The younger Senna is this year more likely to be found restored to his former
habitat of endurance racing, ready for a fresh tilt at the Le Mans 24-hour
race with Aston Martin, a year after his team’s efforts foundered with a
crash five hours from the finish while third.
His name, though, continues to evoke not only the cumulative weight of his
inheritance from the great Ayrton, but a young career at least partially
unfulfilled.
For a start, what does he mean by the “near impossible” circumstances of his
final campaign at Williams?
He is openly critical in claiming that his 16th position in the championship
was influenced by the team’s decision to award many of his practice sessions
to Valtteri Bottas, the Finnish rookie who would ultimately succeed him.
“There were many difficulties throughout my time in F1,” he says. “I hadn’t
done half of the age-race championships and so I always had the sense, being
up against the best racing drivers in the world, that I was always one step
behind them, that I didn’t have the second gear to consolidate everything I
had learnt. I kept on pushing, and I have shown in every other championship
besides F1 that I can be competitive in any car. It is just a question of
having the right equipment.”
Bruno is fated always to be living proof that one’s record in F1 is not
preordained by one’s mentors. He had every acquaintance with the genius of
Ayrton he could desire, having been taken to São Paulo’s go-kart tracks by
his uncle by the age of five. Ayrton even said in 1993: “If you think I’m
fast, wait until you see my nephew Bruno.”
But after his breakthrough, performances with Renault, Williams and
now-defunct HRT never quite bore out that logic – fostering a resentment in
his native land that he was failing to honour the heritage of his family, of
Fittipaldi and Piquet, and that he was little more than a pay driver
buttressed by his sponsors.
Given all the barbs, would he ever contemplate a return? “I always keep in
touch with the people in F1 and you can never say never to a good drive
there,” he admits. “But at the same time I wouldn’t go back unless there was
a clear opportunity of being in a competitive car. I found out quickly in
the sport that if you don’t have the right chance, then you won’t go very
far, and I’m working to make sure that in my motor racing career I can race
for many more years – rather than just continuing for another season in F1,
only to be dropped again. I’m more into a sense of being wanted now.”
For all this, Senna, now 30, is anxious to ensure his switch back to the
endurance format, in which he experimented in 2009, is not equivalent to a
career twilight zone. “The racing is very close, very competitive, and we
had situations in qualifying last year of doing two flying laps with two
drivers before comparing them to another team, and where there were just two
hundredths of a second separating the four drivers’ times. Of course,
driving an F1 car is the best feeling in the world, there is nothing to
compare, but these days going out with the best car in my hands is the main
motivation for me.”
In his fresh punditry capacity, Senna appears in little doubt as to who
possesses the most promising car in 2014, after the maelstrom of pre-season
testing with the V6 power plants. “For sure it is Mercedes
first, Ferrari
second,” he says.
He is contracted to produce feature programming for Sky on the legacy of
Ayrton, as we closer to 20 years since Imola, and it becomes clear from his
trip to Rio to observe Unidos da Tijuca’s salute that – despite personal
disappointments – he is more conscious than ever of the Senna name’s
transcendent force.
“There were tears on the grandstand at Carnival and you can still see how much
people still love Ayrton. However much I achieve, it is always going to be
in memory of Ayrton. It is a history I have had to carry, but I do so with
lots of pride.”
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