223 replies to this topic

[Touchdown]

I always tend to think Senna's best qualifying lap was actually at Suzuka in 1989 - outqualifying Prost by a frankly ridiculous 1.7 seconds.

[BiggestBuddyLazierFan]

The question is not if Senna was a dirty driver. He was as dirty as hell. The question is why the governing body did not react.

Because they loved him, my dear Boillot, they loved him.

And they loved him for he brought excitement and refreshment into tedious world of grand prix racing.

[PlatenGlass]

I always tend to think Senna's best qualifying lap was actually at Suzuka in 1989 - outqualifying Prost by a frankly ridiculous 1.7 seconds.

Or was it Prost's worst? With only one comparison point and without anything like sector times or onboard footage it's difficult to judge it. That's why the whole Monaco 1988 thing is so out of proportion.

[PayasYouRace]

That's the same gap as Jacques Villeneuve put on Heinz-Harald Frentzen in their first qualifying session as teammates in Australia 1997.

[as65p]

Or was it Prost's worst? With only one comparison point and without anything like sector times or onboard footage it's difficult to judge it. That's why the whole Monaco 1988 thing is so out of proportion.

 

Regardless of Prosts lap, there's footage of Sennas 1989 Suzuka pole lap. Everyone can judge for themselves if it was any good or mythically overrated... I'm sure on this forum there will be some voting for the latter... 

 

PS: Here's even better, a side-by-side comparison of their qualifying laps. Already after the Esses and Degners, Senna has Prost dropped like a stone, after that it's harder to tell where he's making up time, as sadly no clocks running.

Edited by as65p, 03 March 2019 - 10:31.

[PlayboyRacer]

Sometimes it can be a combination of factors that lead to such a huge gap in qualifying.

There is no doubt that Senna, with those performances in Monaco '88 and Japan '89, was in a zone, totally at one with his car and had it on a string. Just extracting more and more performance as he kept pushing. Same goes for the example PayasYouRace gave, go watch the 1997 Australian GP qualifying and you'll see JV on absolute fire, he kept pushing harder and harder and the car kept responding and his speed was phenomenal. In the footage he's on the ragged edge and, but for a mistake on his final run, almost went even faster than his pole time.

Sometimes a driver just literally hits a sweet spot. By the same token, Frentzen was clearly not at his very best at that first qualy session and it wouldn't surprise me if Prost in those qualy sessions was having issues or concentrating more on race set ups or just off his game a bit.

Add it all up and sometimes you get those huge gaps. Its never just one element. Even so we know Senna was a qualifying master and JV, in his best years, was very fast and ridiculously brave. They were just on fire on those occassions.

Edited by PlayboyRacer, 03 March 2019 - 09:25.

[boillot]

Because they loved him, my dear Boillot, they loved him.

And they loved him for he brought excitement and refreshment into tedious world of grand prix racing.

I tend to think that the real reason was that they were inert and incompetent, something the FIA/FISA proved itself to be for decades over and over again.
The GP world was not tedious at all back then.

[NotAPineapple]

As far as I have uncovered, Senna was never seen in Croydon. The real stamp of a champion and no-one can take that away from him.

[Henri Greuter]

I always tend to think Senna's best qualifying lap was actually at Suzuka in 1989 - outqualifying Prost by a frankly ridiculous 1.7 seconds.

 

Curiously enough, just like that fabled ;88 Monaco, it didn't bring him nothing.

Prost was aware of the fact that his car was superior to all other cars save Senna's so that he had only to make sure he was on the front row with a car idealy suited for the race. And should he beat Senna fir the first corner he had the better papers for the race.

Exactly what happened......

 

So what did this massive 1.7 second ahead of Senna gain him? Maybe he hoped for a Psycho effect on Prost to be that much faster? Well, Alain countered perfectly.

 

So, at least for the qualifying rules of that time, so far for creating the largest gap between Pole time and second fastest.....

[as65p]

Curiously enough, just like that fabled ;88 Monaco, it didn't bring him nothing.

Prost was aware of the fact that his car was superior to all other cars save Senna's so that he had only to make sure he was on the front row with a car idealy suited for the race. And should he beat Senna fir the first corner he had the better papers for the race.

Exactly what happened......

 

So what did this massive 1.7 second ahead of Senna gain him? Maybe he hoped for a Psycho effect on Prost to be that much faster? Well, Alain countered perfectly.

Prost simply had no other choice than to prepare for the race best he could, qualify 2nd and count on luck for the start. It just wasn't in his power to compete with Senna for pole, so he tried to make the best of the situation. Smart enough, but not exactly a cunning tactical masterstroke, the options were forced upon him. Even so, despite his best efforts to prepare the car for the race and somewhat luckily getting the lead at the start, Senna, who as some will tell you wasted all his practice time on qualifying setup, hauled him in and attacked in the race.

 

Maybe time for a thread asking how much of Prosts "le professeur" lable is actually more a myth than reality? Nahh....

[Henri Greuter]

Because they loved him, my dear Boillot, they loved him.

And they loved him for he brought excitement and refreshment into tedious world of grand prix racing.

 

 

I tend to think that the real reason was that they were inert and incompetent, something the FIA/FISA proved itself to be for decades over and over again.
The GP world was not tedious at all back then.

 

I think Boillot is claser to the truth.

 

As early as '85 there were some sings of Senna's driving style being debatable if not out of order, yet nothing was done.

Then we had Suzuka '89.

After Senna being disqualified McLaren put in a protest to get back that victory. But instead, the DQ was confirmed and supported by a list of misbehavings of Senna in the time before Suzuka.All of a sudden they came down on him at long, long last.

The stupid thing about that was of course that, what initially had been left ignored, all of a sudden retrospectively held against Senna. Of course a rediculous attempt to enforce their powers at the wrong moment and in a wrong manner. It was too late. Hd FIA-FISA been more up to it, they would have taken actions way before that, if not already pointed out a thing or two to Senna in '85  already. But with letting him get away wit all of what he had done up till then already, it simply was too late and FIA were making fools out of themselves.

 

There was enough excitement he still could have brought to F1, but the nasty, habits should have been brought under control way earlier instead of a futile attempt in '89 after first keeping a WDC battle alive for as long as possible.

[boillot]

I remember complaints from Alboreto, de Angelis, Lauda, Mansell, Piquet, Prost and Rosberg (perhaps I forgot somebody) already in 1985 about the manners Senna raced with.

About love, it seems indeed that Honda loved him, so he became their favoured son, as much that it can likely explain a lot of his 1989 margin over Prost.

Edited by boillot, 03 March 2019 - 10:35.

[boillot]

Now back to revisit my 1987 year old Williams claim.

What happened in 1987 was two fold: Renault with their special qualifying engines (changing turbos after each qualifying run!) was no more in F1 and anyway, the 4-bar rules prevented the other qualifying special manufacturer, BMW, from having an edge in qualifying.

This led to more engine parity (especially in qualifying) and actually placed more emphasis on the chassis. Williams likely did not develop their cars more than other teams (they knew it was a good car and P. Head decided that the effort of building a new chassis was not necessary) who mostly introduced new chassis while Williams did not, actually Ferrari made much bigger jump. But Williams's qualifying results were better than in 1986 (and Senna's worse) due to the aforementioned changes on the engine front.

So Senna found himself driving an inferior chassis and equal best engine (to Williams) while in 1986 qualifying, Renault more than compensated for the 98T deficiences. The result: he scored a single pole, at a track where his car had a competitive advantage due to active suspension. I wouldn't call it sensational.

Edited by boillot, 03 March 2019 - 10:47.

[Eff1]

I'll say one thing, both Senna or Schumacher would finish a race in the top 6 even if they were driving a cardboard box with drawn on wheels - that kind of talent I've not seen since.

 

Now times that by 1000 when it rained.

 

Sums it up for me.

 

I would add Hamilton to that. 

 

In the future....Verstappen has that potential too.

[as65p]

After Senna being disqualified McLaren put in a protest to get back that victory. But instead, the DQ was confirmed and supported by a list of misbehavings of Senna in the time before Suzuka.All of a sudden they came down on him at long, long last.

 

You, of all people, know pretty well what a shambles that "list of misbehavings" was, infamously even including a case of Senna parking the car trackside in the quickest possible way after a gearbox failure. In a bigger context, the mockery they made of the court hearing dealing with McLarens appeal only served to further cement the impression that Balestre and his minions were out to fix the thing in Prosts favour.

[TecnoRacing]

Ken knew the score...

[boillot]

You, of all people, know pretty well what a shambles that "list of misbehavings" was, infamously even including a case of Senna parking the car trackside in the quickest possible way after a gearbox failure. In a bigger context, the mockery they made of the court hearing dealing with McLarens appeal only served to further cement the impression that Balestre and his minions were out to fix the thing in Prosts favour.

Senna indeed played the public sentiments masterfully, switching the truth for 180 degrees.
As good a driver he was, he was an even better manipulator.
It’s true that FISA acted clumsily (as usual) but Senna was long overdue for a much harsher penalty than he eventually got.

[as65p]

I remember complaints from Alboreto, de Angelis, Lauda, Mansell, Piquet, Prost and Rosberg (perhaps I forgot somebody) already in 1985 about the manners Senna raced with.
 

Of course the true reason for any complaints was Senna disturbing the established guys cozy hacking order.

[as65p]

Senna indeed played the public sentiments masterfully, switching the truth for 180 degrees.
As good a driver he was, he was an even better manipulator.
It’s true that FISA acted clumsily (as usual) but Senna was long overdue for a much harsher penalty than he eventually got.

 

It's understood that this are your personal feelings, yet they unfortunately are still not supported by actual facts or on-track events. Other drivers being miffed about a newcomer showing no respect is a poor reason to punish that newcomer, even if the FIA of that time still gave it a try.

[boillot]

Of course the true reason for any complaints was Senna disturbing the established guys cozy hacking order.

Other drivers disturbed the order before and there was no outcry (with the exception of Patrese in 1978 but that was a special set of circumstances).
The realreason is that Senna blocked, squeezed and pushed people off the track.

[TecnoRacing]

Curiously enough, just like that fabled ;88 Monaco, it didn't bring him nothing.

So what did this massive 1.7 second ahead of Senna gain him?

 

Transcendence and immortality.

To think - such a fractional moment in time - still talked about decades later (much to the annoyance of cranks.) Beautiful

Edited by fer312t, 03 March 2019 - 11:20.

[boillot]

It's understood that this are your personal feelings, yet they unfortunately are still not supported by actual facts or on-track events. Other drivers being miffed about a newcomer showing no respect is a poor reason to punish that newcomer, even if the FIA of that time still gave it a try.

Senna showed no respect for sporting rules, that’s the case.
In 1980s I read the German magazine Rallye Racing where Rosberg and de Angelis had their columns and I remember Senna’s racing manners being questioned quite often.

[boillot]

Transcendence and immortality.
To think - such a fractional moment in time - still talked about decades later (much to the annoyance of cranks.) Beautiful

Prost outqualified the field by 2.3 secs in France in 1983. Why is it not talked about? Because he is the villain in the media swindle where Senna is the hero.

[PayasYouRace]

You were warned.