The Peter Attia Drive - The Ayrton Senna Episode (re-release)： Celebrating the greatest driver in Formula 1 history and the cautionary tales of driven individuals

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah.

00:00:10.160 The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking,

00:00:15.620 along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with

00:00:19.880 some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast

00:00:23.640 is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,

00:00:28.380 more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode

00:00:33.040 and other topics at PeterAtiyahMD.com.

00:00:41.120 Hi everyone, welcome to a bonus episode of The Drive. This bonus episode is being released on

00:00:48.080 May 1st, 2019, which is the 25th anniversary of the death of Brazilian Formula One legend

00:00:56.780 Ayartan Senna. This interview was originally done in the fall of 2018. Paul Conti and I spoke

00:01:02.580 at length about our mutual admiration for Ayartan, and we actually tied it back into some of the

00:01:08.860 concepts around an interview we had done earlier around depression. So if you're listening to this

00:01:13.920 for the first time, you may even find it helpful to go back and to listen to that. It's sort of hard

00:01:19.520 for me to believe truthfully that this is 25 years later. I remember the Sunday, May 1st, 1994,

00:01:26.820 like it was yesterday. I remember exactly where I was sitting when the news came across. I was in

00:01:33.420 college at the time. I didn't have a television. I wasn't watching the race, but it's weird. It's 0.94

00:01:38.300 one of those moments that I'm sure many people understand when something so profound happens and

00:01:42.520 everything about that moment is seared in your memory, including literally where I was sitting,

00:01:47.100 what the floor looked like, what the shelf looked like in my bookcase, things like that, where my

00:01:51.760 little stereo was sitting. In this episode, we obviously celebrate the life of Senna and talk

00:01:57.880 about perhaps what could have been. In the show notes, we're going to add to what we had done in

00:02:02.880 the past and include some of the really exciting and beautiful recent tributes that have come up,

00:02:07.940 including some really interesting stuff that has come out from his second to last teammate before he

00:02:13.240 died. Gerhard Berger, a number of really interesting articles have come out. So I guess I would say,

00:02:18.200 even if you're not a Formula One fan, most people who listened to this the first time around came

00:02:22.520 back to me and said, wow, that was really interesting. I didn't think I could find that

00:02:26.100 interesting. I would encourage you to take a moment to listen to this. Many people to this day

00:02:29.960 consider Senna to be the greatest driver in the history of Formula One. And his death was really the

00:02:36.120 turning point of a sport. While certainly many drivers had died before Senna, never before had it been

00:02:42.020 so visible to so many people. And it almost overnight, well, I would say it overnight changed

00:02:50.620 the culture of the sport. And over a very short period of time, actually changed the technology

00:02:55.860 of the sport. And today, the sport that I still love is infinitely safer and considerably different

00:03:02.180 than the one that many of us fell in love with in the 80s and the 90s. So I hope you'll enjoy this

00:03:07.940 episode today as we look back 25 years after the death of Ayrton Senna.

00:03:15.660 So Paul, we have a lot of things in common, not the least of which is our birthday. We share the

00:03:20.140 same birthday, which is great because you're one of the few people whose birthdays I remember. 0.99

00:03:24.960 I'm like a moron when it comes to birthdays. I have an encyclopedic memory of many things, 0.93

00:03:30.540 except for birthdays. But of course, every time I wake up, usually you're calling me to wish me a

00:03:36.980 happy birthday, which is reminding me that it's my birthday. I usually wake up to a text from you.

00:03:43.540 The other thing we have in common is a, I think what can only be described as an obsession with

00:03:49.120 arguably, though I would say it's not arguably, definitively the greatest driver in the history

00:03:54.520 of driving. I remember it was one of the first things we bonded over when we got to medical school,

00:03:58.440 because at that point, it had only been three years since Senna's death.

00:04:02.020 And for those of us who, you know, cherished him, it's a day that all of us remember,

00:04:08.820 you know, Sunday, May 1st, 1994. What is it about Senna that you loved so much?

00:04:15.320 I'll try not to be long-winded, but to answer both facets of that. On the one hand,

00:04:20.580 I'm not sure that I'm aware of anyone, certainly not in a way that I observed and experienced

00:04:27.620 with interest as it unfolded, right? Who has been more single-minded about achievement.

00:04:35.700 You know, this is a person who did absolutely everything that was required for not just the

00:04:46.000 highest level of achievement, but for moving that bar of what the highest level of achievement means.

00:04:51.300 And for people who don't follow, like, what Formula One was then, is this is not like somebody sitting

00:04:58.520 in a car and just driving it around, right? The physical stamina, you know, the training,

00:05:05.620 the ability to control oneself physically and mentally, right? The ability to hone reflexes and

00:05:14.820 to multitask in ways that push executive function, push mind and body to the very limits. I've never

00:05:23.380 seen anyone do that. And that's complemented by his incredibly intense passion. I mean, this is someone

00:05:32.460 who, yes, was very religious, but that religiosity, I believe, was expressed in passion for people who

00:05:41.540 were suffering in his home country, right? He was Brazilian. And, you know, he was born wealthy,

00:05:48.260 born privileged, yet had such a sense for the struggle of people who were up against things that

00:05:57.000 he wasn't up against. And I believe that that unity with people who didn't have, you know, even one

00:06:04.940 billionth of the things that he had into money, fame, adulation. But I don't believe that he felt

00:06:11.740 any different. I believe he felt fortunate and he felt a sense of almost messianic drive to be the

00:06:19.120 best and make things better for people. And that leads to the second facet, which is ultimately that

00:06:24.900 was his undoing. He died in the context of that drive, right? Of that inability to step back from the

00:06:32.500 brink, even a little bit. So I think that he's a model for the best in us, and also that we can have

00:06:40.300 so many good qualities and ultimately be the architects of our own downfall by not being able

00:06:47.960 to step back and realize our own humanity. Like, he didn't think he was better than anyone else.

00:06:52.520 But there was another level in which I think he believed, because it was so incumbent upon him to

00:07:01.160 make things better for everyone else, that he had to be superhuman, right? I mean, it's a way of

00:07:07.280 not feeling better than everyone else in an arrogant way, but feeling better in a way that isolates

00:07:13.560 us and means that there's always more to do, and we never get to rest. Right. There was more

00:07:17.380 responsibility on, he felt, I get the sense, of course, never having never met him, but just having read

00:07:23.060 everything that one could read about him and watching every video and documentary, he felt the weight

00:07:28.340 of a nation on your shoulders. Yes, exactly. Yes. And if you feel the weight of a nation on your

00:07:33.980 shoulders, and you don't realize that that just has to be a shared responsibility, but you take

00:07:40.280 that all on yourself, then you can inadvertently be the architect of your own demise.

00:07:47.340 I don't think many people realized until after his death how much he gave back to Brazil.

00:07:52.500 He kept a lot of that secret. Yeah.

00:07:54.060 He had a lot of education for underprivileged children in the, you know, in the inland part of

00:08:00.260 Brazil. I mean, so, so, I mean, it's just one example of so much of what he did was so humble,

00:08:05.700 you know, and, and I mean, it's very interesting, you know, Sid Watkins, right, who was the great

00:08:10.040 neurosurgeon, right? Who, who also was by the greatest understanding of the personalities of these

00:08:16.080 incredibly driven people, you know, just described a serene humility in him, that this was someone who

00:08:23.860 lived an unobtrusive life, when left to his own devices to live it. And you put him on camera,

00:08:29.520 you could say, okay, look, his lifestyles are the rich and famous. That's not who he was inside.

00:08:34.120 And it's, it's, you know, it's fascinating to know that, that amidst that peace and tranquility was

00:08:39.500 such a desperation to do things that were superhuman. And there's a lesson in that,

00:08:44.500 right, the lesson that goes back to mythology, right, of flying too close to the sun, right?

00:08:48.680 And it is a lesson for people who, I think, have great abilities and great perseverance and great

00:08:56.920 ability to torment themselves in order to continue to persevere, that if we don't recognize our limits,

00:09:04.320 we run great risk of not achieving our goals. And then Ayrton Senna, who lived to be 90,

00:09:10.680 could have done what? How much for Brazil? How much for the world?

00:09:14.500 So I see him as really amongst the greatest of us for his capability, his drive, his compassion,

00:09:23.040 his just living in shared humanity. But I also see him as emblematic of the foibles that are,

00:09:30.060 you know, not just foibles, the dangers that we can represent to ourselves,

00:09:34.240 and the need for not just humility about ourselves, but also for compassion about ourselves. And like,

00:09:40.480 look, there's a limit, and we got to take care of ourselves if we're gonna, you know, if we're gonna

00:09:44.960 keep going for ourselves and for whatever it is that we care about.

00:09:48.460 Virtually every Formula One driver today, so you look at the heroes of today, Lewis Hamilton,

00:09:53.900 Sebastian Vettel, Ricardo, all of these guys. If asked, almost without exception to a man,

00:09:59.640 they'll all say the same thing, that Senna's death has been the single most important change in

00:10:05.260 Formula One. It was the turning point in the safety of that sport. Do you remember what they

00:10:10.940 found in his car when he died at Imola? Do you remember with a flag what he had?

00:10:14.680 They found that the Austrian flag.

00:10:17.360 Which is unusual. Why would a Brazilian have been carrying the Austrian flag on the day he died?

00:10:22.160 A person who's like, every cell was about Brazil, had an Austrian flag. And of course,

00:10:27.400 we know that the day before that, Roland Ratzenberger, who was Austrian, had died in a Formula One car.

00:10:33.580 And how shocking and distressing that was to Ayrton Senna, and his drive to win that race. Why?

00:10:42.740 I mean, everything he wanted to win was to be the best and to glorify Brazil, right?

00:10:49.040 Here it was about, I think, such an intense compassion for this person's loss of life,

00:10:54.680 that I think it blinded him to the limits, to even his own limits. I mean, even, you know,

00:11:00.980 he had limits, right? We all have limits. And I think it blinded him to those limits. And I think

00:11:06.360 subsequently, it's just my opinion, it's blinded Formula One to, in a sense, the need for some

00:11:13.540 element of danger to allow people to distinguish themselves. And, you know, that might sound like

00:11:18.720 an odd thing to say, is coming from the perspective of preserving life, right? But I think that

00:11:24.660 there were times when that sport was way too dangerous, and just way too many people lost

00:11:28.820 their lives. But to go so far to uniformatize it, and to try and eliminate danger, some of what has

00:11:37.680 been eliminated was, you know, the limits of human ambition and human bravery, that I think were an

00:11:45.660 important part of distinguishing people who really were heroes. And in part, they were heroes, because

00:11:52.240 they were taking some risks. And again, I'm not a fan of, let's bring back, you know, 25 or 30% of

00:11:59.040 Formula One drivers are dying behind the wheel. I mean, obviously, that is, that's not okay. But

00:12:03.840 there's been such a push in the other direction. And I think that there was just really a terror in

00:12:08.660 the sport. And it was a terror that see that that then sought to eliminate, you know, the, the

00:12:14.660 opportunity to push oneself too far. But I think in doing so, there's a there's an arena of human

00:12:20.660 endeavor, that it can be tremendously inspiring, that I think was, I think was changed too much.

00:12:28.340 And I think, you know, people don't have as much, they don't have the opportunity to be

00:12:32.740 Ayrton Senna, right? And I think in some ways, in order to have the opportunity to be him,

00:12:36.740 there, there has to be the opportunity to take the risks that he took, and hopefully to learn

00:12:41.620 from his example and take them in a way that results in, in excellence and survival. But I

00:12:47.620 think the sport, in many ways, has taken away that, that ability. And I think part of why people

00:12:52.500 hearken back to that is, it was a turning point that really changed the sport, I think, in a way,

00:12:57.140 in too many ways. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know, that era just seems remarkable. I mean,

00:13:02.740 when you think about the rivalries that existed, you know, Mansell and PK and Prost and Senna,

00:13:08.880 it was, I don't know, it's hard to say. I mean, like, I could talk about Formula One forever.

00:13:14.500 I know you and I, I think you and I actually have, we actually have done this. But,

00:13:18.220 but there really is something about the sort of the mid 80s to to mid 90s, that was kind of a

00:13:24.780 remarkable year. I mean, I, again, not that it's about the championships, because

00:13:28.600 many people will still look at Gilles Villeneuve having never won a championship as one of the

00:13:32.900 greatest drivers ever. And we should, we could park that for a moment on the side. But I really

00:13:38.160 do. So first of all, even though Senna won only, quote unquote, three championships, in my mind,

00:13:42.880 he won four. So the disqualification in the Japanese Grand Prix, I look at that disqualification

00:13:48.780 the same way I look at the Hagler-Leonard fight, which is just, they just, they made a bad call.

00:13:54.060 There is no way he should have been disqualified in that. And so he died as a four-time champion.

00:14:00.580 But if you do the math on it, you realize that the season he died, which was the third race of 0.99

00:14:05.620 the 1994 season, even though the Williams car was a fraction of what it was the year before,

00:14:11.200 what most people don't realize is Hill went on, his teammate, Damon Hill, went on to finish second

00:14:19.540 to Schumacher that season by a point, basically. It came down to the last race, which tells you that

00:14:25.700 a lot of the kinks that were going on in the Williams car of that year were getting worked out.

00:14:31.120 In other words, had Senna not died, I'm positive he would have been the 1994 world champion. And I

00:14:37.360 suspect he would have been the world champion all the way till about 97. Because you did,

00:14:42.160 you ultimately had Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve won in 97, Damon Hill won in what, 96, all in the

00:14:48.580 Williams car. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, so people talk about, well, okay, you know, many years later,

00:14:55.340 Schumacher went on to win so many championships. And that's, that's impressive. I think most people

00:14:59.440 still consider Senna the greatest driver of all time. But, you know, Senna could have won seven world

00:15:03.860 championships in an era when that was unheard of. Right. I mean, you have to look at any achievement

00:15:10.580 by era, right? I mean, think about Fangio won five world championships in a time when most people like

00:15:15.740 didn't survive five seasons, right? So how can you compare that to a time when safety was at such a

00:15:22.500 height and the Ferrari was a dominant car? I mean, like, you know, you can't, there's a comparison

00:15:27.360 than the truly is apples and oranges. And that era of like, mid 80s to mid 90s, you know, was an era

00:15:34.800 of like, incredibly fast machines, and machines that weren't always on parody, but machines that

00:15:41.620 were on parody enough, that the driver could make the difference. And you really saw like, what I think

00:15:47.540 of as titanic struggles between exceptional personalities. So the same thing that drew me to,

00:15:52.880 you know, the interest in, you know, the people behind the Second World War, to an interest in like,

00:15:58.140 in people who are struggling, whether it's with glory, or with no one watching, right, is the same

00:16:04.140 thing that that to me, was that the attraction of Formula One, that you know, your titanic personalities

00:16:10.440 of Prost, Mansell, Senna. And I think that, you know, it's interesting that Damon Hill won the

00:16:16.240 championship that year. And again, I think that the vast majority of people would say he was not the

00:16:19.720 caliber of driver of Mansell, Prost, or Senna. But look at the caliber of human being. I mean,

00:16:26.540 here's a person who grew up with this incredibly dashing debonair father, right? And you know,

00:16:32.520 you see pictures... And he was around the paddock as an infant. Right. And when you see pictures,

00:16:36.680 you know, you see Damon Hill wasn't cut in the mold of his father, right? He's probably cut more

00:16:41.060 in the mold of his mother. You know, you see these pictures of him kind of standing close to his

00:16:44.480 mother, looking in awe at his father. Yeah, who just looked like a movie star. Right. I mean,

00:16:48.980 he... Right. So he's got a handlebar mustache, and he's a rower, and just he was such a, you know,

00:16:54.380 a model of what it meant to be a man in that era, right? And despite not naturally having those

00:16:59.920 characteristics, I think physically or personality-wise, Damon Hill won the world championship

00:17:05.640 anyway. And like, he went back in that Williams after Senna was killed. You know, I think that,

00:17:11.560 you know, Damon Hill's story is a much quieter story, but I think it's a tremendous story of being an

00:17:17.000 exceptional human. And I think that's what appeals to people who really, you know, love that era of

00:17:23.920 the sport is, I mean, you and I love... We're infinitely infatuated by exceptional people.

00:17:29.920 We want to understand them. We want to learn from them. In some ways, we want to venerate them.

00:17:34.160 And I think there's something that's really... There's something that's good about that. But,

00:17:38.220 you know, it kind of... Maybe drawing all this together, you know, there's also something in us

00:17:43.460 that I think at times wants to idealize them. And then therefore, in a sense, idealize what we're

00:17:49.520 doing. You know, and the truth is that, you know, Senna's death was avoidable. And I don't mean it

00:17:54.320 was avoidable because they could have made that track dumbed down. It was avoidable if he had

00:17:59.140 driven less fast, I think. You know, I don't remember you and I have really ever talked about

00:18:02.440 this in great detail. I mean, I have a pretty strong point of view on why he died. I'd be curious to

00:18:06.860 know yours. So I think the official answer that came out of the trial was that basically

00:18:12.860 the crash on the first lap that led to the safety car coming out allowed the tires to cool

00:18:17.620 and he basically lost traction. Now, I've... You know, there are a couple of really interesting

00:18:23.080 videos on YouTube that have tried to dissect this in 10 different ways. But I got to tell

00:18:26.920 you, the theory that I find most compelling, I actually think the steering column broke before

00:18:30.880 he went off the road. Okay.

00:18:32.620 So I actually think... Because as you know, Senna modified the steering column in his car.

00:18:36.940 So he had like an extra six inches of a steering column in there and it was well... So there,

00:18:41.140 he had a separate point of weakness in his steering column. And I actually think it broke. And I say

00:18:46.940 that because when you look at the film of the onboard of him going off just before it cuts out,

00:18:52.020 you can see him violently turning the wheel with no effect. But this is before the impact. So there's

00:18:58.880 no dispute that the steering column broke. That's a given. The question is, did it break before or

00:19:03.520 after the collision? And if it broke before the collision, it's hard to argue that that's

00:19:07.800 not the single most important part of why he crashed. What's your thought?

00:19:12.320 Again, what do I know?

00:19:13.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:19:14.160 We're two knuckleheads.

00:19:15.120 We're fans. We're knucklehead fans offering our amateur opinion. But my read of that is

00:19:20.260 different, right? And again, who knows? But, you know, think about the Williams before that year.

00:19:26.120 The active suspension, right?

00:19:28.080 Generally regarded as the single most technologically advanced Formula One car

00:19:32.580 in the history of the sport, including up until this day, even though that was 25 years ago.

00:19:38.200 I mean, you could do one little thing to like put it a tiny bit off balance and the car adjusts. I

00:19:43.180 mean, that car was like science fiction in terms of its sophistication. And sure,

00:19:48.340 all the teams were trying to do that, but Williams had the best.

00:19:50.860 Yeah, Williams took it to another level.

00:19:52.320 So then, okay, what happens? They say, like, take all that stuff away.

00:19:54.920 And I think through no fault of the Williams or the team, that car was a beast without that,

00:20:01.280 right?

00:20:01.420 It was undrivable.

00:20:02.460 Right. So it was undrivable. And I think, and some of the things, you know, that Damon

00:20:08.220 Hill said about driving were really scary. Like that car was on a knife edge and like it was a

00:20:12.000 terrifying car to drive.

00:20:13.400 Yeah. Senna did not finish the first two races of the 94 season, even though he was leading both

00:20:18.380 because he just lost control of the car. And when you watch those spin outs, you're like,

00:20:22.600 that's the type of spin out I would do in a car. Like that's not something that the world's best

00:20:28.020 driver would do.

00:20:29.060 Right. Right. Which, which I think means that like most people would say, okay, look, if I'm going

00:20:34.480 to drive this car, cause again, we're talking about a level of talent and bravery that I cannot

00:20:38.100 imagine, right? That, okay, they're going to drive it and they're going to try and drive it fast.

00:20:42.640 But that's a different thing than driving it on the absolute edge. A Villeneuve style was,

00:20:47.420 how do you know where the limit is? You go over it and you fly off the track and then you figure that

00:20:50.380 out. Like that was not the way to drive that car and survive. And I think that he knew that,

00:20:55.600 but I think he forgot that when Ratzenberger died. And, and I think that that was the cause of

00:21:00.780 the, so you think he went around that corner just a little too quickly, given the tire,

00:21:07.020 basically given the tire temperature, is that what you think it came down to?

00:21:09.880 Right. I think given all the complex factors, right, including tire temperature,

00:21:14.140 all the things that had happened, I think he went too fast. And I think that there was sort of

00:21:19.420 the hubris of brilliance and the need to make something right that, you know, to win that race.

00:21:25.540 I mean, imagine Ayrton Senna, had he won that race and then he drives around the track with the

00:21:32.480 Austrian flag. I mean, I am not sure that a human being can be glorified more. I mean,

00:21:40.480 you know, think about at that point, you know, I mean, Senna had a superhuman status. I mean,

00:21:45.500 there were people in lots of places, not just in Brazil that actually felt like maybe he's immortal.

00:21:49.760 If the Brazilians loved him the most, you could, I think you'd have to make the case that the

00:21:53.060 Japanese loved him the second most, right? Absolutely. He was a god in Japan.

00:21:57.080 Absolutely. I mean, you see those pictures and he's like getting off a plane, people like fainting and,

00:22:00.920 you know, things that, okay, we like saw with the Beatles, but, you know, but there's a lot of like

00:22:05.020 hysteria and, you know, around, I'm not trying to say anything negative about people fainting when

00:22:09.580 the Beatles got off the plane, but, but this was like an adulation of a single human being for his

00:22:15.300 tenacity, you know, his, his ability to say like, there's never, there's never enough that's been put

00:22:21.360 into succeeding. So imagine him and the glory that, you know, that he would have brought. Now,

00:22:28.340 again, you could say, well, what's the glory? I mean, you know,

00:22:30.340 this will and Ratzenberger need the glory, right? But, but it is meaningful. I mean,

00:22:34.640 I think it would have been meaningful in a way of that no one would have ever forgotten. And that

00:22:39.280 would have meant something to his family and his friends and would have meant something forever.

00:22:42.860 I mean, that could have been potentially one of the most memorable moments, if not the most memorable

00:22:46.500 moment in the history of the sport. And I think he was so driven to do that, that he attempted to do

00:22:52.420 something that was superhuman. And I, and I think that cost him his life.

00:22:56.100 You know, there's so many things about that day that just blow my mind. Obviously there are

00:23:00.280 interviews of him on that day that he died in the paddock and he was not himself.

00:23:04.180 And Sid Watkins has said that, right? He knew him so well.

00:23:07.140 Yeah. He, he even tried to talk him into retiring. He said, you know,

00:23:11.360 Areton, you've done it all. You have nothing left to prove. And Sid, more than anybody else,

00:23:16.040 knew the dangers of the sport and thought, why take one more chance?

00:23:20.400 And I think he was also afraid that not only is Santa going to take one more chance, but he's going

00:23:24.260 to take a heroic chance. Right, right. Exactly. And I think, and I think that's what frightened him

00:23:30.300 is he realized like, this man is heading towards death. You know, it's interesting when you think

00:23:33.600 about Jackie Stewart's last race was a non-race. He didn't race his last race because his teammate,

00:23:41.620 Yacht Rent was his teammate. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, Severe. His teammate died in qualifying

00:23:46.900 for that race. What was it? Was it Watkins? It was at Watkins Glen. Yeah, Watkins Glen.

00:23:51.560 I mean, I love watching interviews of Jackie Stewart talking about that. And he was just like,

00:23:56.880 that was enough. That was it. It was over. Yep. And, and again, I don't know. I would,

00:24:02.060 I would give anything to, to like sit down and ask the question of Jackie Stewart. Right. But,

00:24:06.600 you know, here's a man who like started driving when, I mean, if I'm remembering correctly,

00:24:11.080 I think there was a 30% survival rate, like a 70% death rate, right. Of when he started driving

00:24:16.760 cars and, and he was so brave, like he worked to make safety better, but my God, who wouldn't

00:24:22.520 when seven out of 10 people aren't surviving? So he was, you know, incredibly brave. And,

00:24:28.460 and I don't think that changed. I don't think his bravery changed. I think he had a sense

00:24:33.120 of being paternal to Severe. Severe was younger. Jackie Stewart was nurturing him. And I think

00:24:37.740 his sense of enough. Jackie Stewart loved, I mean, he was, he wanted to give him every piece

00:24:42.400 of knowledge he had is sort of the impression I get. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's,

00:24:47.540 there's a different story there too, right. Which is like, how can we parse out the bravery

00:24:51.400 of Jackie Stewart versus Ayrton Senna? I mean, we're stratospheric. And one of them was a death

00:24:57.560 Ratzenberger's death. I think told Senna a lesson that I believe is born of trauma. I mean, I think

00:25:03.720 that think about the drive in Senna and it was a drive. There had to be something in him of,

00:25:09.560 of fighting some sense of not being good enough that he had to save his country, save the world.

00:25:14.820 And I think that that had fatal consequences as opposed to Jackie Stewart, who I think

00:25:19.540 he seemingly is a more balanced human being, right. Who recognize in the death of Severe,

00:25:24.940 like it's time for me to stop. And I think the different lessons from, from that death are

00:25:30.100 indicative of, I think the different character structures of those two men. And again, I have

00:25:34.700 no basis for saying that other than being a fan of the sport and reading things and trying

00:25:38.260 into thinking about it. And I mean, there was clearly something, there was a demon inside

00:25:42.440 of Senna, right. I mean, I just don't think people flog themselves like that. You know,

00:25:46.860 people don't just run in the heat with their uniform and helmet on, you know, until they

00:25:51.580 like fall over. And then someone like, okay, at that moment, you can't go any farther. So

00:25:55.160 I'm pushing a car and you go back and get rehydrated. I mean, like, you know, there was a

00:25:58.760 way in which there was something messianic in him. And I'm not sure that there can be

00:26:02.800 messianic things. Do you remember the Brazilian Grand Prix that he won in, was it 93? When

00:26:08.680 his, um. Yeah, the, the steering. No, no, the, uh, he got stuck in basically like. Oh,

00:26:13.580 the gear, that's right. What year was that? The, um, I don't remember if, I don't remember

00:26:18.800 after, I don't remember what year it was, but it was the gear. Uh, he was stuck in a certain

00:26:23.180 gear. He was stuck in like sixth gear or something. It was a gear that I remember thinking, I was

00:26:26.800 just thinking about this the other day. I was like literally driving around the other

00:26:29.260 day and I thought, what would I do if my car was stuck in fourth? Like if this was the

00:26:34.140 only gear I could be in, I don't even know how I would drive. And yet this guy manages

00:26:38.020 to win the Brazilian Grand Prix when for a third of the race, he's stuck in some high

00:26:43.040 gear. Right. And, and I think whether it was that, that made the car harder to drive, but

00:26:47.920 like, you know, he had muscle cramping right from head to toe. And I think part of that was

00:26:52.140 the heat and the extra difficulty of, you know, of yanking that car around the track.

00:26:59.260 Right. It made it so difficult to drive that I'm sure he understood like, how do you keep

00:27:02.740 the revs up? How do you actually do this? Right. In a way that like, again, you or I would

00:27:06.320 get passed by bicycles. Right. Right. But he's still able to stop. I mean, I just wouldn't

00:27:10.340 have been driving. Right. And, and I think the drive, I mean, in my view of, of human performance

00:27:17.020 in a way that we can witness, right? Human tenacity in a way that we can witness.

00:27:22.160 They had to pull him out of the car. Yeah. And when you see footage of that film, you've

00:27:27.500 never seen him in that kind of pain. He couldn't hold up the trophy at the end. Do you remember?

00:27:32.840 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he says something about, this is in front of Brazil. Right. And he said

00:27:37.040 something to his mother and father, right? About like not to touch him. That's right. His father

00:27:41.100 was trying to hug him after the race. And he just said, no, don't touch me. Don't touch me.

00:27:44.700 Yeah. And, and, you know, that to me is the, is the kind of bravery that we at times don't

00:27:48.880 get to witness. Right. It's a kind of bravery that's like legendary in wartime. Right. You

00:27:53.940 know, it's a kind of bravery that I think we respect so infinitely and I don't think we

00:27:59.120 get to see it. You know, I mean, I've, I've talked and, and this is not the time to go into

00:28:03.300 it, but you know, an uncle of mine who was a war hero, right. Who, you know, when they were

00:28:08.000 shooting at him, jumped out and went and got the guy who had been shot. Right. And was

00:28:12.260 decorated and like did things that to me are like unimaginable. Like, how do you, how

00:28:16.280 do you do that? And I don't think that we, we know what to make of that. Like we've been

00:28:20.940 fortunate not to be in those situations. Right. So we don't know, like, what would I

00:28:24.960 do? Could I do that? Would I do that? And we don't have a metric for that in a way that

00:28:29.000 we can understand because we know we're not, we don't understand like how it's in a trench

00:28:32.820 and you're being shot at and somebody's been shot and they're screaming and like, you know,

00:28:36.800 that's, I think that's unfathomable, but I think things like Senna's achievement in

00:28:41.540 Brazil and Senna's drive, like internal drive in San Marino gives us some insight into like

00:28:48.660 what, you know, the human tenacity under incredible, unimaginable pressures. And, and I think that

00:28:56.460 there are ways in which it resonates with us because we get to witness that in a way that

00:29:01.100 otherwise it's inaccessible to us and we get to see it not just in its glory, but also in its fear

00:29:07.460 and its terror and, you know, in the reality of it, right? That, you know, for every person who

00:29:13.200 jumps out of a trench and saves somebody and, and gets a medal, you know, how many people are there

00:29:17.960 who jump out of a trench and are dead? So I think witnessing that provides a metric in some ways of

00:29:24.200 what human beings can do. And I think it's, it's, it's great for us to appreciate and to even

00:29:31.020 venerate that. But I think the danger isn't identifying with it too much because I, I think

00:29:36.300 it's one thing to do that in wartime and maybe people do that who, who don't have trauma as a

00:29:41.640 motivator. It's different, right? But I think doing the things that, that Senna did and ultimately

00:29:46.580 the things that led to his death, I see that in, in rooting in some demon, something traumatic. And

00:29:52.100 again, I obviously don't know what that is, but something inside of him that couldn't be good

00:29:57.680 enough through what he had achieved. Couldn't be good enough by celebrating Roland Ratzenberger,

00:30:03.100 even if he finished second or third, there was a drive in him that, that went against

00:30:08.820 rationality and went against survival instincts. And I think that there's, you know, part of the

00:30:13.320 reason I, you know, I, I'm so interested in him is it's, there's a lot of warnings in there to us too.

00:30:20.180 And again, not to sound like a broken record, but I think so much of that comes down to trauma.

00:30:25.160 And my guess is that sure traumatic things happen to people, but you look at the things,

00:30:29.300 you know, Jackie Stewart was caught in a car, you know, stuck and there's gasoline and it could

00:30:33.740 blow. But anytime he like that man went through traumatic things, but I think ultimately, you know,

00:30:38.360 his decisions don't seem to me to be made through the lens of something traumatic. And I think Senna's

00:30:43.160 do. And again, that may be me trying to over apply my heuristic, right? But, but that's,

00:30:49.280 you know, for what it's worth, that's how I see it.

00:30:51.100 You know, hope, hopefully there's someone still listening to this who's not, who wasn't

00:30:55.000 necessarily interested in racing, but who will become, you know, I, I feel like there's so many

00:30:59.380 things I want to link to. I mean, for me, the two best there's, there's like a hundred videos

00:31:04.440 and documentaries on formula one that I love, but the two that stand out the most to me are the

00:31:08.500 first and foremost, Senna.

00:31:09.580 Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:10.420 And the second is one, the number one, which is actually the very first time I saw that was

00:31:16.520 with you and I watched it together like five or six years ago. Uh, it was late on a Saturday

00:31:21.540 night and I don't know what made us decide like we're going to stay up late and watch this, but

00:31:25.160 oh my God, you know, what's interesting. I don't remember if they show it in either of those

00:31:29.900 documentaries. They certainly don't show it in one and I don't even know if it comes up in Senna,

00:31:33.240 but do they show the Donington first lap?

00:31:35.840 I don't think so in the, in the rain at Donington.

00:31:37.540 Yeah. I mean, it's generally regarded as one of the greatest laps in the history of

00:31:41.020 formula one.

00:31:41.600 I mean, we've looked at it so much and I can't remember like, what is it in? What isn't it

00:31:44.980 in?

00:31:45.360 Either way, we'll link to it here so that people can see it. But, uh, it is, you know, it's

00:31:50.200 funny because when I first started caring about racing, I had never raced myself. So it's a

00:31:55.340 totally different animal once you've actually been in one of these cars and it complete, like

00:32:00.140 my appreciation for Senna, for anyone who does this as a profession.

00:32:07.540 Is two to three logarithmic orders of magnitude higher? I simply can't understand how they

00:32:14.480 do it. And so, especially to look at something like Donington, where you realize like he passed

00:32:21.300 what? He passed three guys in one lap of a rainy track. And it's not three dudes. It's like,

00:32:30.940 you know, Alain Prost. It's like, it's amazing dudes, right?

00:32:35.840 Three of the best drivers on earth and three of the best cars on earth under conditions of which

00:32:39.300 it appears to be impossible to pass someone.

00:32:41.240 And you somehow managed to pass them all from number four position. It's just, again, I can

00:32:47.760 watch that lap a hundred times. And all I want to do is say, you couldn't make this up. If this

00:32:54.280 were in a movie, you would say, that's silly. We don't do that in movies. At least draw this out

00:32:59.700 over 10 laps to have some suspense. You don't get to do it.

00:33:03.100 Keep it realistic.

00:33:03.880 Yeah, yeah. Keep it realistic. This is so stupid. The other thing that fits that description is his

00:33:08.160 qualifying lap at Monaco. Was it in 89 or 88?

00:33:12.500 I want to say 88.

00:33:13.920 Yeah, because it would have been in the MP44, which would have been 88.

00:33:16.340 It would have been 84, I think. The MP44.

00:33:18.460 No, MP44 was 88.

00:33:19.960 Was it? Okay. Okay. So then it would be 88.

00:33:22.260 So what's a normal gap between the first, second guy and qualifying at a course the size of

00:33:27.940 Monaco? Like a tenth of a second? Five one hundredths of a second to a tenth of a second,

00:33:33.520 right? Do you remember how much he was ahead of Prost that year in qualifying?

00:33:38.460 I just remember. It's like, it may as well have been minutes.

00:33:41.080 Yeah, it's about a second and a half.

00:33:42.720 Like an impossible amount of time. And to someone who, look, anyone who's not impressed

00:33:48.300 with that, it's already long stopped listening to us.

00:33:50.860 That's right. That's right. Anybody who's still listening to this, we don't have to

00:33:53.060 explain why it's so significant.

00:33:54.280 So a second and a half may as well be an hour. I mean, it's an impossible gap.

00:34:00.080 And the fact that the gap was against Prost driving the same car.

00:34:05.560 Right.

00:34:06.000 And one of my favorite videos of that, because you know what's tragic? I mean, there are

00:34:10.180 real tragedies. This is like little T tragic, not big T tragic. There is no onboard film of

00:34:15.140 that lap.

00:34:15.840 Is that right? So the onboard film we will often see.

00:34:18.640 The onboard film we see of him is, is in that race, but it's not in that lap there to my

00:34:24.080 knowledge. And I hope, I hope somebody can prove this wrong. And if you can, please tell

00:34:28.720 us, there's a case of Topo Chico with your name on it. I do not believe there is any onboard

00:34:34.040 film from the qualifying lap in 88 Monaco in the MP4, four, where he goes a set one, like

00:34:39.440 something like 1.52 seconds faster.

00:34:41.440 I didn't realize that. I thought some of the video that we'll watch of like Senna's

00:34:44.880 greatest lap in Monaco was that lap.

00:34:46.920 So I think they're wrong.

00:34:47.680 I think they're video from the race or other qualifying, not from that lap. But what there

00:34:54.440 is a video of is Prost's face in the paddock as he sees the time. And it's just a look of,

00:35:02.640 are you freaking kidding me? This guy is not for real.

00:35:08.140 Right. Right. I mean, there's a man who, I think one of the greatest drivers in history

00:35:12.740 who has to have in his head, like, okay, like Senna is great, but if I've gone this fast,

00:35:17.620 what's the fastest he could go? Right. A 10th of a second more, maybe at his best, you know,

00:35:22.320 five, 100. I mean, how could it, to see that, you know, it's just proof of concept of the

00:35:27.940 preternatural ability of Ertan Senna. And, and I think, you know, having exceptional ability

00:35:33.980 at anything is a wonderful thing, but it also can be a dangerous thing. And having preternatural

00:35:38.660 ability is an extremely wonderful thing. And also an extremely dangerous thing.

00:35:43.220 There's a video we'll try to link to. I remember sending it to you when it came out. I described

00:35:47.000 it as the finest McLaren propaganda I have ever seen. And McLaren has the best propaganda.

00:35:53.360 Yeah, they do. I love their propaganda.

00:35:55.020 Yeah, yeah. I'm all in. I'm a sucker for that.

00:35:57.020 I'm buying the hook, line, and sinker. 0.97

00:35:58.100 Right. If I could have afforded a P1, I would have bought one the day that Nuremberg ring came 0.97

00:36:02.620 out. I was like, I gotta have one of those. But they have a video of that lap, which of

00:36:07.460 course doesn't show any footage of the lap. But in it, Senna says that may have been the

00:36:13.360 peak of his career, that moment. He would go on. In fact, he hadn't even won a world championship

00:36:20.320 yet. He won his first championship in 88. I think, yeah, I think the MP44 was his first

00:36:25.700 championship car. I think he won. Yeah, I think he won 88, 90, and 91. But anyway, to think that

00:36:33.600 he believes that he was at his best, even before he'd won his first championship, because of that

00:36:39.500 margin.

00:36:40.340 Yeah. It's amazing, right? It's hubris. It's brilliant. It's putting together everything

00:36:47.980 that's on the absolute knife edge and getting it right. Amazing.

00:36:51.380 Yeah, I remember they explained this to us, you know, in racing school, which was the

00:36:56.060 difference between you and them is you will very occasionally be able to take a car to

00:37:03.640 its limit. Very occasionally. And then most of the time you'll go too far and you'll lose

00:37:09.680 control of the car. The best in the world are always at the limit without going over it.

00:37:15.060 It's amazing.

00:37:15.800 And so even my coach, who's a professional driver, to this day, when I sit in a car with

00:37:21.580 him and we're trying to go over something, so like, we'll get in the car together and

00:37:25.220 I'll be in the passenger seat and he'll be in the driver's seat and we'll communicate

00:37:27.440 through the radio because, of course, it's too loud to talk. And he'll take me through

00:37:30.900 laps. So Buttonwillow is sort of our favorite place because it's relatively close in Southern

00:37:34.720 California. There are areas there, like in particular, I don't know if you know that track well,

00:37:39.260 but the bus stop, which is a part of that track, to this day, I still get kind of nervous how

00:37:48.280 fast he's going.

00:37:50.000 Amazing.

00:37:50.220 I'm like, how is he able to control this?

00:37:52.820 And you're really good at this and really experienced and you know the car and it even,

00:37:55.980 it's amazing you to be in the car with him.

00:37:57.360 I wouldn't say I'm really good. I mean, but the point is I'm not a normal, like I'm not

00:38:01.300 just a lay person who's never been in or driven a race car, but yeah, it just humbles

00:38:06.260 me.

00:38:06.660 It is amazing. Again, I think we celebrate and venerate exceptional talent and I think

00:38:12.640 that's wonderful, right? But I also, I think we need to be careful about the lessons of

00:38:17.980 it too, you know, that this is like one that's as exciting as can be. We're talking about

00:38:22.340 human beings at the limit and it's exceptional and it's inspiring and it's risky, you know,

00:38:27.520 and it really tells us something. It tells us something about human beings that we, in some

00:38:34.540 ways we, we want to push ourselves, you know, we want to, we want to admire people who push

00:38:39.860 to the limit.

00:38:41.000 So while we're on the topic of racing, there's another driver who I know a lot less about

00:38:46.820 than you. Uh, but I just remember from some of our, put it this way. I remember when,

00:38:52.540 when you figured out that I was Canadian, which was kind of a funny concept. It's like,

00:38:57.620 this guy's from Canada. Like what the hell is that? Um, which of course Americans are 0.99

00:39:05.280 secretly so jealous of Canada cause you've got your shit together up there that we like 0.99

00:39:09.140 make fun of you to kind of cover that up. So I think that's comes from insecurity too, 0.99

00:39:12.900 to be honest.

00:39:14.460 But the thing that you loved most about the fact that I was Canadian was Jill Villeneuve.

00:39:18.940 Oh, absolutely.

00:39:20.200 I mean, you might be the greatest Villeneuve fan ever. What is it about Villeneuve that you

00:39:25.420 loved so much?

00:39:26.360 I think a part of it is like, I was a, I was a kid, right? So when I first was like

00:39:30.480 learning about him, you know, there was, I was so impressionable and so impressed by

00:39:36.940 the glory of utter mastery of something that was really venerated on a worldwide scale.

00:39:44.040 So the fact that like there was no one with as much natural talent, I mean, one might argue,

00:39:50.560 even like Stefan Beloff, Fangio, Clark, I mean, Senna, you have to look like there's only a

00:39:55.020 couple people you can even talk about in the same breath in terms of natural talent.

00:40:00.280 And, you know, in retrospect, I think just the utter audacity of him, you know, I mean,

00:40:07.520 this is a guy started off as like a snowmobile racer, right? In Quebec and was so shockingly

00:40:14.900 good that what a few years later he's driving in Formula One for Ferrari. I mean, like this was during an

00:40:19.840 era when Ferrari was not a dominant car.

00:40:23.280 No, I mean, he won in a car that I think he himself described as a truck, but he was so

00:40:29.420 shockingly talented. And in retrospect, I think it's interesting because again, I try and I think

00:40:37.320 if we're going to, if we're going to respect and to some degree venerate humans who have great and at

00:40:44.160 times preternatural talent and are willing to take risks, then we also have to acknowledge

00:40:49.640 that, you know, sometimes the outcome of that is something that isn't glorious, right? That is

00:40:55.320 just simply tragic. And I think, you know, Senna's death, I think was so tragic because I think that

00:41:00.700 is, that's a person who, who did understand the risks. I think in many ways, Villeneuve and I think

00:41:07.140 Beloff, you know, in the, what, how many years, almost 35 years or so that I've been, you know,

00:41:13.600 really following closely, you know, high-level motorsports or two people who I, I mean, I'm not

00:41:18.840 so sure that there was any fear in them and that's extremely dangerous. And I think they were

00:41:24.440 preternaturally.

00:41:24.920 Do you know up until, I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you realize that Beloff's Nuremberg ring record was

00:41:29.560 only broken a week ago?

00:41:31.620 I didn't know that. I didn't know that it was broken a week ago.

00:41:33.820 Yeah.

00:41:34.320 I didn't, and again,

00:41:36.620 That's a record that stood for like 35 years or something.

00:41:39.060 And we're talking apples and oranges. I mean, in a car 35 years ago, right? I mean, again,

00:41:45.140 okay, the record was broken, but in some ways you have to look and say like, that record from an

00:41:49.420 era perspective.

00:41:50.160 His drive on Nuremberg was still the most ridiculous thing ever. 0.69

00:41:55.180 Right, right. So the old Nuremberg ring, right? You know, the most daunting circuit in history.

00:41:59.660 What did Jackie Stewart call it? The green hell?

00:42:01.400 The green hell, I think is, yeah.

00:42:03.100 Yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, like, I mean, there were things that Beloff and Villeneuve did

00:42:08.680 that, I mean, you, you know, you truly had to like not have anywhere in the equation your survival,

00:42:15.840 which is, you know, part of the reason neither of them survived. And again, I think it's just

00:42:19.820 fascinating the, the innate skill and just the utterly undaunted bravery.

00:42:25.800 Was Enzo alive when, when Villeneuve died, right? I mean, he, he was, what did he say? He said,

00:42:33.600 he once said something about Villeneuve that was kind of remarkable.

00:42:36.500 He, so he, you know, for Enzo Ferrari had been a driver, right? And it was in Tazio Nuvolari,

00:42:43.060 right? That he found, like, you know, Nuvolari, it was hard to again, compare. I mean, it was so,

00:42:47.880 so long ago. But when people really talk about the greatest people that have ever,

00:42:51.460 the greatest talents to ever drive a car, Nuvolari is on everybody's list. And in Nuvolari,

00:42:56.900 this like small person, right? Who didn't look like, you know, he would be the greatest driver,

00:43:02.000 but who was unparalleled in his era that Ferrari saw, like, this is the pinnacle of greatness.

00:43:08.860 And it led him to realize, like, he was a very good driver, but like, when you see Nuvolari,

00:43:13.520 you kind of realize, okay, maybe I should stop driving and start building cars. And he really

00:43:17.980 worshiped Nuvolari. And he said something like, who would have imagined, like, I never thought

00:43:23.200 I would see anyone like, you know, Nuvolari died how many decades ago that there's no one else like

00:43:28.720 him. And to see, to find the spirit of Nuvolari again, in this like diminutive elf, like French 1.00

00:43:34.220 Canadian, I mean, I think like, was unimaginable to Enzo Ferrari, who, who therefore felt so passionate

00:43:40.540 about Villeneuve. Because he saw in him, the ultimate of talent and fearlessness, and the

00:43:47.860 ultimate in making a car do seemingly impossible things, which is what Nuvolari was known for,

00:43:54.280 and what Villeneuve was known for.

00:43:56.360 Villeneuve died in 82, correct?

00:43:58.260 In 1982, yeah. It was older, Belgium. 1.00

00:44:00.520 It's a bit of a tragic story as well, not unlike Senna's death, in which you think this could have

00:44:06.320 been preventable. What were the circumstances of his death? It involved a teammate, didn't it?

00:44:11.220 Yeah, his teammate was Pyronie, who had a very, very different personality type. Again, I don't

00:44:17.680 want to be careful not to try and go diagnosing people that I've never met or treated. But this

00:44:22.800 was a person for whom ego, in the very traditional sense, was on the leading edge. Really the opposite

00:44:28.760 of Villeneuve, who people describe as like devoid of guile. Like he just didn't get why. And you would

00:44:34.700 never like double cross someone or do something unsavory, right? I mean, you just go out and

00:44:39.360 like you went on the track. And, you know, Pyronie had done things at Imola, actually, the previous

00:44:46.060 race that were deceitful. I mean, he did the team orders where whoever was ahead, like that's that 0.99

00:44:52.960 at a certain point in the race. And then Pyronie passed Villeneuve when Villeneuve wasn't, you know,

00:44:58.200 didn't think that that could happen.

00:44:59.580 But his teammate would pass him.

00:45:00.700 Right. Because, because never in a million years would Villeneuve just like, what I'm

00:45:04.800 going to do?

00:45:05.360 Disobeyed.

00:45:05.640 Yeah. And, and to win in a way that would then be hollow, right? Like you're in front

00:45:09.660 at the time that the team has decided is when somebody wins. Now you slow down and I pass

00:45:14.060 you. It's like, what's the glory in that? And I believe that he had thought that like

00:45:17.600 there must've been some mistake and he like repassed Pyronie, right? And then slowed down

00:45:21.860 again, not even thinking then maybe he did this on purpose. And, and I think Pyronie passed

00:45:26.700 him a second time, you know, and Villeneuve's drive then was such a drive to win that at

00:45:32.920 the time he was killed. I mean, it was almost like a 50, 50, which direction is his car going

00:45:36.560 to go? Like you slow down so you don't take that risk that you make the wrong choice and

00:45:40.460 there's disaster. And I think the absence of fear, the anger of having been deceived in

00:45:46.860 many ways, the naivete really led to his death. Although by the same token, I don't think there

00:45:52.620 was anyone driving with Villeneuve who like thought that he was going to retire. I don't

00:45:57.380 think anyone thought that. And it's like, no one thought that of Beloff. No, no one thought

00:46:00.900 that of Nuvalari. And if I understand, remember correctly, he died of tuberculosis in old age,

00:46:05.440 right? So that doesn't mean that they were fated, you know, to die in a car, but, but I think

00:46:10.700 that the expectation was that there was, you know, really no concept of self-preservation.

00:46:15.780 Going back to Senna, one of the things that amazes me is the idea that there aren't that

00:46:21.900 many examples of athletes in other sports where the greatest of the generation before

00:46:27.360 and the greatest of the generation after still without hesitation, acknowledge him as the

00:46:32.360 greatest. And so there's Fangio, Juan Manuel Fangio, who again, would certainly be on anybody's

00:46:37.460 short list of greatest drivers of all time, you know, regarded Senna as the greatest.

00:46:41.640 And if you ask Lewis Hamilton, who is arguably today's greatest driver, who is the greatest

00:46:46.540 without hesitation, Ayrton Senna, right? That's amazing. You ask the drivers of Senna's era,

00:46:52.120 who was the greatest, Ayrton Senna, right? I mean, I remember the interviews of Fangio as

00:46:56.060 an old man talking about Senna. And he felt like this was the passing of the torch. This

00:47:00.800 is the one who is better than me. I can remember interviews, he would say over and over,

00:47:04.040 lo mejor, right? He'd say like the best, like he's clearly the best. And you'd see like

00:47:08.340 as Fangio, you know, as an old man, almost a deity at that point, right?

00:47:12.120 There's a beautiful picture of Fangio standing on the podium with Senna, holding him, embracing

00:47:17.240 him like a child. You know, the one I'm talking about, he has his hands on his cheeks in the

00:47:21.280 most loving way. It's such a, and again, it looks like it's his father or his grandfather.

00:47:26.140 Yeah. It's when you think about validation of someone, right? And, and I think that's because,

00:47:32.200 you know, I mean, look, there's so many reasons for it, right? But because if you look at

00:47:35.620 all around, right, I mean, again, we could split hairs about bravery, talent, and we can look at

00:47:41.680 people like Villeneuve and Beloff and Fangio and Clark and, you know, and Prost, right? And Mansell

00:47:48.300 and Schumacher. And you can look at all these people and, you know, there's so many different

00:47:52.920 aspects of ability that you can, you know, how do you really judge one versus another without

00:47:58.120 splitting hairs? But when you take it all together, there is a picture that emerges, which denotes,

00:48:05.620 Senna, as the best, right? When you combine talent, dedication, you know, understanding

00:48:11.440 of the nuances, wanting to understand why the Japanese engineers, the Honda engineers loved

00:48:15.860 him, because he wanted to understand every single thing about that car and the engine that

00:48:22.160 was propelling it. He was the ultimate because there was nothing that was anything less than

00:48:28.760 100% intensely relevant. Every nuance of the course, every nuance of the car, every nuance of

00:48:34.540 the engine, every nuance of the competition, their physical prowess, their experience, their

00:48:38.900 psychological weaknesses, right? I mean, this is a person who approached Formula One, like

00:48:44.500 you or I might approach, like saving our family, right? I mean, there's like no nuance that isn't

00:48:51.020 100% imperatively relevant. And I think to be that way and to maintain that really marked him

00:48:59.000 like, you know, it elevated the talent, the bravery, it elevated everything to the, to the really optimal

00:49:04.220 level, which is why I think, you know, he, you know, there's reason why the generations all say that

00:49:10.680 he's the greatest, right? And I think it's, it's for good reason. And again, I keep coming back to

00:49:15.940 the idea that part of being the greatest for him was being messianic. And if you're going to be

00:49:21.960 messianic, there's a risk that you won't survive it.

00:49:24.700 I remember Prost would say this in interviews, he, you know, cause it's an interesting Prost and

00:49:29.080 Senna had a completely tumultuous, hostile relationship until the day that he died.

00:49:35.040 Yeah.

00:49:35.220 It's very interesting. You, I don't remember again, I, which interview I've seen it in. I,

00:49:39.020 it might be in one of these documentaries, but Prost tells the story of how, cause he had retired in

00:49:42.920 93 after winning in the, uh, the Williams, uh, I guess that year would have been the 15, right? The F15.

00:49:49.140 And now he's a commentator. So Imola that day, the day that Senna died, Senna said on the radio,

00:49:57.100 something to the effect of, I want to welcome my great and wonderful friend, Alain Prost. It's so

00:50:02.500 wonderful to have you on the radio or something to that effect. And, and Prost commented how he was

00:50:07.380 like so moved by that. You know, they had had such a bitter rivalry and here was Senna paying him this

00:50:13.880 wonderful, gracious, kind compliment. And of course, several weeks later, you know, or several,

00:50:20.040 yeah, probably a week later, uh, Prost is one of his pallbearers. Yeah. But Prost had said many

00:50:24.660 times during interviews, he's like, the problem with Senna is he thinks he can't die. He has this

00:50:32.360 belief, this belief that he has some God given right to win every race, no matter what.

00:50:39.140 That's messianic. Right. And, you know, when you think about the personality types, right? I mean,

00:50:46.480 Prost was, as far as I can ascertain, a practical man. I mean, there's a reason why his nickname was

00:50:51.300 the professor, right? Like his goal was, I'm going to win as much as I can.

00:50:55.420 It's still, it's probabilistic. And yeah, we played, yeah.

00:50:57.940 I want victory. I want, you know, I want the fame and fortune that comes along with it. And fucking,

00:51:02.780 obviously I want to survive it, right? Because like, there's a whole bunch of things to do 0.99

00:51:05.800 afterwards. And, you know, that mentality running up against a messianic meaning to like everything,

00:51:14.700 right? To every qualifying, every practice session and, you know, every, let alone every race,

00:51:20.020 they were so different that I think it was almost impossible that they weren't going to clash in

00:51:27.180 ways that became deeply personal. But when you take them out of that crucible, right? Um, that these

00:51:33.000 were people that ultimately I think had deep respect for the differences in them. I mean,

00:51:38.000 I think in ways, maybe one might say Prost could have used a little bit of Senna and Senna could

00:51:42.160 have used a little bit of Prost. Yeah, but they were oil and water. They wouldn't make, I mean,

00:51:45.500 you know, Frank Williams, from the day he first saw Senna always wanted him on his team. And

00:51:51.620 the reason it took until 1994 was because Prost was there and Prost had a clause in his contract that

00:52:00.160 said, I will never be on the same team as Senna. Yeah. Yeah. So he had to wait for Prost to retire,

00:52:06.320 to leave McLaren. Right. Which Frank Williams, I mean, my understanding and from what I've read

00:52:11.280 is, you know, that, that Frank Williams loved pitting people against one another, right? I mean,

00:52:17.400 how did, look, I think the most exciting person I ever watched drive, I do think is Nigel Mansell.

00:52:23.920 And, you know, you look at Mansell was considered kind of second rate, right? He was, you know,

00:52:29.600 at a time there were ones and twos, you know, he was the two to Andretti. And I think he was a two,

00:52:34.380 two to Piquet. He was the two to Piquet as well, right? But when Frank Williams had him as the two

00:52:40.540 to Piquet, that was because, well, Piquet was the acknowledged number one, but it wasn't.

00:52:45.720 But Mansell was saying, oh God, no. Right. And, and, and Williams wasn't the kind to say,

00:52:50.440 look, you know, you have to sit in the number two. Right. He was a kind of, look, you're starting

00:52:53.940 number two, but you want to be number one, you know, and part of, you know, Piquet's kind of

00:52:59.780 denigration, I think, you know, his haughty condescension to Mansell is part of what like

00:53:04.220 infuriated him, you know, and, and I think made him, you know, really among the greatest of the

00:53:10.380 greats. I mean, you watch, I believe it's Mexico City, you watch Mansell pass Berger on the

00:53:15.520 outside. I mean, like Mansell did impossible things with impossible aggression. And I think

00:53:20.600 Senna said at one point that they asked him like, who do you worry when you see someone in your

00:53:24.700 rear view mirror? And he said, the only person he worried about was Mansell because he's content to

00:53:28.180 go over you if he can't go around you. I mean, that's a powerful statement coming from Senna.

00:53:33.680 And part of what did that was, I think the infuriation of being the number two to a condescending

00:53:38.920 number one and wanting to trounce him. 0.95

00:53:40.920 That's why that era, I mean, my God, like, it's just unbelievable to me to go back and I get,

00:53:47.600 honestly, it sounds awful to say this, but, but I much prefer enjoying, enjoy watching races from

00:53:52.820 that area than even watching races today, which isn't to say I don't enjoy races today. And I

00:53:56.420 think this year with, you know, Mercedes and Ferrari both being so close, it's actually quite exciting

00:54:01.500 again. It for, I think Formula One has had a few years of really uninteresting, uh, racing because so

00:54:07.740 much of, as you said, so much mechanical, so much of it is in the car now and less of it's in the

00:54:12.500 driver. But, you know, back then you really got to see the difference.

00:54:17.140 Yeah. I think that, that was an era when the force of personality, and you think about the

00:54:23.780 difference in personalities of Senna, Prost and Mansell, right? But were there, I mean, are there ever

00:54:32.140 stronger personalities on the face of the planet and the force of personality could lead to seemingly

00:54:38.240 impossible things? And from my perspective, that was incredibly exciting to watch. I mean,

00:54:44.000 what, what is the limit of human potential in this arena where human potential in terms of physical

00:54:50.600 stamina, you know, cognitive ability, you know, reflexes, you know, the, the kind of things that,

00:54:57.020 that we most respect in people in terms of being able to do incredible things. It's incredible

00:55:03.040 things in the body and the mind, and then putting those together. And then you put that together,

00:55:07.220 you put that together with the force of personality. And I think, again, I think it gives us an insight

00:55:13.300 into things that we usually don't see, you know, like the depths of human struggles in wartime.

00:55:18.400 And I do really believe it's also the depth of human struggle in quiet situations that no one cares

00:55:23.940 about, right? I mean, I really do believe that, that I think that we get an insight, not just into,

00:55:29.380 you know, the people who, you know, win purple hearts, right? But I think also the people who

00:55:35.300 the unsung heroes, persevere with nobody caring, right? And no one watching them. And I think in

00:55:41.620 many ways, you know, that's one of the greatest models of bravery. And it might seem like odd or weird,

00:55:46.640 or even forced to like to compare that to things that these people did on a track under,

00:55:52.260 you know, the greatest crucible of, of bringing talent and ability and bravery to the fore. But

00:55:59.400 I, but I really, I do see those parallels that I think in many ways, there's a lot of parallels

00:56:04.360 between these people that we're talking about, and people that no one knows their names, and they're

00:56:08.620 struggling quietly. They're struggling quietly for, you know, the next paycheck that puts food on the

00:56:13.960 table. And they're struggling amidst whatever physical or emotional pain they have. And I really do

00:56:19.980 mean that. I mean, again, I'm not trying to be forced about it. I don't make come off that way.

00:56:24.820 But, but I think even back when I was younger, seeing this, I realized that there's, you know,

00:56:29.340 there's that this is like human struggle under the microscope, but it's emblematic of all sorts of

00:56:36.240 human struggle that, you know, that often is inaccessible to us, because it's, it's in a place we

00:56:42.300 can't go, which could be the quiet struggles of the uncelebrated, as much as it could be the

00:56:48.000 battlefield. So one last driving question. I don't know if the video exists anymore on YouTube. I

00:56:53.100 actually ended up just buying a copy of it because I was so enamored by it, but Rendezvous.

00:56:57.480 Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully we'll be able to find a copy of it and link to it. But if we can't,

00:57:03.480 and there's a good chance we won't be able to, I do recommend you go on Amazon and you splurge and

00:57:08.440 just buy the DVD of Claude Lelouch, his very famous short film called Rendezvous, which you introduced me to

00:57:16.120 when we were in medical school. Yeah. I hadn't actually seen this. Well, that was like a,

00:57:19.960 I mean, it was like the, the automotive equivalent of a snuff film. You know, I don't even know where

00:57:25.340 I first saw that, but I think it was somebody who had some like VHS copy of it or, you know,

00:57:31.080 it was, I mean, it was when we, when we, you know, it was when we first were watching it together,

00:57:36.100 you know, it was this like legendary inaccessible thing. Yeah. That you'd heard about,

00:57:40.880 but never seen. And I still remember we were at Pyle's house when you whipped out either the VHS

00:57:46.260 or whatever, and we somehow watched it. And I mean, we probably watched it 50 times because you

00:57:51.240 couldn't believe you were seeing this thing. Yeah. So what's your best guess? Who is the driver?

00:57:57.860 You know, I have no idea in part because I had these guesses, but now I think the knowledge of

00:58:03.320 who it was or wasn't has kind of moved ahead. So, you know, my thought that it might've been,

00:58:09.140 uh, Jackie X, for example, like I, again, I don't know if like that's been entirely debunked and it

00:58:14.960 clearly isn't. Um, Despailliers, I, I believe Despailliers was still alive at the time. And,

00:58:21.100 and, you know, the thought of like, okay, who was incredibly brave? It had to be someone who was

00:58:24.400 an amazing driver, pretty, pretty fearless and had to know Paris like the back of their hand.

00:58:29.200 Yeah. And also in an era that, that I think rendezvous is like one of the most amazing things filmed,

00:58:34.680 but, but I also, you know, there's a part of me that I don't want to sound like a school

00:58:39.020 mom that once said, look, they clearly put other people's lives at risk. Right. So like in the

00:58:43.920 craziness of the seventies and in that era of like really being untamed, you know, you would

00:58:48.780 need someone who would just be able to like literally throw all caution to the wind about

00:58:54.640 self and other. Right. I mean, Lelouch was arrested when that film showed. I think cause the thought

00:59:00.800 was that he was driving. Yes. Right. Um, and it was shown. It's, it's made to appear that he's

00:59:06.600 driving at the very end because he gets out of the car, he gets out of the car, but, but having

00:59:10.360 now watched it 87 times on slow-mo, it's clear that he, he's, he's superimposed, but he basically

00:59:17.660 sneaks in and looks like he's getting out, but he wasn't the driver. There's no way.

00:59:21.460 Right. I mean, unless he was a closet formula one driver, it's like, how, how could you be

00:59:25.580 that? Like, how could you be that adept? Right. If, if you weren't like one of a handful

00:59:30.560 of people, I mean that, that would be my take on it again. I, maybe that's wrong, but I think

00:59:34.920 that's why people started looking to, okay, who are the formula one drivers who are like

00:59:39.080 completely fearless would throw caution to the wind and no Paris. And, you know, and then

00:59:43.460 there were just kind of a handful of names. I mean, I'd love someday to know the definitive

00:59:47.660 answer, but certainly watching it again, I think that's emblematic of an era, right.

00:59:53.540 Of an era when, I mean, I believe that it was the first time when like cameras could be

00:59:58.660 mounted in cars, right. And you could have like stabilized. Yeah. You had gyroscopic technology

01:00:03.920 that basically allowed you to stabilize that. And, and of course, to this day, there's still

01:00:07.220 huge debate as to whether it was a Mercedes dubbed over a Ferrari, like whether the Ferrari

01:00:11.820 was dubbed over the Mercedes or if it was the actual Ferrari being driven. Right. And

01:00:15.620 again, I don't know enough. I mean, I like, I try and think about like the, the, the sound

01:00:20.160 versus the visual synchrony. Right. And it seems to me like, I'm not so sure how that could

01:00:24.060 have been dubbed. Right. But again, what do I know? Yeah. There's, there's no dispute that

01:00:28.140 the sound is that of the Ferrari. So you're right. The question is, I mean, again, this

01:00:32.820 is now we're getting so deep in baseball. It's like, but, but of course you and I are

01:00:36.620 the only two listening at this point. It's probably safe to say there is not a, another

01:00:41.120 person on earth that is listening. Now you and I are just talking and we happen to be

01:00:44.760 recording. Exactly. Exactly. If anyone wants to know how like boring, pedantic and tedious

01:00:50.880 our lives actually are, this is the perfect indicator, right? We're down to nuances of like

01:00:55.940 whether the Ferrari was dubbed over the Mercedes or vice versa.

01:01:00.540 Well, with that, um, I don't, I think it's, it's really great that, that a podcast whose

01:01:07.460 title is the drive finally gets to have an episode. I'll be at a relatively short one that focuses

01:01:13.140 on driving and there's no person I enjoy talking about driving with more than you. So that thank

01:01:20.320 you for that. Thank you. And I hope that, uh, you know, we're going to have lots of things

01:01:24.600 that for, for anyone who, who managed to get through this part about driving and who

01:01:28.540 finds themselves interested or wants to know more about it, we're going to link to some

01:01:32.040 unbelievable videos about all of these great personalities that we've discussed. And if

01:01:36.900 nothing else, hopefully it gives you some appreciation of the amazing technical skill that goes into

01:01:42.240 what these guys have done. Yeah. You can find all of this information and more at

01:01:48.080 peteratiamd.com forward slash podcast. There you'll find the show notes, readings, and links

01:01:53.600 related to this episode. You can also find my blog and the nerd safari at peteratiamd.com.

01:01:59.840 What's a nerd safari you ask? Just click on the link at the top of the site to learn more.

01:02:04.180 Maybe the simplest thing to do is to sign up for my subjectively non-lame once a week email,

01:02:08.660 where I'll update you on what I've been up to, the most interesting papers I've read,

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01:02:21.600 But usually Twitter is the best way to reach me to share your questions and comments.

01:02:26.320 Now for the obligatory disclaimer. This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does

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The Peter Attia Drive - May 01, 2019

The Ayrton Senna Episode (re-release)： Celebrating the greatest driver in Formula 1 history and the cautionary tales of driven individuals

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