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[ensign14]

It was a hard hit.  A very hard hit.  The hardest of his career.  

The television cameras cut away from the aftermath so that the worldwide viewers could not see the efforts being made to get him out of the car.  There were fears for his life.  That evening the doctors confirmed he was unconscious, but stable, and the external injuries were limited to a couple of broken bones.  

He was obviously going to be out for a while and Williams put their test driver Coulthard in to take his place pro tem.  But by the Canadian Grand Prix, Ayrton Senna was ready, willing, able and available for the number 2.  He was staring at a near-impossible task; Schumacher was 36 points to the good, with three wins out of three to start the season, and a Monaco surefire win lost when he came to lap Coulthard.  The Scot, on his Grand Prix debut, lifted off in the tunnel to let the German past, just as Schumacher prepared to dive down inside coming out of the tunnel.  Schumacher was not impressed.  

Nevertheless, with a guaranteed gain of 4 points per race on Schumacher for every win, eight wins would take Senna into the championship lead.  Canada was to be the first.  But it was a little too soon.  Sid Watkins persuaded Senna to sit out the race after a dizzy spell in practice.  He could only watch as Schumacher won - again - to take him up to 46 points.  At least Damon Hill kept the Williams flag flying with a second, but he had half the score of the Benetton.

But “only watch” was not Ayrton’s style.  In 1992 he had cadged a lift with Mansell at Silverstone, and taken the opportunity to clock the Williams’ fuel consumption for the race.  Debriefed straight away to Dennis.  He therefore sweet-talked Bernie into giving him a triple-A and hung around with some of the medics in an otherwise-forbidden zone.  There was something just odd about the Benetton.  He couldn’t catch it on Lehto’s car - it could have been the Finn not exploiting it - but the engine note was choppy on Schumacher’s.  Senna had already had his suspicions at the Pacific Grand Prix.  This time he would act on it.  Giving a few autographs and Nacional hats to the course clerks on post helped.  They passed the word up the chain, the scrutes gave the Benetton a rubber-glove inspection post-race, and, hey presto, something odd was found in the software.  It was not particularly obvious; you had to ctrl/alt/delete and scroll down, but there it was.  Launch control.  A most palpable launch control.

Mosley was thrown into panic.  Benetton had been good for the sport.  They had injected a sense of fun, of adventure; they were not the dyed-in-the-oil racing roughies, who were dirtying his nice clean pit-lane.  They had knitwear.  They had designer sunglasses.  They had aristocracy.  They had style.  They had chutzpah.  They had Flavio.  Flavio had presence.  And presents.  This was the upmarket jollification that the sport required, not the proletariat made good who kept revving their engines on the grid when the Portuguese President was trying to make a speech about Lisbon motorways.  And they had a lawyer’s eye for the regulations.  They exploited loopholes.  Max liked loopholes.  Why should the race go to the swift, when it could go to the smart?

And there was a perfect loophole to be exploited.  Had Benetton actually used the software?  Ayrton said they did, he could hear it.  Ah, but that’s one person’s word against another.  Indeed, an expert witness with a vested interest.  Senna’s voice would remain unheard.  Frank Williams admitted he could not say one way or another whether it had been used.  Benetton said it was just there for testing.  Why waste a clutch on a duff start and ruin a day at Pembrey even more than normal?  

However, there was a compromise.  Benetton would take off the option.  Eliminate it completely.  And they did.  In time for the French Grand Prix.  By some happenstance Schumacher was nowhere there.  Ayrton was back.  A dominant win and his first points of the season.

Schumacher knew he was in a battle now.  This was not about the world championship.  Schumacher was on 50 points, Senna on 10.  Schumacher did not overly care for the points difference; there were 9 races left, so even finishing behind a perennially winning Senna would give him the title.   But this was not about being world champion.  Schumacher did not want to win a title in which Senna won 9 races and he only won 4.  Two of which were with Senna absent.  No, Schumacher had to beat Senna squarely.

It was time for the mind games.  Senna had tried his post-France, stating that Schumacher was only the technical championship leader.  “I would never countenance such cheating,” said Ayrton to Jackie Stewart on NBC, “it goes against all sporting integrity.”  Schumacher was riled.  He had not been disqualified once in his Grand Prix career.  Unlike some.  He was not cowed.  Indeed it was time for the young lion to do some scratching.  He would intimidate Ayrton back.  

At the British Grand Prix, Schumacher qualified third, behind Senna and the homeboy Hill.  On the warm-up lap Schumacher sprinted between them and ostentatiously warmed his tyres up in front of Senna.  This is all you will see of me, said Schumacher.  And he was right.  Schumacher’s start was lightning.  With no room for any doubt over software.  He had the lead by the first corner.  Senna tried everything to get past but could not.  But that warm-up lap left a legacy of disqualifcation, it just needed to be executed.  And it was just as Williams was radioing Ayrton to tell him that the black flags were out for Michael that Senna tried one banzai too much and beached himself in the gravel.  Schumacher openly raged about the technicality that saw him out; privately he was delighted.  He had Senna’s number.

The incident sobered Ayrton up significantly.  He was more circumspect in Germany.  Good thing too - everyone seemed to fall off around him, and he cruised to a win.  Not one he valued for the quality of the drive, but crucial for the championship situation.  He was up to 20 points.  Schumacher was marooned on 50.  

But just as he thought he had momentum, Ayrton had a problem.  The short switchback at the Hungaroring made him vertiginous and nauseous.  He kept it from Sid, just mentioned a few problems a “friend” was having.  Sid suggested it was some sort of problem with the equilibrium, perhaps disturbed by a blow on the head.  The fast circuits had not overly bothered him.  This little wiggy one did.  Hill led the Williams charge, but was well behind Schumacher.  It was now 60-24.  And Ayrton was running out of races.  Only six to go.  He could get no more than 84 points.  Schumacher could finish third every time and be level.  Ayrton did not want it to go to a tie-break.  It had to be decisive.  He needed Hill’s support. 

He got it at Belgium.  Ayrton led from start to finish.  Schumacher was a little ragged, discomfited that he was not dominating at this most driver of tracks.  And even worse Hill was buzzing around his aris.  So much so that a shower persuaded Schumacher into a different strategy.  It did not work.  The shower was not an Ardennes downpour and Schumacher lost a needless minute.  Down in 13th.  Up ahead though it was a Williams 1-2.  And better news for Ayrton.  This ostensible upturn in Williams speed caused Benetton to cut some serious corners.  At Monza they ran their cars right against the minimum height limit.  Too close to it.  Schumacher thought he had at least four points in the bag - but a post-race inspection found the wooden plank under the car had been turned into splinters.  It was another Williams 1-2.  Senna was now on 44 points.  Sixteen behind.  Four to go.  Four wins would guarantee he would beat Schumacher.

And Schumacher was feeling the pressure.  Although he poled at Portugal he was spooked by a fast-starting Senna on his left - and boshed into a slightly-less-fast starting Hill to his right.  The Williams was out, the Benetton wounded; a replacement of the front wing saw him adrift down the field.  It was an almighty fightback.  One of the best anyone had ever seen.  Every pass as clean and clear as a bell.  And it brought him from a lap down to seventh with one lap to go.  Behind Martin Brundle.  His former team-mate.  Who owed him no favours.  In the last corner Schumacher flew in from miles behind.  They said that Schumacher was the new Senna.  He finished this race on top of Brundle.  Keith Sutton got the perfect picture.  Side-by-side in Autosport with an earlier one.  The only difference was the clothing manufacturer on the sidepod…

The gap was now six points.  With three to go.  This was the buttock-clenching time.  And at Jerez Schumacher was supreme.  A champion’s drive if ever anyone saw one.  The gap was back out to ten points now.  Schumacher 70, Senna 60.  With two to go, all Schumacher needed was one win to take the title.  But Japan threw an almighty curveball.  The race was held in a monsoon.  The main straight was impossible to control.  It was sheer luck whether anyone could make it through.  The television murk showed the occasional shadow of a spin.  A purple smudge showed that Inoue was off.   A blue-and-white one was Katayama.  A green-and-yellow one was Herbert.  The race was halted.  It would be a two-part race.  Herbert’s car was towed back to the pits.  Only it was not Herbert’s.  The number was most definitely 5.  Schumacher was out.  Senna, the modern-day Rosemeyer, danced over the waters and won again.  

It was now Schumacher 70, Senna 70.

And there was one race to go.

It was clearly winner take all.  Six wins each.  One second each.  One third each.  The media were in a frenzy about what would happen if they were still level in the title race.  Would it go to poles?  Fastest laps?  Race distance covered?  Even a mad one-lap shootout in Austin Westminsters?  Bernie stoked the fires for a week before Max applied the extinguishers.  He simply pointed out the rules.  If level on points, you looked at the individual results.  They were identical for the first six placings.  But note that  incident at Portugal.  Schumacher had had to wait for the Benetton to be winched away, given that he himself was stuck six feet in the air.  But he had completed 70 out of the 71 race laps.  That was enough to classify him in seventh place.  Schumacher had more sevenths.  He was in the championship lead.

Melbourne had not seen anything like it since Jack Knave and the Dandy Highwayman fought out a duel in 1858.  This was the absolute ultimate.  Senna put the Williams on pole - again - but Schumacher finagled past him at the start.  He tried to sprint away.  But he could not eke out more than a couple of seconds’ gap.  Pit stop time.  Senna came in and went out.  Perfect.  The pressure was on the Benetton boys.  Schumacher came in, and went out.  Almost perfect.  Half-a-second slower.  It was just enough to keep him in the lead - but Senna was right on his axle.

Lap 36 and Senna took it uncharacteristically when lapping a back marker.  Schumacher breathed the slightest sigh of relief as he gained about a second.  Perhaps he was still breathing that sigh as he went into East Terrace for the thirty-seventh time.  He went ever so slightly wide.  The momentum and lack of grip took him wider.  All the way into the wall.  It was a definite clout.  Suspension bent.  It was over.

Senna did not see this.  All he saw was a Benetton coming back on track after being unusually wide.  This was the moment he took the lead in the Formula 1 World Championship.  His thought processes were instant.  If I were Schumacher, he thought, I would take out my opponent.  That way I guarantee that I beat him.  The ends justify the means.  I am the better man; the world merely needs to see the proof.  But I, thought Senna, am Senna.  He would not even dare to try.

The only problem, thought Senna, would be if he were out of control of his car.  He is too good for that.  Surely.

Senna therefore took advantage and the apex.  He was so astonished that the Benetton also took the apex that he did not register it bouncing off the Williams and nearly flipping until he was stopped in the pits for a damage inspection.  Those big brown eyes stared at the kink on the wishbone, and the yellow helmet slowly shook as he knew the truth.  HIs race was over.  Schumacher had done it.  He had beaten Ayrton.

The media frenzy after the race was torrential.  Was it deliberate?  Was it a freak?  Was Ayrton hoist by his own petard?  Brazilians burnt effigies of Schumacher in the streets.  The seleccao had insults to Benetton under their yellow shirts as they paraded the World Cup a couple of months later.  Renault sales in Germany dropped to a post-war low.   And there is thread in The Nostalgia Forum debating the incident that has now reached 43 pages.  Even after the RC banter has been taken out.

Such a debate because after the race Senna and Schumacher sat down together in an atmosphere of nuclear tension.  Senna told Schumacher that Schumacher was in the wrong.  Schumacher told Senna that Senna was in the wrong.  So they talked and talked and talked.  In the end it was obvious.  They looked each other in the eye as if they were looking in a mirror.  They were of the same stamp.  Neither was worthy unless the other were there.  They shook hands at the end and agreed they would never take each other out again.  They were each too good for that.  They would never speak of the incident.  And they would never hit each other again.  Over the next six years they shared the titles.  Senna finally finished his career at Ferrari with his last title in 2000; his seat was filled by Schumacher in 2001.

Incidentally, even to this day people still forget that the race, and the title, went to Damon Hill.
 

[F1TestCatalunya]

o_O

[sabjit]

What a great alternate history!

[SophieB]

I am sorry but this doesn't belong in Racing Comments, the sub forum about current (and real) racing events, ensign14.