Of course, Ayrton was an outstanding driver but his race results only tell half the story. Other tales from former Team Lotus staff include Ayrton popping over to Wymondham, the nearest town to Hethel, to collect pizzas for the engineers who were working late into the night on his car. Or staying in the workshop long after testing had been completed, and when a rest had been well-earned, taking a genuine interest in everyone’s roles and generally helping out.

For more delightful stories about working with Senna, listen to the US LOT Sessions podcast with Chris Dinnage here. He comes across as overly confident and aloof with a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality, but ask anyone from Team Lotus who worked with him if this was the Ayrton they knew at Hethel, and the answer would be ‘no’.Īs a young F1 driver who had elected to join Lotus over many other top teams, no doubt in part due to the successes of fellow Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi in the early 1970s, Ayrton was humble, keen to learn, generous and willing to help his colleagues at all hours.

The excellent 2010 documentary film Senna details the character of the man, mainly after his Team Lotus years. That year would cost Lotus dear Senna could command a substantially higher salary after he finished joint 9 th in the ’84 championship, not least because he’d scored 13 points, the same as Mansell.

Lotus had wanted to sign Ayrton the year before, such was the recognition of his talent, but JPS as the main sponsor wanted to keep the existing line-up of Elio de Angelis and Nigel Mansell. After a stint in Formula 3 – including a title win in 1983 – he tested for a number of Formula 1 teams and signed for Toleman for the 1984 season.įollowing rumours in the F1 pitlane that he was going to be snapped up by a top team, Ayrton joined Team Lotus in 1985. He came to the county to race not for Lotus, but for Van Diemen – a racing team based at the Snetterton circuit, a few miles south of the Lotus home at Hethel – in Formula Ford under his paternal family name of Ayrton da Silva. When Senna arrived in Norfolk in 1981 there was an immediate recognition that this driver was something special. On 21 April 1985, a young Brazilian driver called Ayrton Senna stunned the motor racing world by winning the Portuguese Grand Prix for Lotus in atrocious weather conditions.

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