Seventeen years after that fateful day at Imola, in which the legendary Brazilian Ayrton Senna was killed at the wheel of a Formula One racing car, Asif Kapadia’s documentary film reveal a fascinating insight into the three-time world champion.
With access to the Formula One Management’s extensive video archive, the producers – Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, James Gay-Rees and Manish Pandey – tells the story of Ayrton Senna’s life and career through original video footage, much of it never before seen.
The uses of talking head interviews or a narrator were taken out, instead voice-overs from several contributors including journalists, former racing drivers and Senna himself, plus addition clips from television commentaries tells the story.
The film starts with Senna’s arrival in Formula One in the mid 1980s. Driving for Toleman at a soaking wet Monaco Grand Prix in 1984, the Brazilian demonstrated his amazing wet weather talent. The following year, representing Team Lotus in the classic black and gold John Player Special livery car, Ayrton Senna won his maiden Grand Prix at a rain-soaked Portuguese Grand Prix.
The film then shifts to his rivalry with Alain Prost, his team-mate at McLaren. The battle for on-track supremacy with his nemesis was intense, with the Brazilian determined to win at all cost.
Two important moments in the rising hostility between Senna and Prost are omitted in the film. These were the wheel-to-wheel duel at Estoril in 1988 and the row that erupted over the restart at Imola in 1989.
But the sequences of events at Suzuka in 1989 and 1990 prove to be the main focal point in the film.
In a bid to remain in the contention for the world title, Senna had to win the Japanese Grand Prix. The only problem was his McLaren team-mate Prost. He had to overtake his rival in order to win the championship.
Approaching the chicane, Senna tried an inside move on Prost. The Frenchman turned his car into the apex and the two McLarens ended up with their wheels interlocked in the Suzuka chicane escape road. Prost got out from his car and yet Senna got a push-start from the track marshals to re-join the race.
He took the lead from the Benetton of Alessandro Nannini and went on to finish first, only to be disqualified by the sport’s governing body for cutting the chicane after the collision and for crossing into the pit lane entry.
A large fine and temporary suspension of his Super License followed. Senna was furious and engaged in a bitter war of words with the FIA and its then President Jean-Marie Balestre.
Even though the film portrays Prost as his nemeses, in turns out that the FIA President is ultimately the main villain. The footage in the drivers’ briefing providing glimpses of Balestre’s heavy-handed and partisan interventions to do Senna no favours at all.
The following year, at the same circuit where the pair had their collision, Senna took pole ahead of Prost. The pole position in Suzuka was on the right-hand, dirty side of the track. Alain Prost made a better start in the Ferrari and pulled ahead of Ayrton Senna’s McLaren. Going into the first turn, Senna aggressively kept his line and never lifted the throttle, while Prost turned in and the McLaren ploughed into the rear wheel of the Ferrari at about 170 mph, putting both cars off the track, and sealing the championship to the Brazilian.
Twelve months later, after taking his third world championship, Senna explained to the press his actions at Suzuka 1990.
He maintained that prior to qualifying fastest, he had sought and received assurances from race officials that pole position would be changed to the left-hand, clean side of the track, only to find this decision reversed by Jean-Marie Balestre after he had taken pole.
Explaining the collision with Prost, Senna said that what he had wanted was to make it clear that he was not going to accept what he perceived as unfair decision making by Balestre, including his disqualification in 1989 and the pole position in 1990.
Prost would later go on record slamming Senna’s actions as “disgusting” and that he seriously considered retiring from the sport after that incident.
The film reaches a poignant and moving conclusion with that awful weekend in Imola, with the final sequence of events striking an emotional chord.
There are some astonishing moments in which we see Senna’s devastated reaction to the death of Roland Ratzenberger and the hospitalisation of Rubens Barrichello, which ironically inspired the Brazilian to recreate the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association to improve track safety, mere hours before his own death.
To the credit of director Asif Kapadia, the final few minutes with Senna losing control of his Williams-Renault and the national mourning in Brazil are beautifully handed. It’s tragic that we have the lost one of the greatest Formula One driver in the history of the sport but how this film presented the Brazilian as a hero and a Saint (He donated millions to his native country to provide a better life for the poor) is a remarkable achievement in film making.
In fact, Kapadia’s film on Senna won the World Cinema Audience Award for documentaries at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and it fully deserves the acclamation. Highly recommended.
