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Hi All,
I'll look forward to watching this. Senna was undoubtedly a precocious talent -- likely the most talented driver of his generation and one can only admire his daring and car control, but I wasn't particularly a fan of his. Schumacher was probably as talented but not more.
Even though he had talent to burn he seemed to me to be an incredibly insecure person and was only happy in a team when he was the only driver in the team with any prospect of winning races. He did his best to get rid of Elio de Angelis at Lotus (succeeded in one season) and had him replaced with someone who was obviously not a winner (Johnny Dumfries) after vetoing Derek Warrick (who was almost capable of matching him).
The (much more protracted) war between Senna and Prost at McLaren had the same ultimate conclusion when Alain Prost upped and walked out because he couldn't stand Senna's tantrums any longer. Despite his incredible talent, I don't think Senna wanted anyone else in the team who was capable of showing when Senna was having an off-day by matching his times or potentially beating him. He was I think a "lone-wolf" and not really a team player.
I most enjoyed his early career at Tolman when he drove the wheels off a third-rate car to occasionally compete with the big-boys in much better equipment. His ultra-fast drive in torrential rain at Monaco -- hunting down Prost in the lead had to be seen to be believed. But after he became established, I think he became a bit of a prig and was only really interested if the deck was stacked in his favour. I remember watching the San Marino race when he died and the moment the car came to rest after the impact you could see his head flop and I thought "he's gone" -- which was really sad that such a precocious talent didn't quite fulfil the expectations everyone had of him. Will be a very interesting film nonetheless.
Best,
Les D
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