The Death of Ayrton Senna

Ayrton Senna was the most brilliant Grand Prix driver of his generation; his death was so shocking because he had seemed invulnerable. But Senna was supremely good and supremely dangerous; his belief in his own pre-eminence led to an imperious disregard for the rights of his rivals, and to a series of skirmishes on and off the race track. This book examines what Ayrton Senna meant to his fellow Brazilians, to motor sport, and to his admirers and detractors around the world. It describes his career on the track, including his fierce rivalries with Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher, and his life off it, where he proved a resourceful and successful businessman. It concentrates most closely on Senna's character, and how it both shaped and responded to the events of his fateful final season, in which he had seemed capable of achieving a dreamed of fourth championship. The story of Senna's remarkable life begins with a firsthand description of the astonishing events of the week after his death, when millions of people took to the streets of his home town, Sao Paulo, to say farewell to their favourite son on behalf of a nation. But his death was felt far beyond the boundaries of nationality. Perhaps more than any other contemporary sportsman, he embodied an ideal of heroism which is timeless and universal.