Talk Steer: Tony Dodgins on...

I watched, interested, as Bruno Senna scored a couple of GP2 podiums in Hungary last weekend and closed to within seven points of Giorgio Pantano's series lead. I think I'd put my house on Bruno driving a Toro Rosso next year.

Like half the world I was a huge fan of his uncle and, like Gerhard Berger, won't ever forget Imola '94.

A team-mate, more often than not, becomes a mortal enemy, and one as talented as Ayrton Senna would best be avoided, you might imagine. But when they were team-mates at McLaren, Senna and Berger got on.

Gerhard retired his Ferrari 16 laps into the restart on that awful weekend at Imola and went straight to the hospital, where he was the last man to see Ayrton. In Monaco 10 days on, he called together the press and many suspected he was about to call it a day.

Imola opened everyone's eyes

"Obviously," Berger recalls, "I was in the latter part of my career and after the accidents in Imola - [Rubens] Barrichello [who crashed heavily in practice], poor [Roland] Ratzenberger and then Ayrton - I thought maybe it was a good time to stop, be happy not to be hurt and not take the risk anymore. But then I said to myself, it's what I like to do and I'd always been prepared to take the potential consequences, so keep going.

"It opened everyone's eyes. You realised you were in a sport where you didn't know if you were going to be lucky and survive it, or not. With Roland it was a bit different because the wrong thing broke at the wrong time and there's nothing he could do. But with Ayrton, you said to yourself, even if you are Ayrton there's a chance to lose it..."

Bruno was 10 years old, hugely proud of his famous uncle, with whom he often raced in karts.

Berger recalls: "I liked Ayrton, I liked the family and we always had a good time. After Ayrton's death Bruno was not allowed to go karting because his grandfather didn't want racing in the family anymore. But all the boy wanted to do was race and Ayrton had thought he had the talent."

You don't really need to imagine the predicament for Viviane Senna, Ayrton's sister and Bruno's mother. Time went by, but eventually she contacted Gerhard in Austria.

"Because it was all he wanted to do, as a mother she wanted to support him. She wanted me to see he was making the right moves. So I said send him over to Europe and I'll organise some tests. I decided to help him - not as a manager, more as a friend of the family. I liked him a lot. He reminded me of Ayrton - the look and the way he talks. He's very switched-on, very quick-thinking. And I always thought Ayrton would be very happy to see me helping..."

It's surely too good a story for Gerhard not to end up running Bruno in his F1 team. And you also feel that Toro Rosso would be a good place for him to start. Not only is Berger there but also Giorgio Ascanelli, who worked with Bruno's uncle and has been around the block a few times. Bruno is still relatively inexperienced, so the pressure may be a little reduced, even if the spotlight is not. It would be one of those stories with a lovely personal symmetry. Gerhard was straightforward on the topic in Hungary.

"Bruno's support is nothing to do with Red Bull, it's a personal thing," he said. "I shouldn't mix up personal things with our Red Bull business. But, obviously, if he is the best candidate then we'd discuss it. It doesn't matter what his name is. If he's GP2 champion that's a different story."

It's Bruno's results that count

You get the impression that Berger may come under pressure to replace the departing Sebastian Vettel with Sebestian Buemi, a Red Bull junior driver, but the message to Bruno seems clear enough.

"Until now," says Berger, "if you discussed Bruno you always put his inexperience on the table, but now it's coming to the time where nobody is interested in that. It's the results that count. I think he's there now. I think what he has to do this year is win the GP2 championship. He's second at the moment and the leader is Pantano who, I have to say, is not a real competitor in a way because he has 100 years of experience. I think among the young ones - Buemi and the others - Bruno is doing a good job."

There are commercial considerations as well, of course. As someone said to me in Hungary: "If Toro Rosso announced Bruno Senna on Thursday at Interlagos... wow! They could set up a cash register out the back of the pits - Banco Santander, Banco Nacional, Banco Toytown, it doesn't really matter..."