I came across this wonderful video on McLaren official web site. It shows Senna's amazing talent on Williams, McLaren and Toleman in 1983 as he was doing his first laps in a F1 car. He was so confident and quick. That's truly a bookmark video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xwZCqHpX7Q

Brilliant ! Thanks Ali

Nice of Frank to give Ayrton a test even though he had no immediate intention of signing him. Thanks for that.

It's quite strange for Williams not to hire a driver who sets the best lap just because he's young and inexperienced. Amazin how Senna, on the other hand, was massively self-confident for a guy had who just done his first laps in an F1 car. Totally brilliant.

great little video

It was a sign of the times and something he regreted later.

I thought the main reason he wasnt signed was because Frank already had two drivers under contract for 84?

None of the big teams were signing young guys at the time.

love it!

I really enjoyed this, thanks for posting it.

Its fun seeing the familiar Marlboro McLaren/ Yellow helmet combination but in an 83 McLaren instead.

It wasn't really the done thing in those days to put new drivers into top cars. Drivers had to do their apprenticeship back then pretty much until Schumacher was plucked out of the Jordan after one race and put into the Benneton.

But Senna said "There is a great offer from a great team [Williams] but there is no decision made by me." If it is not conventional, then why did Williams bother to make an offer anyway? He also said Bernie, Brabham made an offer too, which was one of the top teams back then.

Doesn't this go in the Nostalgia section?

Apparently some made him an offer to Race another year of F3, or become test driver, and become an F1 driver only 2-3 years later..

mystery, they way it went?

Anyways a great occasion that is that a non top team got to let Senna drive one of the car. remind me of Schumacher in Jordan and Alonso in Minaldi.


Draft system to formula one?

My impression is that Senna seemed to have a swagger about him that was *not* particularly deferential to team bosses (his remark about "not recognizing my previous achievements") - Frank, in context, sounded a bit guarded in his remarks. I would say Williams saw he wasn't going to be a driver to take "direction", perhaps, despite his obvious speed.

An instructive comparison:

Tommy Byrne, TNFer & award-winning author

Personally I think that Senna, or rather Senna's reputation, makes a significant part of modern F1. Same with the 'best driver evarrrrr' threads, they're more part of the modern response to mythos like, than they're part of History.

Great vid !!!
I've never seen the mcLaren test footage before.

The only test missing before Senna got in F1 was the Paul Ricard test with Piquet's Brabham-BMW, where Nelson outpaced Ayrton and Mauro Baldi by 1.6 sec.

Great bit of footage this. Ayrton right on the edge into the final corner at Donington and really powering down to Redgate is something else!! Thanks for this!

Senna was a God in karting, and everything else he tried, no reason for him to think that F1 would be any different.

After Senna, F1 started paying more attention to karting -this is where they plucked all the current WDCs. It's a shame TV ignores this. I'd rather watch the European or World Karting championships over some GP2 race.