Why Senna's rookie F1 season was so special

Ayrton Senna's debut Formula 1 season with Toleman in 1984 has gone down in history, in large part because of his famous drive to second place in the rain at Monaco. That iconic event was used as the starting point for the acclaimed Senna documentary, and indeed it was the first time the wider world sat up and took note of this Brazilian newcomer.

However, for those paying attention, his talent had been apparent for some time.

"When Ayrton was in Formula Ford 2000 in 1982 we actually offered him a paid F3 season to get a superlicence," recalls former Toleman boss Alex Hawkridge. "And as soon as he got it he'd be on our F1 team. He turned that down, and said, 'I'd like to choose who I'd drive for in F1'. He wasn't at all encouraged by our generosity!"

A superb 1983 F3 season led to tests with Williams, McLaren and Brabham, but none had an immediate vacancy. However, the small Toleman team, heading into its fourth F1 season, did have a seat for '84. F3 rival Martin Brundle was also in contention, but a Silverstone test clinched it for Senna.

"It was not an easy choice," says Hawkridge. "But I think the whole team was sold on Ayrton's approach, and how he performed on that day. It was a close call. If there had been any reluctance from Ayrton on that day, we'd have gone with Martin.

"Ayrton had tested for Frank Williams and for McLaren, but he knew he would never get to drive for them in 1984, because they would never take on a novice. With us it was different, we wanted the quickest driver we could get in our car. Whether it was a novice or not was a secondary consideration.

"When we did the contract Ayrton arrived with a copy of the Oxford Concise English Dictionary.

"We had an open line to his manager in Brazil until 4am, and every single word of the contract was analysed by Ayrton, and discussed with his manager.

"We signed a three-year deal with him. It wasn't super-generous - I think it was £100,000 for the first year, £200,000 for the second year, £300,000 for the third year. And if he wanted to break it he had to state his dissatisfaction, and pay us £100,000 before he entered into negotiations with anybody else."

"Ayrton was using 80% of his mental ability to drive the car and had 20% left with which to analyse - in fact maybe it was the other way around!"
Pat Symonds

The talks took a while: "It was the most painful process. He was extremely anxious that he didn't sign something that he'd later regret. That's the kind of guy he was - he was very thorough, and very astute. The biggest amount of time was spent on that release clause..."

The team began the season with the old TG183B chassis, and Pirelli tyres. From the off Senna was comfortably faster than team-mate Johnny Cecotto - who had already done a season with Theodore - and he scored a point with sixth place second time out at Kyalami.

"Speed goes without saying, but I think what stood out was his ability to analyse, and his ability to understand," says his race engineer Pat Symonds. "Although I've met it a few times since, I'd never met it before Ayrton.

"I'd been used to working with drivers who were using 100% of their concentration and mental ability to drive the car. Ayrton was using 80% and had 20% left with which to analyse - in fact maybe it was the other way around! However, in those days his fitness was just appalling, and in South Africa we had to lift him out of the car."

"He was brilliant," says Cecotto's engineer John Gentry. "He used to come to the workshop and come to the drawing office and ask what we were doing. He'd speak to the guys who were making the parts, and go into the race shop and speak to his mechanics and so on. He was just totally focussed on what he was doing, and for me there was no doubt about where he was going to be. He was just very, very good."

Gentry, who was also number two to chief designer Rory Byrne, was impressed by Senna's feedback: "He could tell you exactly what was going on with the car, which helps a lot. If you tackled that problem, then you'd move forward. He was relating what the car was doing, and generally when we said what to do, he would agree and try it. He was obviously competent and learned very quickly. He was a dream to work with."

The team made a huge step forward for the French Grand Prix when Rory Byrne's new TG184 came into service. At the same time the team switched from Pirelli to Michelin rubber, in part as a result of pressure from Senna. However, there was a catch.

"The Pirellis were uncompetitive, and then we switched to Michelin," says Hawkridge. "But we were on year-old Michelins, because McLaren had a lock-out on anybody getting new tyres. When we tested at Dijon Ayrton was running around on mix and match tyres, just using his intuition, and going quicker than McLaren had gone on their new tyres. We knew then that he was capable of doing outstanding things with the right equipment."

"The whole thing about 1984 was that we were never allowed to have the latest Michelin tyres," says Symonds. "McLaren had a veto on us using them. In Monaco one of the reasons we were successful was that it didn't apply to the wet tyres - there was only one spec available, and there was a level playing field at last."

Indeed, rain on race day opened a window of opportunity for Senna, but only just.

"McLaren tried to stop Michelin supplying the current wet tyres," says Hawkridge. "Michelin didn't bring any old wets - they just brought lots of old dry tyres. All they had was the new ones, and they said, 'This is going to be a shit fight, McLaren are going to go mad'.

"We were sat in the pitlane with no tyres until eventually Michelin persuaded Ron Dennis that they weren't going to back down, and they were going to supply us. They couldn't supply us anything else, so we would have sat out the race if they hadn't given us the current tyres. It took that showdown for Ayrton to get the chance he had at Monaco."

Senna subsequently put in a career defining performance on the streets of the principality, and he was catching leading Alain Prost, while being caught by Stefan Bellof, when the race was controversially red-flagged.

"It was a funny race, with a lot of mixed feelings," Symonds admits. "Straight after the race you have the euphoria of finishing second. We hadn't been on the podium before, and had only scored points for the first time in the middle of the previous season. But at the same time there was the agony of the fact that we could have won the race, and being a competitive person that definitely overtook things. So, I was pretty pissed off at finishing second!"

To this day however there is one unanswered question related to a heavy impact with the chicane kerbs - how long would the tweaked suspension have lasted?

"I think Brands, when we were still a tyre spec behind, was a fantastic result. To me that was more pleasing than Monaco"
Pat Symonds

"When we got the car back we did find a crack in one of the front rockers," says Symonds. "Even now I don't know if it would have survived the race or not. I suspect it would, because things were big and heavy and tough in those days.

"I only saw quite recently, I think in the Senna film, that he had hit the chicane. At the time I didn't see it. It was quite a big hit, so I'm not surprised that we had the crack. I suspect if he'd done the same again it might have been a different story, but I think with normal use he would have got to the end of a full-length race."

"I don't know if he would have won it or not," says Gentry. "There was a little lever that was like a rocker to the damper that was inside the car, it pivoted very close to the centre line of the car. Ayrton had been bouncing over the chicane a couple of times, and that had actually cracked.

"Who knows how long it would have lasted for? Maybe a lap, maybe he might have finished. But at the same time Bellof was going like a train behind him in the Tyrrell, so although Ayrton was going quickly, Bellof would have come into the picture as well."

That stunning second place at Monaco was followed by a low-key seventh in Canada and retirements in Detroit and Dallas. Senna bounced back when he logged a superb third in the British GP.

"I think Brands, when we were still a tyre spec behind, was a fantastic result." says Symonds. "Of course that was the race where Cecotto had his big accident [in Friday practice]. It had been a pretty dismal start to the weekend, so to finish the weekend with that podium was great. To me that was more pleasing than Monaco. Monaco was a strange situation. I think at Brands, even with a little bit of a disadvantage on the tyres, it was still a damn good race."

Germany, Austria and Holland brought three more retirements, and then Senna missed what would have been his first Italian GP - having been suspended by his own team. It had emerged that he'd signed for Lotus for 1985, without having agreed with Toleman that he could even talk to anyone else.

"Suddenly we were inundated by the world's motorsport press telling us that Ayrton was driving for Lotus next year," says Hawkridge. "He'd just got an offer and accepted it, basically. He'd never won the World Karting Championship, and both times he put it down to being loyal to his chassis. When it came to F1, he was never going to do that again.

"The only issue we had was I'd seen that coming, which is why we were on the phone to Brazil trying to write a clause to cover it! We were not naive, we knew how these things played out, but at that point I think Ayrton was a little naive. I don't think he did think how these things played out."

Hawkridge insists that forcing the team's star driver to miss a race was the only action that could be taken: "There were no sanctions that you could use with him that meant anything.

"The only thing that he wanted to do was drive an F1 car, and although it was hurting us as much as it was hurting him, or even more so, I made the decision that we'll just suspend him for a race, and maybe as a result of that he'll realise that he did something wrong."

Symonds believes that the punishment worked as intended.

"It was a difficult thing," he acknowledges. "At the time I remember thinking it was a case of 'cutting your nose off to spite your face.' But Alex was adamant that Ayrton had reneged on a deal, and done it in a rather unpleasant way, and should pay for it.

"At the time Ayrton was mortified, he didn't think anyone could treat him like that. But many, many years later he told me he'd learned a lesson from it. I think the Ayrton of later years was a very different Ayrton to the one we knew in '84."

A chastened Senna returned for the European GP at the Nurburgring, where he was eliminated in a first-lap crash. Then in the finale at Estoril he qualified and finished third.

"In Portugal, where Michelin said, 'It's our last race, Toleman are having the same tyres as everyone else', we performed at a really high level," says Symonds. "It was a fabulous way to end the season with him. We were devastated that he was going to Lotus, and there had been that big fuss about it. But those things soon get forgotten."

Senna eventually did pay the £100,000 release fee. Even Hawkridge was prepared to forgive him.

"I don't think he held any kind of grudge, and I don't think I did either," he says. "I felt any racing driver worth his salt, given a better opportunity, would take it. That's what he did.

"In the end he did pay what he was supposed to pay. It was after the event, but he did act honourably, and he did pay. And he went further than that and he apologised, and he said, 'I know I got this wrong, but I really think Lotus are more to blame than I am, because they shouldn't have blown it.' But the fact was he'd done the deal.

"He was one of those guys who had almost immeasurable depths. I don't know if anyone really got to know him. He was just an exceptional character, and I don't think there's been anybody like him before or since."