one of the icon of of Formula 1 the best driver in Grand Prix racing he is in Brazil is in my heart he always has been will be his 37th pre win was one of the the best best driver in the world by a long way he was really the the first kind of icon in the sport pretty unique individual CER to the Delirious Delight of his countryman he was definitively one of the best ever driving from this is the best thing that could possibly have happened for GR three racing when we start de on
who's the greatest racing driver of all time a few names always come up but one seems to always stand out from the rest a driver known not only for his achievements on track but also heavily from his off trck actions I'm pretty sure you won't find anyone who doesn't recognize the name Aon Senna but just how good was he is he overrated does he truly deserve to be Crown the goat let's find out it's rare for a driver to grip the Motorsports world right off the start of their career as much as ET and Senna
did so it's only right to go back to the very beginning and before I cover his F1 debut I want to touch on how he got there in the first place on the 21st of March 1960 he was born in Sal Paulo into a pretty wealthy family no surprise there his father bought him a cart when he was just 4 years old but his first race came 9 years later when he turned 13 after carting for another 8 years he moved to England in in 1981 to make the jump to open will racing between 81
and 84 he won five championships including the British Formula 3 championship in ' 83 this year was famous for his battle with Martin brundle with both of them fighting each other hard until the very last race in recent years we've heard brundle repeatedly named sener as his greatest rival ever and talking about the incredible skill that he had brindle's appreciation for this year in F3 he spent battling Senna speaks to how amazing he was uh I could beat him on my day but but that's the that's the key phrase on my day because the great
drivers have many more of their days and he did have that uh natural talent that sick sense they all have the next step for Senna was clearly Formula 1 while fighting for the British F3 title he tested F1 cars for Williams McLaren braam and Tolman Lotus McLaren and Bram all wanted to sign him and even offered him contract they wanted to sign him as a development driver and give him an F1 seat down the line though while Senna wanted to race an F1 straight away with this in mind he turned these deals down and signed
for Tolman [Music] instead tomman were a Smo tight-knit team on a less than ideal budget but it gave senent a route into F1 which was all he really wanted to do so after he won the British F3 title the 24-year-old Brazilian made his Formula 1 start in Brazil in 84 but the hard work really starts when you get to F1 the start of his debut year was full of unreliability and the car wasn't very fast either it was difficult for Senna to show his skills inside the cockpit and he was desperate to score some solid
results Senna had only finished two of the first five races and finished P6 in both tomman introduced a new car for the fifth race in France but it didn't magically bring them to the front of the grid but his career was about to take a massive turn at the very next race on the 2nd of June 1984 qualifying for the Monaco GP took place and it was looking like another typical race weekend Senna qualified 13th even with his two brilliant sixth place finishes that year in the UNC competitive car it would be extremely hard to
replicate that on race day in Monaco the streets are just too tight to make up that many positions regardless of how good you are behind the wheel well that's what everyone thought anyway because Sunday was far from normal it brought some of the worst rain the principality had ever seen F1 race weekend or not the conditions were catastrophic so bad in fact that a lot of the drivers didn't even want to race because they thought it was so unsafe I remember and at the beginning of the race 884 was reading a lot you know we
were talking about uh is it good to start the race mind you we're in 1984 this wasn't common at all but that didn't stop F1 from going ahead with the schedule and throwing that green flag it was senna's first street race in F1 and the challenge was made even more daunting by the conditions well that would have been the case for most drivers but for Senna it was just a chance to Showcase his talent and that's exactly what he [Applause] did in fifth position K rber and Cent challenging for that second place and he's taken
it a magnificent fin D who's now in second place While others crashed like race leader Nigel Manel and drove around cautiously like Alan Prost Senna drove like his career depended on it with an unbelievable drive he made it up to Second Place through sheer Pace alone and he wasn't finished there he continued to re imp Prost who was suffering from break issues and who was trying to get the race stopped because of the intense rain that continued to fall Senate eventually caught Prost and passed him right before the race was stopped with Al cross his
topping crosses the line before he gets there but the rules stated that the result had to be taken from the previous lap so Pros was declared the winner which Senna obviously wasn't too happy about it would have been an incredible first win in an incredibly underperforming car but still he recorded a second place finish and in only a sixth F1 race ever he made a huge mark on the sport with his undeniable talent but the F1 world had seen nothing from the young Brazilian [Music] yet he bought himself out of his Tolman contract at the
end of that year and signed for the legendary Lotus team for 1985 he hoped it would be an improvement on his time at Tolman but even he wouldn't have predicted what would happen that year on the 21st of April 85 F1 held its second race of the season the Portuguese Grand Prix but it was no normal race that Sunday the estal track was absolutely soaked after qualif fing at the front and taking the first pole position of his career he went on to win his very first Grand Prix the next day but in true Center
style it was no ordinary win he took the checker flag over a minute before anyone else he absolutely crushed the competition I mean crush is almost an understatement Mich Alberto finished second in his Ferrari and he was the only driver in the entire race that Senna hadn't lapped I mean things like that just didn't happen in F1 along with Monaco which was less than a year before this was probably senna's best Drive of all time and it was truly his breakout weekend but he definitely didn't stop there he took seven polls that year which was
by far the most of any driver on the grid and finished fourth in the standings everyone could see that F1 had a legend on their hands and thought it wouldn't be long until he won a World Championship but like all things in F1 it wasn't going to be as easy as everyone thought Sen stayed at Lotus for 2 more years and went on to claim five more incredible race wins with the team he put in some incredible performances and in 86 his seven pole positions were the most of any driver for the second year in
a row at this point everyone could see he was special incredibly fast consistent and able to fight at the very front and so was the car but I don't want to just look at the results because even though they were extremely impressive stats alone can't Define sena's career one of my favorite things from this period hasn't got to do with stats at all it's simply this the Lotus 98t it was senna's car that year and it was special and the turbocharged Renault V6 engine produced over 1,000 brake horsepower in qualifying spec and of course it
had those iconic colors the black and gold John player special Livery the legendary yellow helmet in the cockpit there's something magical about it that just can't be replicated today well not on the track at least because off track is a different story while the Lotus 98 is more or less resigned to the history books these days it Spirit lives on and for that I have to thank the loyal sponsor of the channel wreck watches the feedback I got from you guys last time I mentioned wreck was incredible and I stayed in touch with them and
we thought we had to give you guys another special deal look how incredible this watch looks and the fact that it features original parts from Sen's Lotus 98t shassy 4 to be exact makes it such a unique conversation starter so how exactly did they do this they collaborated with classic team Lotus and reforged the original aluminium plenum tubes from the 98t to form the outer chapter Rings they haven't cut up the legendary chassis that sent a drove or anything it's still intact and actually still does some historic racing today what they did was exclusively use
Surplus engine parts from when the car was restored and because of this of course this watch is a limited edition run it's not like Lotus are making any more of these cars so it's exceptional to have the opportunity to own a piece of it but they're only making 989 of them so they'll be gone pretty quickly and by the way they're all individually numbered re spent nearly 2 years working on the design alone the case construction is incredibly Sleek despite it having a chronograph complication due to the glass box design there are many design references
from the car on the watch 2 with the black and gold color tones probably being the most noticeable there's also the large 12 on the rotor and the movement back plate decoration that resembles the Renault ef-1 15b engine the time piece is Swiss made empowered by an in-house chronograph movement with a 62h hour power Reserve if you want to know more about wreck and benefit from an exclusive 20% discount on pre-orders check the link in the description of this video and thank you once again to W watches for continuously supporting the channel now back to
the Brazilian goat Senna had his best season in 87 finishing third in the championship with 57 points so after he raced with lotus for 3 years he decided it was time for a new challenge in F1 you have to prove yourself against the absolute best against proven race winners world champions and beat them but that's not who Senna had as teammates he hadn't been paired with any real competition so there were still a lot of questions and debates over whether or not he'd fold against the likes of Prost PK or Manel things changed in 88
Senna joined McLaren and for the first time in his career he was up against some serious competition his teammate was none other than Alan Prost who was already a two-time champion and coincidentally in the very same year McLaren produced something truly magical the season became most well known for the legendary mp44 a car that won 15 of the 16 races that year with center and Prost at the wheel it was absolutely dumb minent but it wasn't without its ups and downs for the team Senna was immediately a threat to Prost out qualifying him in the
very first race in Brazil by almost 710s it looked like he was going to be a problem for the Frenchman all season and he was their first incident came at the Portuguese Grand Prix where Senna jumped Prost at the start and took the lead Prost went on to overtake Senna on the second lab and then this happened start of the final corner he gets close up into the slipstream of senna he goes alongside Senna tries to tou to shut the door and the two cards very nearly Collide Frost wasn't a fan of being driven towards
a concrete wall at 180 mph and this quickly set the scene for their relationship over the next 6 years going back to aon's overtaking maneuver that was a bit hairy huh yeah I was very surprised because normally especially the first lap when you do that uh with your teammate you don't have a big problem like this but I don't understand it should have some um some reason to do it I want to show you the stats from their time as teammates though because I think it's the best way to compare them across the 88 and
89 Seasons there were 32 races Frost won 11 of them and took four pole positions meanwhile Senna won 14 of them and took pole a mindboggling 26 times so when their time as teammates came to an end Senna won more races than Prost and out qualified him but across those two years they both won a championship so on paper they were even but Prost had had enough the mental toll of battling Center for 2 years was starting to show on top of that their countless incidents like Suzuka 89 didn't help to any of them this
is the opportunity that C's looking for and he's going through out oh my goodness this is fantastic they meet this is what we were fearing might happen during the race and I'm afraid that that was self-inflicted Center has got going again he's back on the track Center wins in in Japan is there going to be a stewards inquiry Alan Frost will have one if he [Music] [Music] can what I'd like to do now is show you uh some footage which I think is uh quite relevant because we're told that you can't use Escape roads to
uh rejoin the race Escape roads are not for escaping through they're in fact for stopping in turning round and going out of and for that is excluded from the Japanese Grand Prix where's the consistency can't be right not only stupid the way the H Affair has been treated is like I have total responsibility for everything that took place there I was blamed for everything and I was penalized for everything I was Trea like a criminal the situation forced Pros to leave for Ferrari in 1990 you the world champion apparently yes uh was not 100% sure
I know the regulation but you never know how it's going to be uh interpreted but to be very honest I mean I'm quite happy to to leave because I think it's it becomes absolutely impossible to work with saton and uh and uh that's a good end of [Music] Championship with Prost gone Senna thought their rivalry would be over and that he'd be in for an easy year but oh boy was he wrong Ferrari was strong and center and PR had another legendary battle through the entire year they swapped the lead of the championship numerous times
but Senate eventually came out on top after deliberately hitting pro at Suzuka Aon Senna will be in pole position for tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix Pro was second fastest if the was clear better because down in the pit Lane and on the grid is one of tension with the world championship up for grabs everyone is extremely tense thank you thank you very much I can't stand I can't stand this it's a joke after what happened last year it's a joke this situation s actually walked out of the driver's meeting today he thinks that the poll position
should be on the left hand side of the grid not on the right I was many times by the system I told myself today is no way today has to be my way and Santa Sprints away but Alam Frost takes the lead it's happened Alam Frost has taken the advantage Center is trying to go through on the inside and it's happened immediately this is amazing Center goes off at the first quarter but what has happened to frost he has gone off too tell us what happened on the first lap by Aon well unfortunately we touched
in the first Corner when we were fighting for the lead and we both went off how do you feel about being world champion it's not a bad feeling at all is it congratulations across the year Sena took 10 polls and six wins out of 16 races Prost on the other hand took a grand total of zero po but won five races once again Senna proved he had something extra over the Frenchmen and of course the rest of the grid this trend carried on to 91 when he won his third world title this time it was
Manu and Williams who put up the best battle but sener speed was just too much after beating Prost to two titles and Manel to one and racking up pole positions at an insane rate it was clear that Senna was already one of the best drivers F1 had ever seen but the next couple of years weren't as easy McLaren's car in '92 was no challenge for Williams new active suspension fw14b Mansel took an insane 14 polls and nine wins in 16 races easily winning the title it was senna's most difficult year in F1 so far a
slow car and even dnfs meant he only finished fourth in the standings with 5050 points it got a bit better in 93 but he finished runner up to Prost again who returned to Williams after taking a year off but this just showed how brilliant Senna was because in a far slower car he was the closest to Prost across the entire year but with Prost leaving F1 for 94 senator took his seat and move to Williams he would have been hoping to jump into a Williams that was as fast as their 93 car but unfortunately the
racing Gods had other plans his move to Williams didn't bring the sort of success that he or the team expected their new car the FW 16 wasn't as fast as their previous two on top of it not having the pace needed to fight for the title Senna just didn't like it he complained about the car's handling and mentioned how he had no confidence in his cockpit is it generally more one balance than the other just changing we're certainly not happy with the way things are with the car right as they are at the moment uh
the handling isn't particularly good in just the third race of the year the legendary story of Eton Senna took a tragic turn on the 1st of May 1994 the San Marino Grand Prix took place at IMA the start of the race was chaotic but Senna was still leading after taking Pole Position the previous day but on lap seven everything changed [Music] to the fans drivers and Medics it didn't look good after Aton was extracted from the car and taken to the nearby hospital we got him out of the cockpit got his helmet off got an
airway into him and I saw from his neurological science that it was scared to a fatal Ed sh but just hours later we got the worst possible news but a spokesman for the hospital in Bologna said there was no chance he would survive yesterday another driver Roland renberger died after crashing on the same circuit R and ratsenberg succumbed to injuries sustained in the accident which took place with IM circuit during Saturday qualifying practice April the 30th just [Music] and um and I know I can die [Music] it became the darkest weekend in the history of
F1 the sport had lost one of its most talented drivers ever in the blink of an eye if you'd like to see the full details of what happened that weekend I made a full video on it a while ago breaking down exactly what happened you can watch that here if you haven't seen it already of course everyone in Motorsports was shocked but instead of looking into his death let's look back at what other drivers thought of senna during his career and no driver knew him better than Prost sometimes I admit I was frightened by him
he was prepared to do anything I think that's one of the best quotes about Aon because Pro knew how focused he was on staying ahead of his teammates he told me he told me very often Al I'm not motivated to rest against these guys I'm not motivated please come back but even with their Fierce rivalry he had an incredible amount of respect and admiration for aton's skill when people ask me who was the best driver I Ever Raised against isai s by a long way I look back on those days now and think to myself
why did we put ourselves through all that why did it have to get so venomous I used to say to people you're a fan of Aon Senna good that's fine but please don't hate me if we had to do it all again I'd say to Aon listen we're the best between us we can screw all the others but it wasn't just Prost almost every other driver recognized that Senna had something they didn't something they couldn't put their finger on something special I had one hero his name is eron Senna senna's the guy you want to
be uh definitely I think well I mean there's been obviously lots of different Champions along the way but just as a kid that was Senna was the first guy that I noticed he was the one that caught my eye when I was like 5 years old watching the RAC one the weekends with my dad and I started to follow him and then started to read his books and started to to watch his videos and I love the way he drove I love his skill I love the his aggressive style um I love how he stood
up for things he he thought were right just a cool balanc cool approach and that's two seven time Champions talking so the quotes speak for themselves there was more to just his heroics on track though eron Senna the man not just the race car driver was truly special he was loved by pretty much everyone in the paddock and for good reason they all knew that he was the sports biggest star and because of this had the strongest voice amongst the drivers he put this to good use plenty of times during his career fighting with the
FIA to have the driver his opinions heard the best example of this was actually during the 1994 IMA Grand Prix after renberg's tragic death on Saturday Senna met with the other drivers to discuss safety he even visited the part of the track where Roland crashed to see if there could be any last minute safety measures to put in place for the Grand Prix but came to the conclusion that there was nothing F1 could do truly [ __ ] heartbreaking looking bag his passion and love for the sport and dedication to improving safety was admirable along
with his ridiculous Talent he gained from us all and cemented his place in our hearts even [Music] further even with Senna getting taken from us early he left an undeniable Legacy to be honest it's probably the most memorable Legacy of any F1 driver ever three World Championships 41 wins 65 PS 80 podiums all in only 161 race starts the impact he made on the next next generation of F1 drivers is undeniable drivers like Michael schumacker and Lewis Hamilton among dozens of others have said Senna was their hero and inspired them to become F1 drivers the
way he drove his approach to winning and his speed are all iconic it's for these reasons as much as anything else that he's remembered so fondly by everyone in Motorsports there's no doubt that Senna would have won races in '94 and Beyond and more than likely would have won numerous more championships too as he was only 34 when he passed away how many championships would he have won if he hadn't have passed make sure to let me know in the comments the team that Aon started F1 with Tolman also had an incredible success story of
its own it was rebranded as Benetton and went on to win two drivers and one constructor's championship in the following years this achievement was made easier with the help of a certain team principal who let's say didn't always play by the rules and was one of the most controversial people in the history of the sport I made a video about him so make sure to watch it here if you haven't already and as always thank you for watching
