[HN Gopher] The Misguided Mythology of Ayrton Senna
___________________________________________________________________
The Misguided Mythology of Ayrton Senna
Author : luu
Score : 74 points
Date : 2021-02-08 08:12 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.roadandtrack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.roadandtrack.com)
| randcraw wrote:
| Though short, that was a really nicely written piece. As a major
| fan of R&T since the 60's, I've lamented the magazine's long
| decline. It's great to find writing talent like Kyle Kinard
| planting a flag there once again.
| macksd wrote:
| I don't think Senna had an unusually "speed at all costs"
| attitude. He was known for arguing that tracks enforce safe
| practices because racing drivers will inherently choose a faster
| route if it's less safe, therefore the fastest route needs to be
| a safe one. But that was hardly unique to him - he wasn't even
| the first driver to die at Imola in '94. And the only death since
| then, after major safety reforms, was a freak accident under a
| yellow flag. Other serious injuries have been exceptionally rare.
| Clearly he had a point.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| I can't find a way to talk about Senna in a more human and
| realistic way without feeling I'm minimizing his "greatness".
|
| Maybe only those who lived in his era can understand who he was
| and that's about it. Everything else is a nice story created by
| professionals.
|
| He was a guy way above average in a particular point in time when
| the cars were brutal and you could still crash them half the time
| and not get fired. ( But you still would get a lot of shit and
| better deliver something fast.. or else)
|
| Make no mistake every single F1 driver has an huge ego and they
| bully each other to oblivion. These mental games exist since the
| beginning and most of them work like an infection, one little cut
| and they got you. They were different drivers but also Piquet,
| Berger, Lamy, Tarquini, Alesi and so on. They all were products
| of that era.
|
| Prost was less "spectacular" but not "cerebral" to the point the
| media makes him, they exaggerate the differences in order to sell
| the story and EVERYBODY involved in F1 reaped the rewards of
| this. Kind of like Messi vs Cristiano Ronaldo.
|
| Finally, yes Jean-Marie Balestre was a c*#t, but everybody
| involved with Le Mans can tell how the French operate :), But
| what about Max Mosley? and do we need to talk about Bernie
| Ecclestone? F1 was ALWAYS a cesspool of jocks, rich playboys and
| sleazy bastards. The "people" are invited to watch and that's it.
| tomca32 wrote:
| > Maybe only those who lived in his era can understand who he
| was and that's about it. Everything else is a nice story
| created by professionals.
|
| This seems to imply that the myth of Senna's greatness was
| created after his death, which I don't think is true. The myth
| was already there while he was alive. People worshipped Senna
| and many considered him the best driver in history of F1. A lot
| of this is due to his natural character as a good showman, high
| charisma and a sense of what people would like.
|
| However, a part of that myth was true. He did have an
| incredible ability to turn a certain loss into a win: - Winning
| a race after his gears failed. Once, his car got stuck in the
| highest gear, couldn't switch to a lower one and still won -
| Consistently winning in Monaco, one of the most difficult
| racing track - Consistently winning in shitty, rainy conditions
|
| I'd say it's more those things that created a legend out of
| him. Always being perceived as an underdog, and he often was,
| and still managing to win.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Agreed. He was a legend at the time.
|
| My favorite Senna story is that an Austrian flag was found in
| the cockpit of his crashed Williams. It was traditional for
| the winner to circulate on the victory lap waving their
| national flag. Senna was Brazilian, so why an Austrian flag?
| Earlier that weekend, Austrian F1 driver Roland Ratzenberger
| died in a crash during qualifying for the San Marino Grand
| Prix. Senna had planned to parade with the Austrian flag in
| his honor.
| mlinhares wrote:
| Not only ability, but willingness to improve that wasn't
| really seen at others. His prowess in racing in the rain is a
| side effect of him losing due to rain early in his career and
| then just completely obsessing over it to the point whenever
| it would rain he would stop whatever he was doing, pick up
| his kart and drive until he couldn't anymore.
|
| This revisionism where he wasn't a "myth" back then is pure
| bullshit, people were revering him on and off the tracks. He
| was very adept at marketing and selling his image and this
| was visible into how he usually got what he wanted even if
| the top brass on F1 didn't, as he did have the star power to
| do it.
|
| He was also reckless out of races, Brazilian journalists and
| the main PT-BR narrator for F1 races have multiple stories of
| him driving insanely fast in Europe with them to the point
| they though they'd die in an accident with him.
| jeromenerf wrote:
| Prost and Senna were the classic manga blue and red characters.
| They played their roles well, to the end.
|
| That said, as a teenager, F1 was this weird motorsport that
| played live on Sunday afternoon, that my uncles enjoyed to watch
| after a family lunch. The siesta sport. As a French, I don't
| remember Alain Prost or Ayrton Senna being comparable sport stars
| to football, tennis or even cycling celebrities in the late
| eighties.
| mywittyname wrote:
| I used to kart obsessively when I was younger (I had a four
| figure annual subscription to a track), and I was brutally
| competitive. I didn't really care how old a person was, or their
| gender, if someone posed even the slightest challenge to me, I
| would literally get obsessed with beating them. If a session
| ended when I was in second, I would spend the entire break day
| dreaming in my head about the up-coming race and where I would
| position myself to overtake, think about which turns I'm faster
| in so I know how much far away from them to be so I'm in the
| right position to overtake *.
|
| This is not the result of idolizing Senna, or even really ever
| caring about him at all. There's something about the anonymous
| nature of racing that can really heighten the aggressiveness
| inherent in competition. I'm normally a super chill person, but a
| few competitive laps kind of turns me into a monster (I don't get
| like this in SCCA events, where you are on the track solo).
|
| * Passing is more difficult when skill levels go up. Generally
| there is one, maybe two turns where it's possible to pass a good
| driver on a course. And following a slower driver too closely
| through a turn can cause you to sap speed because you either have
| to brake or move off of the optimal drive line to accommodate
| them.
| mhh__ wrote:
| I really hope to be able to race cars at some point in the
| future, because I completely understand that feeling even from
| simracing (No karting because pandemic).
| MrMan wrote:
| I have done both and I truly feel Sim racing is better.
| Orders of magnitudes cheaper and safer. The only thing I miss
| is the smells and the red state friendship bonding in the
| paddock. I don't miss the close relationship with my mechanic
| and the wrecks
| filoleg wrote:
| I've only done karting, not sim racing, so I have a
| question for you. Do you get the same feeling from
| simracing as what the grandparent comment describes?
|
| Asking because I can 100% relate to what they are talking
| about in terms of competitiveness and the rush during the
| actual race, and then daydreaming about just repetitively
| perfecting those laps on your own alone. All while being
| absolutely calm and relaxed in real life outside of that.
|
| With that in mind, I am curious if simracing will satisfy
| that same rush. I know that it won't be fully 1-to-1,
| especially because I won't be investing into a pneumatic
| sim chair that simulates actual physical aspects of racing.
| But I don't think that's what makes the rush feel real for
| me. Hence why I feel lost as to whether I should actually
| invest into a simracing setup or just save myself money and
| time by not bothering (in case it doesn't give that same
| feeling).
| mhh__ wrote:
| Simracing for me isn't really about immersion but rather
| the knowledge that I'm actually racing other people
| taking it seriously.
|
| It's the same as DCS for me - I like learning the systems
| and tactics because I will not ever be able to fly a jet
| because of my eyes.
| dharmab wrote:
| Even playing novice series on low graphics in iRacing is
| preferable to the latest Gran Turismo or Forza. The field
| of human drivers racing seriously makes a totally
| different experience. The experience of strategically
| following another driver for multiple laps until they
| make just enough of a stress-induced error to let you
| pass is unique to the sim community.
| filoleg wrote:
| Based on yours and the parent's reply, I am sold. I don't
| care about immersion as much as I care about that feel of
| rush and competition, and it seems like that part
| specifically is addressed quite well with simracing.
|
| And I agree w/r to Forza. I played it, i liked the game,
| but it was clearly an arcade racer, not what I am looking
| for here. It didn't give me any sort of feelings I was
| looking for, but it was a pretty fun game on its own.
|
| On that note, thanks for help to both of you, I will
| start researching simracing setups now.
| dharmab wrote:
| Pretty much any Logitech wheel will do to start- upgrade
| later.
|
| This video series was the single most helpful thing for
| me to get started:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqsKm8irA7U
| LatteLazy wrote:
| There is something about cars, maybe it's the fact you can't
| look each other in the eye, it makes minor mistakes into major
| incidents physiologically. It's why people road rage but they
| don't get bothered if someone bumps them on the pavement...
| joncrane wrote:
| Senna was a VERY interesting figure. For whatever reason, the
| press eats up his virtuosity. The big incident where I feel he
| was on the right side of history was his should-have-been-a-win
| at the Suzuka GP in 1989:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Japanese_Grand_Prix and his
| mistreatment at the hands of Jean-Marie Balestre. According to
| wikipedia, Balestre admitted it:
|
| "Years later, after leaving the presidency of FIA, Balestre
| admitted to having acted to benefit Prost in 1989."[1]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie_Balestre
|
| Having said that, Prost was the better racer, and Senna benefits
| from the halo effect of having died in his prime. He's got some
| great quotes, and he was definitely mistreated at times which
| increased his standing as a folk hero, but he was outclassed at
| almost every step by Prost.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| I am not a big Senna fan but I don't think he was outclassed by
| Prost. In my view it was pretty close with Senna having a
| slight edge overall and a huge advantage in qualifying
| LanceH wrote:
| And the rain
| mav3rick wrote:
| Senna constantly beat him when they were on the same team.
| cgrealy wrote:
| The facts disagree.
|
| In 1988, when Senna and Prost were on the same team, Prost
| won 7 out of 16 races.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Prost was the better racer,
|
| That is a bold claim. Data [1] shows that when they were
| teammates, Senna won more races and far more pole positions.
| Prost got more points, podiums and fastest laps. From looking
| at the record, it would seem that Prost got the majority of his
| fastest laps and podiums when Senna was already out of the
| race, crashing out or retiring to a mechanical issues. I
| believe that if they raced in cars with reliability level we
| see in 2010s, Senna would likely be ahead.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prost%E2%80%93Senna_rivalry
| mhh__ wrote:
| Prost is statistically a huge outlier in terms of reliability
| and not crashing, however. Senna was definitely faster at
| peak but Prost was inhuman in other ways.
| dwd wrote:
| Prost was boringly good but had his limits.
|
| The defining moment that differentiated the two was Prost
| refusing to race in heavy rain at Adelaide '89. Senna was
| obviously better in those conditions as that's how he
| drove. If the car wasn't on the edge of sliding or
| twitching under accelaration he wasn't going fast enough.
|
| Prost was measured and did what was necessary to win. Senna
| wanted to win and win well.
| raverbashing wrote:
| There were some Senna DNFs due to fuel exhaustion, at least
| in some years
| Someone wrote:
| Sounds like Senna raced to win each race, while Prost raced
| to win the championship. If you aim for the latter, you
| sometimes prefer second place over a 50% chance of
| winning/50% chance of retirement.
| gokhan wrote:
| I used to watch F1 a lot and I believe it's very hard to
| compare drivers because the machine, team and the setup is a
| big part of the outcome. Having said that, when it rains, Senna
| was always the best and incredible to watch and everything
| else. If it starts to rain and the yellow/green helmet starts
| to overtake one by one, after a couple of races you realize
| that there's something in him that no other have. Might not
| make him the best, but definitely the most enjoyable to watch.
|
| I stopped watching it after he died.
| dwd wrote:
| Same, that was the last F1 race I ever watched.
|
| I still have a sketch I did for my school art class from a
| photo I took of his 98T rounding the hairpin at Adelaide in
| '96 during qualifying.
| [deleted]
| danko wrote:
| Prost and Senna were evenly matched - that's why the racing
| between them was so great, and why the rivalry was so pitched.
| Senna was faster than Prost in qualifying and over a single
| lap, and vastly better in rainy conditions. Prost had better
| race-craft and was more consistent lap-over-lap, race-over-
| race. They were both otherworldly.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Maybe Prost was technically better, I do not agree but maybe a
| case can be made, but Senna was (or maybe _appeared to be_ is
| the better concept) more talented.
|
| Senna was the rockstar of F1 and there hasn't been another one.
| dazc wrote:
| An F1 fan at the time, since his death I haven't watched a
| single race. Enough said...
| rapsey wrote:
| Human brains really love narratives and any documentary requires
| a good one for it to be interesting. Reality however is not some
| grand easily digestible narrative. For this reason documentaries
| are always misleading in some way. Reality must be bent to fit
| into the documentary form.
| filereaper wrote:
| Top Gear UK did a tribute to Senna, its a somewhat balanced view
| of him: https://youtu.be/9U_K76vPGYo
|
| It was also the first I heard of Senna.
| gridder wrote:
| Ayrton character reminds me of Steve Jobs
| lsiunsuex wrote:
| I would say Prost reminds me of Steve Jobs and Senna of Gates /
| Microsoft?
|
| Prost - calculated and careful / never to show emotion.
|
| Senna - shoot from the hip and fight like hell?
|
| I'm just young enough to never see them race on tv (or in
| person) but loved the movie when it came out.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Not familiar with Prost and Senna, but your description
| reminds me of Borg and McEnroe.
| mPReDiToR wrote:
| Or Schumacher/Hamilton.
|
| Replace Hamilton with any organic race driver and then put
| that name in when you hear Webber complain about the
| dangers posed by this type of driver.
|
| Yes you can be dangerous for its own sake, Juan Pablo, but
| when you're piloting a missile, everything is a target.
|
| This is why Reubens will always a star. He had a nice shiny
| red missile, but didn't point it at people on purpose.
|
| More gentleman in the sport would make it safer.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Every sport is like that, have you seen fights breakout over
| nothing in street basketball? Maybe Ayrton Senna exemplifies that
| style of competitiveness in racing but there is no shortage of
| ambition and recklessness on other sports.
| [deleted]
| iamacyborg wrote:
| I recall watching the San Marino GP in '94 with my dad, who was
| going through chemo at the time. He broke down in tears when he
| saw the crash. There isn't much I remember about my dad, I was 6
| when he passed, but that memory will always be with me.
|
| Say what you will about Senna, but I can't watch that movie
| without tearing up a little.
| [deleted]
| hangonhn wrote:
| Wait. Is that it? The article felt like it was off to a good
| start and I wanted to read more and learn more about the other
| bits of Senna away from the documentary (which was really good
| but does mythologize him) and then it sort of just ended
| abruptly. Is this the start of a series or part of a longer
| essay?
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's Road & Track, don't get your hopes up too high.
| gota wrote:
| I got the same. I disagree with a few core points - I think the
| doc goes at good lenghts to show that Senna's piloting was not
| always "healthy" for others or himself! So I was curious to
| read in-depth arguments. And I found none.
|
| If the argument is that Senna's idolized figure is unwarranted
| - why? Otherwise, whats the point of describing it in such
| terms? To my recollection Prost's opinion that Senna was too
| temerary and downright arrogant in "wanting to humiliate" him
| is _completely justified_ in the doc's narrative. So where is
| this mary-sueness that the article implies?
|
| If Senna's relationship with Prost was mischaracterized - How?
| Prost is quoted agreeing but no info is given. This is
| especially important because we know for a fact that Balestre
| ruled in Prost's favor in the case that is highlighted in the
| doc.
|
| I can't even begin to judge some of the other claims or
| opinions on this piece because they are completely without
| substance. Too bad - seems like there is a good discussion in
| there.
|
| Perhaps I'll find it in the Hacker News comment section
| unrelated to the article itself.
| schoen wrote:
| > too temerary
|
| By the way, the best English equivalent of
| temerario/temerario is "temerarious". [Edit: per your reply,
| I should also point out that "temerarious" is an extremely
| uncommon English word too; it's just that "temerary" may not
| even exist at all.]
| gota wrote:
| Thanks - I'm not particularly stressed about sounding 100%
| idiomatic as long as I get the point across (and am not
| flat out wrong). In this case I think I got the term from
| an Italian friend, so it might relate to some other word in
| italian. Also neither of temerario/temerario are common at
| all in Portuguese or Spanish, so I the idiomatic term the
| other way around, in the expression I used, should be
| 'imprudente' I think
| schoen wrote:
| I think the most idiomatic English terms to criticize
| someone who is incautious or too eager to take big risks
| spontaneously would probably be "reckless" or "rash". :-)
|
| (In English, "imprudent" refers more often to _actions_
| or _decisions_ rather than to people.)
| Tenal wrote:
| How is this even remotely on-topic for Hacker News?
| mywittyname wrote:
| It is of general interest, which is explicitly allowed. Also,
| there are more than few amateur racers / racing enthusiasts
| here.
|
| As you can see, some of the conversations here are drawing
| connections between Senna/Prost and Gates/Jobs, which is an
| interesting connection I never made.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html What to Submit
|
| On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
| That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
| reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
| gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
| byerobh wrote:
| Get lost
| DanBC wrote:
| What do you think is on-topic?
| hluska wrote:
| I was born in 1977, so Senna and Prost were at their peak when I
| was quite young. They were both giants. Here is another article
| about the two, written from Alain Prost's perspective:
|
| https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/senna-prost-bitter-feud-h...
|
| They were two complicated people, competing in a complicated
| sport where milliseconds make a difference. And they were both
| absolutely beautiful drivers, masters of their own unique styles.
| [deleted]
| coliveira wrote:
| Like most F1 winners, Senna also had a shady side in the sports,
| despite his raw talent. This is a necessary requirement to stay
| in F1. For example, we now know that he had agreements with
| Tobacco companies that meant we wouldn't be challenged by any
| colleague (would be #1 driver in the Team) [1]. He also devised
| agreements with Honda to have a leg over Proust (as stated in the
| article). We know some of this information thanks to the opening
| of Tobacco companies files', which describe how they spent money
| in the 80s, and how they structured contracts with leading
| drivers like Senna.
|
| https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/sports/2013/0...
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| That stuff is pretty normal and pretty much a requirement to be
| a champion. I don't think there ever has been a team that had
| two competitive drivers where this ended well.
| mav3rick wrote:
| This came after he was constantly undermined when he entered
| F1. Schumacher had a similar thing over Barichello.
| coliveira wrote:
| Not really, his contract with tobacco companies started since
| his Lottus period (before any F1 championship).
| cgrealy wrote:
| Prost was one of Sennas pall bearers. They had a strong rivalry,
| but there was definite respect, if not outright friendship.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-09 23:02 UTC)