Ayrton Senna da Silva
Student: João Víctor Silva
ID number: 241296
Date of Assignment: 04/02/2019
Ayrton Senna da Silva, or as he was known by everyone “Ayrton Senna from Brazil”
was born in 1960 in a rich family at the big city of São Paulo, Brazil. Ayrton is considered
one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Formula 1 driver of the world. When he was only four
years old, his father (Sr. Milton) built him a kart so that he could have fun, but Sr. Milton
barely knew that that would be the beginning of a long passionate journey of Ayrton: the
automobile world. By age 9 Ayrton was already able to drive his father’s cars with quite an
ease. By age 13 he began competing in kart championships, but would never win a race. It
was only when he was 17 he had his first victory, and even though winning took him four
years to happen, that day he realized that driving was what he wanted to do for the rest of his
life.
The year is 1981, Senna is 21 years old and decides to fly to Europe to follow his
dream of becoming a better driver – not a better driver, the best driver. In that same year, he
was the champion of the English Formula 1600 tournament; winning impressive twelve races
out of the twenty he had. In 1983 he also won the English tournament, but now he was in a
harder category: the formula 3. After winning 13 races out of the 21, and with 9 consecutive
victories, the 23 years old Senna began to get everyone’s attention. That young driver would
become the reason by which my grandfather would wake up every Sunday morning at 6 am.
In 1984 Senna got a spot on the most privileged race category: The Formula 1. His
first team there was the Toleman, and his car was way slower than the cars of his
competitors; however, Senna knew that he would not be in Toleman forever – that was just
the beginning. The first time Senna impressed everyone in Formula 1 was in the Mônaco
Grand Prix; he started the race in 13th position and finished in second; amongst the best
drivers of the world. Fun fact is, that race had to be stopped because it was raining a lot, and
when it was stopped Senna was in first place, but unfortunately when that situation happens
the winner is the person who was in first place in the last lap. In that same year, Senna would
win two more podiums. At that time rumors started to spread, “who is this guy?”. Those
people did not know, but Senna would become a three-time world champion and idol of
Formula 1 very soon.
In 1985 Senna began running for Lotus, a team that was supposed to be better but
proved to be even worse than Toleman. During Senna’s season in Lotus his car would always
break, what made Senna very angry. However, Senna knew that driving those bad cars was
training him to deal with adversities. In 1988 Senna moves to Mclaren, and in that team is
where he got his three world championships; since they had very good cars that allowed
Senna to concentrate just on driving. According to John Bisignano, “There’s only one word
that describes Ayrton’s style, and that is ‘fast.’ He would take the car beyond its design
capabilities. He would brake later, fly into these corners where the car was just over the edge,
