Senna blows his top at Suzuka

You might have expected that Ayrton would have been at peace with the world on Sunday afternoon. He had, after all, just locked away his third World Championship, and done it where it mattered most, in Hondaland. And on the subject of the 1991 Japanese Grand Prix, he was indeed quite relaxed.

His feelings, he said, were similar to those he had after the 1988 race, which clinched his first title. But then he went on to the intervening Japanese Grands Prix, in 1989 and 1990, and the temperature perceptibly fell.

The removal from the FISA presidency of Jean-Marie Balestre has delighted Senna. More than that, it has clearly liberated him. On Sunday, one had the impression of a lid coming off a pressure cooker: Ayrton indeed gave vent to his feelings.

'I think what happened in 1989 was unforgivable, and I will never forget it. I still struggle to cope with it even now. You know what took place here: Prost and I crashed at the chicane, when he turned into me. Afterwards, I rejoined the race, and I won it, but they decided against me, and that was not justice. What happened afterwards was... a theatre, but I could not say what I thought. If you do that, you get penalties, you get fined, you lose your licence maybe. Is that a fair way of working? It is not.'

Through that winter of 1988/'89, there was indeed some doubt that Senna would return for the new season. According to Balestre, his derogatory remarks about FISA had brought disrepute on the sport; unless a formal apology were forthcoming, J-MB said, there would be no Superlicence for Ayrton in 1989.

In the event, of course, when the cars assembled at Phoenix for the first race, one of them bore Senna's name. Neither he nor Balestre made any comment at the time, but it was assumed some accommodation had been reached.

'If you want to know the truth, I never made any apologies to that guy,' Ayrton said on Sunday. 'I didn't want to make any deal with them - I was pushed by Ron (Dennis) and Honda to make a deal. And I agreed, on certain terms. I signed the paper, and sent it by fax; then they sent me another paper, and they had changed the terms completely. I could never talk about these things, though, because it might have cost me my licence. Is that a clean way to work?'

At one point Senna suggested that the controversy at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix was a direct consequence of what happened at, and after, the 1989 event. But there were other factors involved, too.

'At Suzuka last year I asked the officials to change pole position from the right side of the track to the left. It was unfair, as it was, because the right side is always dirty, and there is less grip - you sweat to get pole position, and then you are penalised for it. And they said, "Yes, no problem". Then, what happened? Balestre gave an order that it wasn't to be changed. I know how the system works, and I thought this was really shit.

'So I said to myself, "OK, whatever happens, I'm going to get into the first corner first - I'm not prepared to let the guy (Alain Prost) turn into that corner before me. If I'm near enough to him, he can't turn in front of me - he just has to let me through." I didn't care if we crashed; I went for it. And he took a chance, turned in, and we crashed. It was building up, it was inevitable. It had to happen.'

So you're admitting then, someone said, that you caused the accident, despite the fact that, at the time, you blamed Prost entirely for it.

'Why did I cause it?' Senna responded. 'If you get f***** every time you try to do your job cleanly, within the system, what do you do? Stand back, and say, "Thank you"? No way. You should fight for what you think is right. I'd been f***** at Suzuka the year before, I'd been f***** over the winter, and now I was f***** in the qualifying procedure here, when I got pole position, and pole was supposed to be on the good side...

'I tell you, nothing would have happened if pole had been on the left side, because I would have got a better start, been first into the corner without any problem. But there was a bad decision to keep pole on the right, and that was influenced by Balestre. I know that. And the result of it was what happened at the first corner. I contributed to it, but it was not my responsibility.'

The press room collectively gaped at that. Had Senna not told us, 12 months ago to the day, that the whole thing had been Prost's fault, that the Ferrari driver had left a gap, inviting him to go by? Now, a year on, he was admitting to what most of us thought we had seen: whatever happened, Prost was not going to turn into that corner before Senna, because the siting of pole position was not fair.

'I didn't care if we crashed...' Forgetting Prost's own feelings on the matter, there were 24 other drivers behind them, who probably cared quite a bit. If the Ferrari's wing, broken off in the impact, had landed in the middle of the track, causing people to swerve at 150mph, there could have been carnage.

Principles are fine and laudable, Ayrton. But there are limits. And one of them is not risking other people's lives in order to make your point. Some of your remarks on Sunday, I believe, you may one day have cause to regret.

Still, there was no getting away from the fact that Senna drove a World Champion's race at Suzuka in 1991, even following Ron Dennis's instruction to let Berger through for a deserved first McLaren victory.

I watched the race from my favourite spot, up on a bank, with the ultra-quick uphill left-hander on one side of me, the chicane on the other.

It is a favourite spot for photographers, but on Sunday their clear shot of the chicane was impeded by Mr Roger Lindsay, Shell's fuel boffin, who was spectating, and took great offence when asked to move a few feet to one side.

'How much money have you paid to come here?' he snapped, in as pretty a piece of '90s philosophy as I have heard in racing.

Well, quite a lot, actually, Mr Lindsay. And our own money, what's more. Senna paid tribute after the race, not only to McLaren, and Honda, but also to Shell, whose fuels had given him so much horsepower this season. Ayrton should rejoice that nothing of your manners found its way into them.