Thetownend.com

Good piece on him on Top Gear with some excellent old footage.

I used to love F1 back when he was driving, Prost, Mansell, Piquet etc, some wonderful racing.

His funeral back in 1994 was something else.

Fully agree. The guy was a genius, and didn't have to rely on team orders like Schumacher and Alonso.

When did he hit that wall? I can remember watching it and must have only been very little.

First time I ever heard about him taking out prost on purpose to win the title. When schumacher did it in 94 and 97 everyone had a go at him. Was it the same for senna?

1994.

Great racer, but like all great racers they do anything to win. Including taking out other drivers. But that doesnt take away from his genius.

Prost took him out the previous season to win the title, so Senna was getting revenge.

Sunday the 1st of May.

In days, how old would that make you oxford fan?

Unfortunately there are still quite a few people trying to lay blame for his death on individuals.

I was 12 years old and remember watching it.

I seem to remember the tv footage showing his head twitch as he laid slumped in the cockpit?

That weekend was a disaster.

Roland Ratzenburger had died in practice/qualifying and then Senna was killed.

People always forget about Roland.

The Ratzenburger crash was horrific if I recall. I only saw footage in later years, I was 8 years old at the time and have a vague recollection of that weekend.

The Ratzenburger accident was indeed horrific. The way his head rolled round the cockpit as the car came to a halt was chilling.

I spent that May Bank Holiday in London,having seen the Town win our final Premiership away
game at Loftus Rd.I only heard late on the sunday that Senna had been killed at San Marino.

It's so easy to forget about Roland Ratzenburger,but the whole racing weekend had had a series
of accidents.On the friday, Barrichello had been injured and at the start of the race, there was a
huge shunt.

Senna was in the lead when he hit the wall and track officials found an Austrian flag,which Senna
had hoped to display in memory of Ratzenburger.

I remember the dignity that Damon Hill, who was Senna's Williams teammate at the time,showed
in the most distressing of circumstances.

Senna is one of my Heros! I was a very sad 11 year old when he died!

In May 1994 I would have been 8. Was going to say it was one of my earliest memories, but I'm sure I've got a lot more in the bank before that. I remember it vividly though, along with Baggio's missed penalty at USA '94 its certainly one of my earliest sporting / tv memories.

I never paid that much attention to F1 back then and was amazed watching Top Gear to see just how reckless and dangerous Senna was. Even more amazed that everyone was saying how great it was for someone to drive with such aggression and not criticise him in any way. In reality, if someone was to drive like that in F1 nowadays they would be banned - even his over taking manoeuvres that they were calling great were outlawed a long time ago.

Part of that was down to the cars. The F1 car that Hamilton drove on the show was the last of the turbo cars, which was 1200bhp, whilst todays F1 cars have approx. 650bhp. Also when you consider that the Bugatti Veyron standard car, has 1000bhp, you can see how powerful it was.

The most talented driver ever and utterly ruthless at the same time. Brilliant.

Really enjoyed listening to Brundle talk about him, about how he would leave it up to you whether or not there'd be a crash. If he's good enough for the professionals, then it's good enough for me.

So did I. They came up the ranks together, so Brundle knew him for a number of years.

He's looking at Senna through rose tinted glasses. Nowadays if a driver pulled an overtaking manoeuvre like the ones he was praising Senna for, he (along with all the other commentators) would call it dangerous and for the driver to be penalised, especially if it caused an accident. Drivers get penalised in practically every GP for that kind of stuff today.

Plenty of people (me included) view Schumacher as a cunt for the way he drove at times - looking back, Senna was no better and if anything a lot worse. Having said that though, I was watching that documentary on the Le Mans disaster the other night and safety was practically non existent - pit lanes part of the starting straight for example. Drivers pulled even worse stunts back in those days.

What's your earliest memory of Oxford Utd?