Rear View

Anniversaries tend to rekindle memory, of days gone by, of people who touchedour lives, of places and spaces we inhabited, and of events that left anindelible mark on our lives.

Every year, when the Formula 1 (F1) circus rolls into Imola in the tinyEuropean country called San Marino, time rewinds, to one fateful May afternoonin 1994. As the cars, sleek and colourful, sweep around the Imola track, themind starts to pick up shards of a life shattered on the sweeping Tamburellocorner on that balmy day.

It remembers a white and blue Williams F1 car, driven by one widelyacknowledged to be among those rare grand prix drivers always ahead of theircar, hurtling off the track at great speed at Tamburello, cannoning into a walland breaking into pieces, killing its driver. It was the last time Ayrton Sennawould scorch the earth with his phenomenal talent.

Death has always been a wilful passenger for race drivers, and will alwaysbe, but over the years it had started to show some mercy. It had been nearlyeight years since F1 had seen a race driver die on the track, such had been theadvances made in safety by teams and race authorities.

To see two young lives come to pass way before their time during that weekendin Imola (the day before Senna's death, Austrian rookie Ronald Ratzenberger,driving for new team Simtek, lost his life in a high-speed shunt in practice)was cruel and tragic. The lights went out in F1 that weekend.

The lights did come back on, such is the circle of life and the business ofsport. Rich tributes were paid to Senna by fellow drivers and fans, thefragility of a race driver's life was acknowledged, safety measures at grandprix tracks were reviewed, and racing resumed. Other men, notably one MichaelSchumacher, did their bit on the racetracks to fill the void left by Senna. Tryhard as they might, they still haven't. There can never be another Senna.

Senna saw racing as a metaphor for life. He drove a race car as if his lifedepended on winning it. There was a kind of purity in his quest to be thefastest driver in the world and go the fastest that he could -- and those aretwo separate things -- that almost bordered on the spiritual.

This single-minded higher pursuit is beautifully illustrated in Senna'srepeated articulations of his quest for that 'perfect lap'. Here's aparticularly moving passage from Formula 1: The Autobiography, the superbF1 anthology edited by Gerald Donaldson: "Before a qualifying lap,everything within me -- my personality, my education, my strong points, myweaknesses -- makes it fundamental to me that I concentrate as deeply as I can.I isolate all outside interference, whether it's photographers, fans or peoplearound me. And in that state I am somehow able to get to a level where I'm aheadof myself -- maybe a fifth of a second, who knows? When my car goes into acorner, I'm already at the apex, and so on. It's the same whether I'm braking,changing gears, putting on the power, or whatever. In effect., I'm predictingwhat I'm going to face so that I can correct it before it actuallyhappens."

Senna was doing what every other driver on the grid was doing, which is totry and win races. Except his way of doing it was different. For the enigmaticSenna, racing was a creative expression during which he sought harmony with hiscar, so as to be at peace with his inner self and the world. In that granddesign, winning was all, it was when he was most at peace.

With such large stakes, he nearly always drove like a man possessed, with anunwavering focus and a pent-up intensity, which he managed to channel into hisracing with good effect. On his part, he would never be willing to concede aninch. But when another driver gave him even so much as half an inch, he wouldjump in and take a mile.

It's hard to recall another driver who pushed the limit so relentlessly, withso much consistency--and success. Martin Brundle, who had many a scrap withSenna in F3 racing, once said of him: "Senna is a genius. I define geniusas just the right side of imbalance. He is highly developed to the point wherehe is almost over the edge. It's too close to call."

Indeed, Senna's contemporaries would call it both ways. His extraordinarynatural ability to control a car at high speeds would earn him praise, but hisstubborn attitude would also be the root source of friction with hisarch-rivals, many of whom labelled him as unsafe to race with. Alain Prost,Senna's teammate during two torrid seasons at McLaren and his chief rival, oncesaid: "Senna has a small problem. He thinks he can kill himself because hebelieves in God, and I think that's dangerous for other drivers." Duringthe late-eighties and early-nineties, Senna and Prost would clash repeatedly,both literally and metaphorically, both on the track and away from it. And itwould make for compelling viewing.

Sport thrives on competition. Over the years, F1 has seen its share ofrivalry, though not with the constancy seen in most other sports. Blame it ontechnology, which has made machine the more significant variable than man in thewinning equation. In F1, seasons that saw the two best drivers in equallymatched cars, to make it an even fight, have been extremely elusive.

One such rare season was 1988, when McLaren boss Ron Dennis, in a move thatcould be as described as amazingly bold or plain foolish, signed on Senna topartner Prost. The two best drivers in the two best cars -- but seen anotherway, also on the same team, in identical cars. "Ego management" is howDennis would later describe his job.

That year, McLaren won 15 of the 16 races, of which, Prost won 7. Senna won8, and the championship, amid perpetual bickering with Prost fuelled bydifferences over the ethics of driving and racing. Veteran race driver JohnWatson would say on Senna's maiden championship win: "If anybody ever soldhis soul to win a championship, Senna did. The commitment was just frightening…Now that he's done it, and has the chance to turn down the wick that he's beenburning so intensely all year, he may be able to go on to this thing calledgreatness and become the greatest driver of his era."

But Senna, ever so ambitious and never one to settle for small spoils, wasn'tready to turn down the wick, not till such time as Prost was in sight. The twoscrambled for top honours for two more gripping seasons, along the way tanglingwith each other numerous times, breaching articles of faith and generally doingeverything other than throttling each other.

The difference in technology eventually got to F1, as McLaren faded away.Williams picked up their game, and Nigel Mansell and Prost won the title for theteam in 1992 and 1993, respectively. But the fallout of this technologicaldivide was that the duels on the track became less intense. And so did therivalries, as the men mellowed with age.

At the start of the 1994 season, Senna was the only one of the old guardleft. Nelson Piquet and Mansell had retired. As had Prost, in quite undeservingcircumstances, unwanted by all top teams. Between themselves, this foursome had11 championships and 146 race wins to show for their endless miles on the track.

Suddenly, Senna was the elder statesman in F1, back again in perhaps the bestcar on the grid (Williams), and without a proven contender in sight. There wereplenty of young cats on the blocks, with the biggest of them being Schumacher.The old hand versus the new gun. It was a rivalry that held huge promise, andthe prowess of Schumacher as a driver over the years has only furthered theimpression that had it run its natural course, the rivalry could well have beenSenna-Prost all over again.

Alas, a promise is all that it remained. Senna crashed out in the first tworaces, leaving Schumacher to take the spoils. On May 1, 1994, in the season'sthird race at Imola, Senna fatally crashed out at Tamburello while leading therace from Schumacher, who once again won. Quite fittingly, Schumacher took overthe baton from Senna and has been the single-biggest reason for sustaining thesport's popularity since.

Ironically, as he heads into Imola this weekend, Schumacher finds himself insomewhat the same situation as Senna in 1994. Schumacher's proven that he's thebest driver of his era by a country mile and also one of the best of all time.He's broken virtually all race records. He's got the quickest car on the grid,but rare driving errors, inclement weather conditions and new rules (designed tocheck his and Ferrari's dominance) have resulted in an indifferent showing sofar. And there's a new challenger on the blocks, in the shape of Kimi Raikkonen.

Schumacher, like Senna, is adept at pushing the limit and finding time wherehis contemporaries might not. The German also makes fewer errors during a race,unlike Senna, who often played the all-or-nothing card and flirted with dangerso very often in his endless quest for excellence. It was such dare-devilry andcommitment that would endear him to race fans.

Even nine years after his death, Senna's spirit lingers on in tracks aroundthe world. Fans fondly recall the mercurial Brazilian, his sharp racing and hisoften deep ruminations on life and racing. "Once I heard someone say thatthe ideal would be to have two lives: one you learn with, the next one you useall the experience in the first, and you don’t make the same mistakes again.It was a very easy statement, you know. It's right, but it's not perfect. Youneed a third life, and a fourth, because you wont ever get to the bottom of it…"

By his own admission, Senna never did get to the bottom of that 'perfectlap'. Neither did he get to the bottom of that other addictive and engagingpursuit -- life.