30 Years ago, Ayrton Senna lost his life in a crash in Imola. Formula 1 lost one of its icons. Three decades on, the loss is still palpable. In Issue 10 of Tazio Magazine, Gerhard Berger portrays his close friend, his rival at McLaren he could not beat. Senna, by Berger.
Gerhard Berger set aside a couple of hours for our Richard Lieberman to talk about his friend Ayrton Senna. And then he asked for another couple of hours to continue the conversation.
We know most of the facts: how Senna broke through in Formula 1 in an underpowered Toleman in the rain at the Monaco GP in 1984. His meteoric rise, the rivalry with his team-mate at McLaren, Alain Prost. And then that miserable weekend at Imola, on May 1st in 1994. With first Rubens Barichello’s huge shunt on Friday, then Roland Ratzenberger’s fatal crash in practice on Saturday, and Senna’s shunt at Tamburello in the race on Sunday. Formula 1 had lost an icon of a generation.
Who better than Gerhard Berger to talk about Senna, his team-mate for three seasons at McLaren. “You will always look for weakness in your team-mate. With Senna, I could not find any.” From the first time they were on the grid together – a Formula Ford 2000 race in Hockenheim, Germany – to April 1st, 1994, when Gerhard Berger saw Senna’s Williams veer offline at the San Marino Grand Prix. “My first thought was: ‘that is a good angle to go off.’ No way I thought he was hurt.”
Furthermore, Jim Donnelly talks about Al Holbert’s rich career. IMSA, NASCAR, Can-Am, Indycar, Group C prototypes, Holbert was successful in any car he raced. Taken from us all too soon after his private plane crashed in 1988, we asked Derek Bell, Alwin Springer, Al’s son Todd and many others about one of the great race drivers/engineers.
Natan Tazelaar reconstructs the start of what has since become the most prestigious one-make racing series: the Ferrari Challenge. Behind the wheel of the Ferrari 348 Challenge – the first of the series – he discovers a racing series that sought to promote Ferrari’s V8 GT cars. The more you think about it, the more it seems strange we had to wait until 1993 to see the first Ferrari Challenge.
Fabrizia Pons formed a female power duo in the beginning of the eighties, together with Michèle Mouton. In the hairy-chested days of Group B rallying, Mouton and Pons proved they could beat the men on equal terms. In fact, in 1982, Mouton and Pons were in the running for the world championship up until one rally from the end. After her time with Audi, Fabrizia Pons stepped into the co-driver’s seat next to Ari Vatanen, and would later score another WRC victory guiding Piero Liatti in the 1997 Monte Carlo rally. Even today, she continues competing. A look back on 46 years in the co-driver’s seat.
In 1979, Björn Waldegaard used this Mercedes 450 SLC 5.0 to secure his first – and only – world rally driver’s title. Waldegaard’s was one of four factory-entered 450, the big V8 coupé an unlikely rally car, let alone one that could survive the tortures of a 3500-mile track through the Ivory Coast, for the Bandama rally in Africa. With a big 5-litre V8 and the unusual choice of three-speed automatic gearbox, Mercedes nonetheless waltzed over the opposition, giving the SLCs a unique 1, 2, 3, 4 in the rally.
The SLC – one of just nine built – finished its rally career in 1980. It wasn’t finished competing just yet, though. Belgian tuner Serge Power acquired the car and entered it in the Spa 24 Hours in 1982 and 1983, where it ran as high as fourth place. We got a close-up with this fascinating rally/race car, in the run up to its sale at RM Sotheby’s auction in May in Monaco.
What else? Oh, you probably know the TWR-Porsche WSC95 as the car that won Le Mans twice (1996 and 1997) with Joest. But did you know that before that, it was parked in Porsche’s basement as an abandoned project from erstwhile-rivals-become-partners TWR and Porsche. In an exclusive exctract taken from Serge Vanbockryck’s book ‘TWR-Porsche WSC 95. The autobiography of WSC001’ we go back to the fascinating, seldom-heard beginning of this project.
In 1952, the Monaco Grand Prix was a sportscar race. It was the first and only time the Monaco Grand Prix ran with sportscars. This is also the reason why the current Monaco Grand Prix Historique runs a sportscar program. We look back in pictures on a tumultuous race.
Furthermore, if you want to do Dakar Classic on a budget, have you looked at the Lada Niva? George East tells the secrets. And the usual columns by Hurley Haywood, Steve Soper and Christian Geistdörfer. And more.
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