Tony Dodgins: F1's Inside Line

Special moments. As someone fortunate enough to travel the world reporting on a sport I love, I have to say that at times you can become bit blase. Over time, not a lot happens that you haven't seen before, the odd £50 million fine notwithstanding... But then there are things that make the hairs stand up.

I, like half the world, was a great Ayrton Senna fan. Yes, his intensity and commitment led him to do things on the track that many regarded as borderline at best. Men from a different era, like Stirling Moss, who competed at a time when to be a true sportsman you first had to be a gentleman, always struggled a little with that. And with Suzuka 1990 in particular, when Ayrton won the title by unceremoniously ramming off Alain Prost at the first corner.

The previous year, Alain had done the same to Ayrton, with a lot more subtlety, at a 30mph chicane. For Ayrton, Suzuka '90 was simple - an eye for an eye. There was much hand-wringing about the mentality of a man who would do such a thing going into a 150mph corner with the whole field right behind. Senna had little time for that. He knew well enough that they would both be in the gravel long before anyone else arrived and, at his level, the mechanics of it were simple enough.

It lost him friends but it made him all the more compelling. Senna was so much more than a racing driver. He had an aura that was almost spiritual and nowhere was this more apparent than when he spoke, a year after the Suzuka debacle, at the 1991 Autosport Awards.

I can't remember what he said; it doesn't matter. It was the manner of the delivery and its effect on an audience totally in thrall. Ayrton spoke for a long time and you could have heard a pin drop. He was a deep thinker and I will always remember that '91 dinner as something special. A year later, Nigel Mansell was up on stage, the newly crowned world champion. No disrespect, but it just wasn't the same. Glasses clinked and people carried on their own conversations.

Was that special night at London's Grosvenor House Hotel really 16 years ago? Was it really four years before a 10-year-old Lewis Hamilton, there to collect a karting award, was pointed towards Ron Dennis, and went to tell Ron that one day he wanted to drive his F1 cars?

Lewis, unsurprisingly, was the focal point of another splendid Autosport Awards night at the same Park Lane hotel last Sunday. Well, he was and he wasn't.

For the first time since Damon Hill in '96, Hamilton won both the British Competition Driver and the International Racing Driver awards. But, being Lewis, he went one better and walked off with the Rookie of the Year award as well. Bit of a foregone conclusion, that, but I happened to be on the same table as Robert Doornbos, Champ Car's Rookie of the Year. "Must have been a close call..." the Dutchman shrugged, with a wry smile.

Already with Lewis, we have become accustomed to the record breaking and the superlatives. On the track and off it, Hamilton conducts himself as if born to it. But last Sunday even Lewis was lost for words when Steve Rider announced that there to present him with his gongs, flown in from Sao Paulo, was Viviane Senna...

Ayrton's sister has a natural elegance and poise. She spends most of her time working with Brazil's needy children, providing opportunity for a select few through the funds generated by the Senna Foundation set up by her brother. As she took centre stage, that night in '91 suddenly seemed like yesterday evening. The bearing and the spiritual air were precisely the same. And so was the effect. There wasn't a murmur.

"Hamilton," she said, "is more than just a special pilot." As she lightly stroked Lewis's cheek, she added with feeling: "He reminds me so much of my brother. He is a good man. You see it in his eyes and in his face..."

Viviane discretely wiped away a tear and the pair both closed their eyes as they embraced deeply. Poor Lewis then had to try to say something. Welling up himself, it was probably the toughest challenge he faced all year. As always, he coped. But I fancy these couple of minutes will mean more to him than any trophy or any cheque. Special moments...