Senna

The lovely @Catpaws123 off of the twitter suggested I should write a review of the Senna film, having seen it yesterday evening in Ambleside.

First of all, I should point out that I am plenty old enough to have been a big F1 fan, with my rear end firmly planted on the sofa, at the time of Ayrton's fateful end.

I, like so many others, was enthralled by the titanic struggles Ayrton was enduring trying to haul the Williams car, stripped of its active doo-dahs and traction wotsits, to the front of the field.

So I began watching this with some trepidation. Whilst I was shocked by the frightening accident a youthful Barrichello suffered that weekend at Imola, and appalled by the death of Ratzenberger, I didn't feel like I really knew either of them. Senna, though - how could you not marvel at Ayrton? I'd watched him die once; I wasn't sure I wanted to go through that again.

The film-makers are sympathetic towards Senna, which is not surprising. Alain Prost comes across regularly as a demonic, twisted genius, with the boy from Brazil the innocent victim. My recollections are that it was much nearer a 50/50 split. Ayrton was reckless sometimes, Prost too willing to play the political card at others. The only time Ayrton come across badly in this film is a breathtaking moment when he berates Jackie Stewart for daring to suggest that he'd had quite a large amount of crashes.

Watching the movie also rolls back the years. When you think of Ron Dennis, you picture emotionless scion of the McLaren empire. Barrichello the old-timer, seeing out his years, Eddie Jordan the crazed former Team Principal wearing daft shirts and forgetting to actually ask a question on the BBC. Here, Ron is a cheeky, playful chap at the top of his game, Rubens the youthful driver starting out on his F1 career, and EJ the large-specs-wearing, clean-shaven, brown haired geezer running a small-budget F1 team (although, to be fair, the shirt was still pretty gaudy).

You also glimpse many other drivers and team crew who were early in their careers, and massively so during the amazing footage taken during driver briefings. F1 drivers are cool, right? Toned Gods in racesuits, all 80's hair and bravado. Oh, and some English bloke called Nigel sporting a tache and wearing a flat cap. But the significance of these moments is the gob-smacking exchanges between Senna, the other drivers and Jean-Marie Balestre, then head of the FIA, and (going on this footage) the most arrogant, biased, deluded and volatile man to have ever got near an F1 car, let alone have control of all things F1. You think Bernie's a tough-nut? Think again.

But perhaps the thing that will stick with me most was the on-board footage from Senna's car. Unlike the images here, camera location and technology from modern F1's gathers its images from above the driver's head, in high quality and steady. The footage in this film is at driver's eye level, lower quality, and every jolt, bump and vibration is displayed, but by God, for all it's imperfections, it is electrifying. With the more open cockpits of the day, and much less refined cars, the steering efforts of Ayrton, the constant micro-adjustments, car-sliding and flat-out brilliance as he flings his car round tracks is jaw-dropping. I had my heart in my mouth all over again watching it, willing him not to clip a barrier or spin off.

And, as it had to, we reach the end. The accident that still can't be properly explained, and the fatal injury that was the cruelest of flukes. The adulation Ayrton was held in, and the despair of his countrymen and women is humbling. All these years on, I had tears in my eyes all over again.

The movie is brilliant. A wonderful story, filled with moments of humour, loneliness, agony, ecstasy, skill, hatred and love. And finally sadness. It's tough going through it again.

But worth it.