The entire state of Saint Paul it’s soaking. Whipped by gusts of wind that resemble tornadoes, filled like a sponge with tons of water. Civil protection is on maximum alert and the number of missing continues to rise. Heaven doesn’t promise anything good either March 24, 1991. The situation has vaguely improved and the Formula One GP – in Interlagos – is still taking place, because economic interests prevail and then, who knows, it could also lift the morale of all these afflicted people. Even in the tests it was a disaster. Like driving immersed in a swimming pool.
However, the infamous climate factor does not seem to cause concern Ayrton Senna. A man on a mission. Someone who here, at home, has never won. And now he feels he has to do it, at any cost. A visceral will, this, which also emerges well from Netflix series on air these days and dedicated to the life of the champion. From ideas to facts. In qualifying his Mc Laren was the fastest of all and placed on pole, ahead of the Ferrari Jean Alesi. Berger and Mansell appear behind. And then there are two monsters like Alain Prostea Nelson Piquetmore delayed, but extremely aware of their potential.
He immediately pushes Senna, maintaining the pole he laboriously acquired among the puddles and the traffic of foggy lights of Interlagos. Behind him were Mansell, Patresi and Alesi, but Ayrton tamed their instincts by immediately creating a three-second margin in the first eight laps. Meanwhile it begins to rain heavily. Those behind get closer and closer, but then Prost decides to make a pit stop and Mansell does the same, with the difference that his lasts a geological era: fourteen seconds. Two placings vanished. Colorful expressions under the visor.
The British driver is chased seven seconds behind Senna, but refuses to lay down his weapons. He closes the distance to the point of appearing to be able to catch Ayrton, but on the fiftieth lap he gets a puncture and has to stop again. In the meantime, Senna’s first problems began. Indeed, serious trouble. At the sixtieth session the gearbox of his McLaren begins to abandon him. The fourth no longer enters. Then the third, and the fifth. Mansell is also struggling with a gearbox problem, which forces him to definitively surrender.
Senna comes very close. Fifteen laps from the finish line he only has sixth gear and Patrese, behind him, visibly shortens. Anyone would raise the white flag at this point, but not him. Not Magic Senna. Winning in Brazil is too important. He won’t leave here without first place. Which means keeping the car on the track by making inhuman efforts. McLaren passes from 300 km/h to almost standing still when corneringconsidering that the lever is stuck in sixth gear. The physical sacrifice is enormous, the talent squeezed too.
Ayrton heroically manages to cross the finish line first, despite surreal conditions. When he can finally stop, he lets out a piercing scream. He no longer feels his arms and legs. Pierced by unspeakable pain. A medical car picks him up and drags him towards the podium.
They give him the trophy, but he almost can’t lift it. It almost falls out of his arms. Then he finally raises it and smiles. Going to the limit to win in front of his people. Senna’s greatest achievement.