1993, the year he was offered to Williams, was rejected by Ferrari, flirted with IndyCar and earned a million dollars per race to continue at McLaren

Death surprised Ayrton senna Exactly 30 years ago, while competing in the Formula 1 San Marino Grand Prix, the same one that in 1993 was on the verge of not racing because McLaren had not deposited the million dollars it earned that season for each race it competed in. The year before his death was paradoxical: just as he forced the English team into a multimillion-dollar negotiation for a contract last minute He also offered to race for Williams for free, suffered rejection from Ferrari and even tried an IndyCar in his flirtation with a category that managed to take the reigning champion, Nigel Mansell, in his threat to eclipse F1.

Senna was unhappy with McLaren in 1992: He won for the first time on May 31, in Monaco, the sixth round of the season, after seeing Williams take the first five races with Mansell at the wheel. In fact, after taking pole in the next race (Canadian GP), he publicly expressed: “We have to work even harder on the car to overcome the power of the Williams”.

Maybe by then I was already carbureting that idea of run unpaid for Frank Williamswhich he confessed to El Grafico in a subsequent interview. “Of course it was true,” he acknowledged. Money is important to me only to a certain point. Precisely because, after winning several championships, with a stable economic-financial position for the rest of my life, the important thing for me was to continue doing what I like. And what I like most is participating in real conditions to win”.

In the middle of a season, 1992, without any attraction, since Williams was on its way to the title very early, attention was focused on the driver market and there the most prominent was Senna, about whom doubts were already being raised in September of Whether he would continue running or take a gap yearas had already happened with the Frenchman Alain Prost.

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Norberto Fontana and Gastón Mazzacane, Argentine drivers who raced in Formula 1, remembered Ayrton Senna 30 years after his death.

Precisely, despite not being active that year, Prost’s name did not take long to sneak into the media and was mixed with Senna’s since he agreed to return to F1 with a Williams. About the French it was said that there was banned to the Brazilian as a teammate, even more so after Mansell decided to retire at the end of the season to venture into American motorsports.

“Everything that was said and written on the subject is false. Frank Williams’ idea was to place me together with Mansell next year, but it was Senna who with his statements put everything into discussion. Therefore, This whole story weighs on me, from the moment I was assigned a role that I never had“commented in November 1992 who had been champion in 1985, 1986 and 1989 (and would be champion again in 1993).

“Even -warned who was Senna’s teammate at McLaren in 1988 and 1989- He was prepared, if we had met, to accept that Nigel and I were on a level of technical and financial equality. But no one at Williams asked me about who the drivers should be next season. It is Frank Williams who must decide. And depending on what I decide, I will be free to accept or not…“.

But Frank Williams did not want a scandal, or perhaps he was pressured by Renault, his engine supplier, who wanted to avoid the risk of two drivers facing off for the title? The truth is that, before the statements of his star driver, he clarified that the hypothesis of hiring Senna was “dead and buried”.

Ultimately, that seat went to Damon Hill, a number two driver who was not going to hinder Prost’s aspirations to win back the tournament. “Hill is very fast but lacks racing experience while Brundle, on the other hand, does not perform very well in qualifying but is effective in racing and is worth about 50 points which should allow us to retain the Constructors’ Cup,” he had said. the founder of the English team before leaning towards the son of Graham Hill and future F1 champion in 1996.

Ayrton Senna’s childhood dream of racing in Ferrari was also that of him. And 1992 was the year in which there was flirting but also rudeness on the part of the Prancing Horsewho leaned towards Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger for 1993. It is also true that it was not a favorable time for the Brazilian’s desire to fight for a title.

In the run-up to the French GP, in July 1992, the version of the Brazilian’s probable entry into Ferrari once again emerged in the paddock. It was based, basically, on the statements of Gianni Agnellithen president of Fiat, the company that owns the Scuderia. “Our intention to hire Senna remains firm -he said-“But we will only specify it when we have the possibility of offering you a competitive car.”.

He also stressed that “before signing any contract, Ferrari will offer Senna all the guarantees of a competitive car, since we consider that only under equal technical conditions can a pilot mark the imbalance with his talent. “If a car is mechanically inferior, the driver cannot win on his own at the moment in Formula 1.”

Yes ok Niki Laudathen Ferrari manager, had ruled it out (“I spoke with Senna and he told me that for now he is not interested in driving a car that normally starts from the third or fourth row. And this is logical for someone who, like Ayrton, is used to always starting from the front row.”confirmed the Austrian), Senna used that card as an ace up his sleeve to negotiate your next adventure. “I’m closer to Ferrari than I was 12 months ago…”he said in November, during the official launch of a yacht with his name in São Paulo.

The intrigue that characterized that transfer market helped the media always place the Brazilian star near Ferrari. It was especially noticeable when Alesi was positioned as a possible future partner of Prost in a 100% French lineup at Williams, supposedly pressured by Renault and Elf. Then, it was said that the vacancy in the Prancing Horse was going to be filled by Senna, who had recently conditioned his stay at McLaren to the use of Renault engines, pointing out that otherwise he would leave, because he was still “having an open door at Ferrari.”

Ferrari slammed the door in that same November, when he rushed to confirm the Berger-Alesi duo for 1993.

On December 20, 1992, Ayrton boarded a Penske PC22 and turned in the circuit Firebird Raceway West. He had a hard time finding the fast pace, he was even slow in the first few laps. But he finished that day just 0.6 seconds slower than Emerson Fittipaldi in the new Penske. It was said that the Brazilians would form the new duo of the IndyCar team. But in January 1993, Paul Tracy, his test driver, was confirmed as the starter.

Meanwhile, McLaren kept its F1 seat open but Senna still did not confirm whether he would return. It was then that Phillips Morris interceded and brought the parties together at its Swiss headquarters in Lausanne. There, Ron Dennis, the founder of the McLaren team, warned that he had to pay Ford for the new engines and only had five million dollars available.

“Alright. I’ll do the first five races, and that’s it”, Senna responded, quick with words as with reflexes. “That’s how she came about. She didn’t say: ‘I want a million per race’. She simply said: ‘I’ll only do the first five races’“, said some time later who was the pilot’s representative, Julian Jakobi .

In this way, Ayrton agreed to sign his contract with a clause very specific: He conditioned his participation in each Grand Prix to each of the transfers that McLaren had to make to him every Wednesday before the race. “Ayrton could give them a second chance on Thursday, but he had the option of canceling the contract if the money didn’t arrive. So it was actually a race-to-race contact, because he could finish,” Jakobi said.

For the fourth GP of 1993, San Marino, the fax confirming the transfer did not arrive on Wednesday and Senna, who was in San Pablo, disappeared with a girl. The payment only took effect the next day and that is why the driver arrived at the Enzo and Dino Ferrari racetrack only on Friday, April 23 to get into the car when half of the first practice had passed.

“I didn’t know on Thursday morning that I was going to be here on Friday morning. I thought I was going to watch the race on television”Ayrton told journalists covering the GP, just before qualifying, in which he suffered a mistake. “It was crazy,” summed up his representative.

Finally, the Brazilian competed in all 16 races of the season (16 million dollars through!) and added more abandonments (six) than victories (five)although it was enough for him to be runner-up, 26 points behind Prost.

He managed to sign for Williams in 1994, but it was too late. He was 13th in Brazil and abandoned in Japan before that fateful San Marino GP in Imola on May 1, 1994.