, and worked day and night with his mechanics and crew to optimize every available data point on his car so that the thing basically just became an extension of his giant balls.
Senna burst onto the F1 scene at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1984, when he was racing for those Toleman guys nobody's ever heard of before. Starting in 13th place, racing through a torrential downpour, and going up against guys like Niki Lauda that were driving badass Ferraris and shit, Senna shot ahead, blew past everyone, got into second place, and was nearly about to catch up to the leader when the weather conditions got too bonkers and they had to stop the race because everyone was essentially just driving through a knee-deep river at 200 miles an hour. Senna came in second, but he was pretty annoyed with the guy who won – a fellow racing badass named Alain Prost – and basically insinuated that Prost only started complaining about the weather because he didn't want to lose to Senna. Remember Prost's name, because he's going to come up again in a big way later on.
Anyway, Senna knew that he wasn't going to get much done from behind the wheel of a friggin' Toleman, so he bought out his own contract and switched over to Lotus in 1985. He won his first Grand Prix in Portugal that year, driving again in a cataclysmic rainstorm with dudes crashing out all over the place (pro racing in the 80s was some Mad Max shit), but Senna got the pole position in qualifying, was never passed by anyone at any point during the race, and somehow finished the race a full minute ahead of a Ferrari while in a Lotus that was not nearly as fast or as maneuverable. It would be kind of a thing for Senna, he still holds the F1 record for most wins where you lead pole-to-pole – he did it nineteen times in his career.
One thing that made Senna such a legendarily-badass driver was that he was a master of defensive driving – a term that to you and me probably means that thing they teach you in DUI class where you have to come to a complete stop and not plow into crossing guards at 80 miles an hour in a school zone, but in terms of F1 racing it means you drive like a half-blind psychopath and swerve all around the road like a complete lunatic any time someone tries to pass you. Basically, this guy was completely ruthless, and he'd rather crash his car and ruin both of your lives than lose a race because he was completely mental. One pro F1 driver once commented, "he often used to put us in a position that you were going to have an accident, and he would leave it up to you whether to have that accident or not." He'd basically dare you to smash into him, then make you pay for it if you punked out. Nobody was harder to pass, nobody was more ruthless, and nobody else went as balls-out to hold on to victory. In a 1991 race in Brazil, Senna was 36 seconds ahead of Riccardo Patrese with just 10 laps to go when his gearbox blew out and shredded his transmission. Senna, racing on slicks tires in an increasingly-heavy rainstorm with a transmission that looked like Kylo Ren had taken a lightsaber to it, absolutely refused to lose in front of his hometown crowd – the dude somehow completed the last ten laps with his car stuck in sixth gear and held off Patrese, mostly by driving like a lunatic and cutting Patrese off over and over again with increasingly nutbar and balls-out maneuvering. When the race was over, Senna was so exhausted he needed help to get out of his car, and could barely hold the trophy up at the podium celebration. Naturally, this only made him more of a legend to the Brazilians.
A year later, at the Monaco Grand Prix in 1992, Senna was in second place with 3 laps to go, but skipped a pit stop to try and gain some time on the leader, Nigel Mansell. Senna passed Mansell while Mansell was in the pit getting new tires, but then for the next 3 laps Mansell was driving a much faster car with brand-new tires while Artyon Senna was basically swerving and weaving around on bald-ass tires trying to keep this guy from passing him. If you think that shit is infuriating when it's a 90 year-old dude in a 1987 Volvo driving 27 miles an hour on the freeway, you should put yourself in Nigel Mansell's shoes – dude never got around Senna and ended up getting silver.
Of course, the other thing that set Senna apart from other racers is the fact that when he wasn't in first place this guy was borderline-suicidal in how aggressive he was to get around you and shave seconds off his time, and when he was pissed off he was even more hardcore about ramming his front wing up your tailpipe. Like, in 1988 at a race in Japan with the World Championship on the line, Senna had the pole position because he'd had the best qualifying time, but his McLaren stalled out because he hit A before the flying Koopa dude hit the green light, and by the time Senna got up to speed he had fallen from 1st to 14th place while covering less than a mile of track. But this is not a dude who gave up and backed down just because of some shit like that – Senna drove like a complete lunatic, made up six places in his first lap, was in 4th place by lap 4, and in second place by lap 20. Soon after he passed the leader, Alain Prost, and never gave up control – even though Prost's car was 1.5 seconds faster 0-to-60 than Senna's, the Brazilian defeated him and took home his first World Championship.
This would also be the beginning of a legendary feud with Prost. A year later, again in Japan with the World Championship on the line, Prost was far enough ahead in the standings that basically Senna was only going to get the Championship if he won that race. Prost jumped out to a lead, and Senna took a really aggressive turn to try and pass him, but Prost closed it down and crashed out both cars – knocking them both out of the race and guaranteeing that Prost would be World Champion.
Except, Senna got pissed. He demanded that he be put back on the track, took a pit stop to have an entire damn wing on his car replaced, got back on the track and won the damn race. Sadly, the F1 screwed him out of the title though because they said he cut too much of a corner while re-entering the track after being sideswiped into a wall, which honestly seems like bullshit but what can you do. Senna got his revenge a year later, again in Japan, when the situations were reversed and Senna just needed to keep Prost from winning the race – Senna fucking t-boned him on Turn One and wrecked both cars out of the race less than ten seconds into it, guaranteeing his 1990 title.
Then, in case there was any doubt about it, Senna went out and became World Champion in 1991 again, this time by a more considerable and less-controversial route.
If you want a truly amazing display of huge balls, check out the first minute of his 1993 race in Donnington where Senna goes from fourth to first in 6 turns, passing Prost and the legendary Michael Schumacher in the process.
Artyon Senna's final race came on May 1st, 1994, at the the San Marino Grand Prix in Italy. Senna was in the lead, with nobody in his rearview mirror, when his steering column failed and went head-on into a wall at 186 miles an hour. He was killed on impact. Senna was only 34 years old, a 3-time world champion with 41 Grand Prix wins and 65 Poles to his name, and a reputation as one of – if not the – greatest Formula One racer of all time. An estimated three million people came out to line the streets of São Paulo as a police motorcade brought his body home, a number that I've seen listed as being the largest gathering of mourners in history. The day was a national tragedy in Brazil, and the country declared three days of mourning to honor their legendary icon.
It was only after his death that information came to light that Artyon Senna had spent most of his life donating huge sums of money to organizations dedicated to providing education to poor Brazilian families. His family chose to honor his dedication by founding the Instituto Ayron Senna, a charitable NGO that has raised over forty million dollars to childhood education in Brazil and continues to work towards providing schooling to underprivileged kids across the country.
Senna would have turned 60 years old last week.
"I refuse to walk away from the fight. It's my nature to go right to the end, and that's what I'm going to do."