The Ayrton Senna Episode (re-release)： Celebrating the greatest driver in Formula 1 history and the cautionary tales of driven individuals
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 3 minutes
Words per Minute
196.25858
Summary
On May 1st, 1994, Brazilian Formula 1 legend Ayrton Senna died in a helicopter crash in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In this episode, we look back at the 25th anniversary of Senna's death, and reflect on the life of one of the greatest drivers of all time.
Transcript
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Peter Atiyah Drive. I'm your host, Peter Atiyah.
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The drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking,
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along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with
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some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast
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is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality,
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more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode
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Hi everyone, welcome to a bonus episode of The Drive. This bonus episode is being released on
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May 1st, 2019, which is the 25th anniversary of the death of Brazilian Formula One legend
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Ayartan Senna. This interview was originally done in the fall of 2018. Paul Conti and I spoke
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at length about our mutual admiration for Ayartan, and we actually tied it back into some of the
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concepts around an interview we had done earlier around depression. So if you're listening to this
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for the first time, you may even find it helpful to go back and to listen to that. It's sort of hard
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for me to believe truthfully that this is 25 years later. I remember the Sunday, May 1st, 1994,
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like it was yesterday. I remember exactly where I was sitting when the news came across. I was in
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college at the time. I didn't have a television. I wasn't watching the race, but it's weird. It's
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one of those moments that I'm sure many people understand when something so profound happens and
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everything about that moment is seared in your memory, including literally where I was sitting,
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what the floor looked like, what the shelf looked like in my bookcase, things like that, where my
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little stereo was sitting. In this episode, we obviously celebrate the life of Senna and talk
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about perhaps what could have been. In the show notes, we're going to add to what we had done in
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the past and include some of the really exciting and beautiful recent tributes that have come up,
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including some really interesting stuff that has come out from his second to last teammate before he
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died. Gerhard Berger, a number of really interesting articles have come out. So I guess I would say,
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even if you're not a Formula One fan, most people who listened to this the first time around came
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back to me and said, wow, that was really interesting. I didn't think I could find that
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interesting. I would encourage you to take a moment to listen to this. Many people to this day
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consider Senna to be the greatest driver in the history of Formula One. And his death was really the
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turning point of a sport. While certainly many drivers had died before Senna, never before had it been
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so visible to so many people. And it almost overnight, well, I would say it overnight changed
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the culture of the sport. And over a very short period of time, actually changed the technology
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of the sport. And today, the sport that I still love is infinitely safer and considerably different
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than the one that many of us fell in love with in the 80s and the 90s. So I hope you'll enjoy this
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episode today as we look back 25 years after the death of Ayrton Senna.
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So Paul, we have a lot of things in common, not the least of which is our birthday. We share the
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same birthday, which is great because you're one of the few people whose birthdays I remember.
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I'm like a moron when it comes to birthdays. I have an encyclopedic memory of many things,
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except for birthdays. But of course, every time I wake up, usually you're calling me to wish me a
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happy birthday, which is reminding me that it's my birthday. I usually wake up to a text from you.
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The other thing we have in common is a, I think what can only be described as an obsession with
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arguably, though I would say it's not arguably, definitively the greatest driver in the history
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of driving. I remember it was one of the first things we bonded over when we got to medical school,
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because at that point, it had only been three years since Senna's death.
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And for those of us who, you know, cherished him, it's a day that all of us remember,
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you know, Sunday, May 1st, 1994. What is it about Senna that you loved so much?
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I'll try not to be long-winded, but to answer both facets of that. On the one hand,
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I'm not sure that I'm aware of anyone, certainly not in a way that I observed and experienced
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with interest as it unfolded, right? Who has been more single-minded about achievement.
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You know, this is a person who did absolutely everything that was required for not just the
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highest level of achievement, but for moving that bar of what the highest level of achievement means.
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And for people who don't follow, like, what Formula One was then, is this is not like somebody sitting
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in a car and just driving it around, right? The physical stamina, you know, the training,
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the ability to control oneself physically and mentally, right? The ability to hone reflexes and
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to multitask in ways that push executive function, push mind and body to the very limits. I've never
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seen anyone do that. And that's complemented by his incredibly intense passion. I mean, this is someone
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who, yes, was very religious, but that religiosity, I believe, was expressed in passion for people who
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were suffering in his home country, right? He was Brazilian. And, you know, he was born wealthy,
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born privileged, yet had such a sense for the struggle of people who were up against things that
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he wasn't up against. And I believe that that unity with people who didn't have, you know, even one
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billionth of the things that he had into money, fame, adulation. But I don't believe that he felt
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any different. I believe he felt fortunate and he felt a sense of almost messianic drive to be the
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best and make things better for people. And that leads to the second facet, which is ultimately that
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was his undoing. He died in the context of that drive, right? Of that inability to step back from the
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brink, even a little bit. So I think that he's a model for the best in us, and also that we can have
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so many good qualities and ultimately be the architects of our own downfall by not being able
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to step back and realize our own humanity. Like, he didn't think he was better than anyone else.
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But there was another level in which I think he believed, because it was so incumbent upon him to
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make things better for everyone else, that he had to be superhuman, right? I mean, it's a way of
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not feeling better than everyone else in an arrogant way, but feeling better in a way that isolates
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us and means that there's always more to do, and we never get to rest. Right. There was more
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responsibility on, he felt, I get the sense, of course, never having never met him, but just having read
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everything that one could read about him and watching every video and documentary, he felt the weight
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of a nation on your shoulders. Yes, exactly. Yes. And if you feel the weight of a nation on your
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shoulders, and you don't realize that that just has to be a shared responsibility, but you take
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that all on yourself, then you can inadvertently be the architect of your own demise.
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I don't think many people realized until after his death how much he gave back to Brazil.
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He had a lot of education for underprivileged children in the, you know, in the inland part of
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Brazil. I mean, so, so, I mean, it's just one example of so much of what he did was so humble,
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you know, and, and I mean, it's very interesting, you know, Sid Watkins, right, who was the great
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neurosurgeon, right? Who, who also was by the greatest understanding of the personalities of these
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incredibly driven people, you know, just described a serene humility in him, that this was someone who
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lived an unobtrusive life, when left to his own devices to live it. And you put him on camera,
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you could say, okay, look, his lifestyles are the rich and famous. That's not who he was inside.
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And it's, it's, you know, it's fascinating to know that, that amidst that peace and tranquility was
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such a desperation to do things that were superhuman. And there's a lesson in that,
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right, the lesson that goes back to mythology, right, of flying too close to the sun, right?
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And it is a lesson for people who, I think, have great abilities and great perseverance and great
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ability to torment themselves in order to continue to persevere, that if we don't recognize our limits,
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we run great risk of not achieving our goals. And then Ayrton Senna, who lived to be 90,
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could have done what? How much for Brazil? How much for the world?
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So I see him as really amongst the greatest of us for his capability, his drive, his compassion,
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his just living in shared humanity. But I also see him as emblematic of the foibles that are,
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you know, not just foibles, the dangers that we can represent to ourselves,
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and the need for not just humility about ourselves, but also for compassion about ourselves. And like,
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look, there's a limit, and we got to take care of ourselves if we're gonna, you know, if we're gonna
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keep going for ourselves and for whatever it is that we care about.
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Virtually every Formula One driver today, so you look at the heroes of today, Lewis Hamilton,
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Sebastian Vettel, Ricardo, all of these guys. If asked, almost without exception to a man,
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they'll all say the same thing, that Senna's death has been the single most important change in
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Formula One. It was the turning point in the safety of that sport. Do you remember what they
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found in his car when he died at Imola? Do you remember with a flag what he had?
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Which is unusual. Why would a Brazilian have been carrying the Austrian flag on the day he died?
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A person who's like, every cell was about Brazil, had an Austrian flag. And of course,
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we know that the day before that, Roland Ratzenberger, who was Austrian, had died in a Formula One car.
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And how shocking and distressing that was to Ayrton Senna, and his drive to win that race. Why?
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I mean, everything he wanted to win was to be the best and to glorify Brazil, right?
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Here it was about, I think, such an intense compassion for this person's loss of life,
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that I think it blinded him to the limits, to even his own limits. I mean, even, you know,
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he had limits, right? We all have limits. And I think it blinded him to those limits. And I think
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subsequently, it's just my opinion, it's blinded Formula One to, in a sense, the need for some
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element of danger to allow people to distinguish themselves. And, you know, that might sound like
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an odd thing to say, is coming from the perspective of preserving life, right? But I think that
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there were times when that sport was way too dangerous, and just way too many people lost
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their lives. But to go so far to uniformatize it, and to try and eliminate danger, some of what has
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been eliminated was, you know, the limits of human ambition and human bravery, that I think were an
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important part of distinguishing people who really were heroes. And in part, they were heroes, because
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they were taking some risks. And again, I'm not a fan of, let's bring back, you know, 25 or 30% of
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Formula One drivers are dying behind the wheel. I mean, obviously, that is, that's not okay. But
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there's been such a push in the other direction. And I think that there was just really a terror in
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the sport. And it was a terror that see that that then sought to eliminate, you know, the, the
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opportunity to push oneself too far. But I think in doing so, there's a there's an arena of human
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endeavor, that it can be tremendously inspiring, that I think was, I think was changed too much.
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And I think, you know, people don't have as much, they don't have the opportunity to be
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Ayrton Senna, right? And I think in some ways, in order to have the opportunity to be him,
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there, there has to be the opportunity to take the risks that he took, and hopefully to learn
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from his example and take them in a way that results in, in excellence and survival. But I
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think the sport, in many ways, has taken away that, that ability. And I think part of why people
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hearken back to that is, it was a turning point that really changed the sport, I think, in a way,
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in too many ways. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know, that era just seems remarkable. I mean,
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when you think about the rivalries that existed, you know, Mansell and PK and Prost and Senna,
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it was, I don't know, it's hard to say. I mean, like, I could talk about Formula One forever.
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I know you and I, I think you and I actually have, we actually have done this. But,
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but there really is something about the sort of the mid 80s to to mid 90s, that was kind of a
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remarkable year. I mean, I, again, not that it's about the championships, because
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many people will still look at Gilles Villeneuve having never won a championship as one of the
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greatest drivers ever. And we should, we could park that for a moment on the side. But I really
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do. So first of all, even though Senna won only, quote unquote, three championships, in my mind,
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he won four. So the disqualification in the Japanese Grand Prix, I look at that disqualification
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the same way I look at the Hagler-Leonard fight, which is just, they just, they made a bad call.
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There is no way he should have been disqualified in that. And so he died as a four-time champion.
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But if you do the math on it, you realize that the season he died, which was the third race of
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the 1994 season, even though the Williams car was a fraction of what it was the year before,
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what most people don't realize is Hill went on, his teammate, Damon Hill, went on to finish second
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to Schumacher that season by a point, basically. It came down to the last race, which tells you that
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a lot of the kinks that were going on in the Williams car of that year were getting worked out.
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In other words, had Senna not died, I'm positive he would have been the 1994 world champion. And I
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suspect he would have been the world champion all the way till about 97. Because you did,
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you ultimately had Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve won in 97, Damon Hill won in what, 96, all in the
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Williams car. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is, so people talk about, well, okay, you know, many years later,
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Schumacher went on to win so many championships. And that's, that's impressive. I think most people
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still consider Senna the greatest driver of all time. But, you know, Senna could have won seven world
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championships in an era when that was unheard of. Right. I mean, you have to look at any achievement
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by era, right? I mean, think about Fangio won five world championships in a time when most people like
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didn't survive five seasons, right? So how can you compare that to a time when safety was at such a
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height and the Ferrari was a dominant car? I mean, like, you know, you can't, there's a comparison
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than the truly is apples and oranges. And that era of like, mid 80s to mid 90s, you know, was an era
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of like, incredibly fast machines, and machines that weren't always on parody, but machines that
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were on parody enough, that the driver could make the difference. And you really saw like, what I think
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of as titanic struggles between exceptional personalities. So the same thing that drew me to,
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you know, the interest in, you know, the people behind the Second World War, to an interest in like,
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in people who are struggling, whether it's with glory, or with no one watching, right, is the same
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thing that that to me, was that the attraction of Formula One, that you know, your titanic personalities
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of Prost, Mansell, Senna. And I think that, you know, it's interesting that Damon Hill won the
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championship that year. And again, I think that the vast majority of people would say he was not the
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caliber of driver of Mansell, Prost, or Senna. But look at the caliber of human being. I mean,
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here's a person who grew up with this incredibly dashing debonair father, right? And you know,
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you see pictures... And he was around the paddock as an infant. Right. And when you see pictures,
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you know, you see Damon Hill wasn't cut in the mold of his father, right? He's probably cut more
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in the mold of his mother. You know, you see these pictures of him kind of standing close to his
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mother, looking in awe at his father. Yeah, who just looked like a movie star. Right. I mean,
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he... Right. So he's got a handlebar mustache, and he's a rower, and just he was such a, you know,
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a model of what it meant to be a man in that era, right? And despite not naturally having those
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characteristics, I think physically or personality-wise, Damon Hill won the world championship
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anyway. And like, he went back in that Williams after Senna was killed. You know, I think that,
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you know, Damon Hill's story is a much quieter story, but I think it's a tremendous story of being an
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exceptional human. And I think that's what appeals to people who really, you know, love that era of
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the sport is, I mean, you and I love... We're infinitely infatuated by exceptional people.
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We want to understand them. We want to learn from them. In some ways, we want to venerate them.
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And I think there's something that's really... There's something that's good about that. But,
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you know, it kind of... Maybe drawing all this together, you know, there's also something in us
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that I think at times wants to idealize them. And then therefore, in a sense, idealize what we're
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doing. You know, and the truth is that, you know, Senna's death was avoidable. And I don't mean it
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was avoidable because they could have made that track dumbed down. It was avoidable if he had
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driven less fast, I think. You know, I don't remember you and I have really ever talked about
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this in great detail. I mean, I have a pretty strong point of view on why he died. I'd be curious to
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know yours. So I think the official answer that came out of the trial was that basically
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the crash on the first lap that led to the safety car coming out allowed the tires to cool
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and he basically lost traction. Now, I've... You know, there are a couple of really interesting
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videos on YouTube that have tried to dissect this in 10 different ways. But I got to tell
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you, the theory that I find most compelling, I actually think the steering column broke before
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So I actually think... Because as you know, Senna modified the steering column in his car.
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So he had like an extra six inches of a steering column in there and it was well... So there,
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he had a separate point of weakness in his steering column. And I actually think it broke. And I say
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that because when you look at the film of the onboard of him going off just before it cuts out,
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you can see him violently turning the wheel with no effect. But this is before the impact. So there's
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no dispute that the steering column broke. That's a given. The question is, did it break before or
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after the collision? And if it broke before the collision, it's hard to argue that that's
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not the single most important part of why he crashed. What's your thought?
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We're fans. We're knucklehead fans offering our amateur opinion. But my read of that is
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different, right? And again, who knows? But, you know, think about the Williams before that year.
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Generally regarded as the single most technologically advanced Formula One car
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in the history of the sport, including up until this day, even though that was 25 years ago.
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I mean, you could do one little thing to like put it a tiny bit off balance and the car adjusts. I
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mean, that car was like science fiction in terms of its sophistication. And sure,
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all the teams were trying to do that, but Williams had the best.
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So then, okay, what happens? They say, like, take all that stuff away.
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And I think through no fault of the Williams or the team, that car was a beast without that,
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Right. So it was undrivable. And I think, and some of the things, you know, that Damon
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Hill said about driving were really scary. Like that car was on a knife edge and like it was a
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Yeah. Senna did not finish the first two races of the 94 season, even though he was leading both
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because he just lost control of the car. And when you watch those spin outs, you're like,
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that's the type of spin out I would do in a car. Like that's not something that the world's best
00:20:29.060
Right. Right. Which, which I think means that like most people would say, okay, look, if I'm going
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to drive this car, cause again, we're talking about a level of talent and bravery that I cannot
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imagine, right? That, okay, they're going to drive it and they're going to try and drive it fast.
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But that's a different thing than driving it on the absolute edge. A Villeneuve style was,
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how do you know where the limit is? You go over it and you fly off the track and then you figure that
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out. Like that was not the way to drive that car and survive. And I think that he knew that,
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but I think he forgot that when Ratzenberger died. And, and I think that that was the cause of
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the, so you think he went around that corner just a little too quickly, given the tire,
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basically given the tire temperature, is that what you think it came down to?
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Right. I think given all the complex factors, right, including tire temperature,
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all the things that had happened, I think he went too fast. And I think that there was sort of
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the hubris of brilliance and the need to make something right that, you know, to win that race.
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I mean, imagine Ayrton Senna, had he won that race and then he drives around the track with the
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Austrian flag. I mean, I am not sure that a human being can be glorified more. I mean,
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you know, think about at that point, you know, I mean, Senna had a superhuman status. I mean,
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there were people in lots of places, not just in Brazil that actually felt like maybe he's immortal.
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If the Brazilians loved him the most, you could, I think you'd have to make the case that the
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Japanese loved him the second most, right? Absolutely. He was a god in Japan.
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Absolutely. I mean, you see those pictures and he's like getting off a plane, people like fainting and,
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you know, things that, okay, we like saw with the Beatles, but, you know, but there's a lot of like
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hysteria and, you know, around, I'm not trying to say anything negative about people fainting when
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the Beatles got off the plane, but, but this was like an adulation of a single human being for his
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tenacity, you know, his, his ability to say like, there's never, there's never enough that's been put
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into succeeding. So imagine him and the glory that, you know, that he would have brought. Now,
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again, you could say, well, what's the glory? I mean, you know,
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this will and Ratzenberger need the glory, right? But, but it is meaningful. I mean,
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I think it would have been meaningful in a way of that no one would have ever forgotten. And that
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would have meant something to his family and his friends and would have meant something forever.
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I mean, that could have been potentially one of the most memorable moments, if not the most memorable
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moment in the history of the sport. And I think he was so driven to do that, that he attempted to do
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something that was superhuman. And I, and I think that cost him his life.
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You know, there's so many things about that day that just blow my mind. Obviously there are
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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
00:31:10.420
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,
00:31:35.840
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
00:31:41.600
I mean, we've looked at it so much and I can't remember like, what is it in? What isn't it
00:31:45.360
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
00:32:41.240
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.
00:33:03.880
Yeah, yeah. Keep it realistic. This is so stupid. The other thing that fits that description is his
00:33:13.920
Yeah, because it would have been in the MP44, which would have been 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.
00:33:42.720
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
00:33:54.280
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.
00:34:06.000
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
00:34:15.840
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
00:34:41.440
I didn't realize that. I thought some of the video that we'll watch of like Senna's
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.
00:35:58.100
Right. If I could have afforded a P1, I would have bought one the day that Nuremberg ring came
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
00:36:40.340
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.
00:37:15.800
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
00:37:52.820
And you're really good at this and really experienced and you know the car and it even,
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
00:38:06.660
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
00:38:41.000
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
00:39:05.280
secretly so jealous of Canada cause you've got your shit together up there that we like
00:39:09.140
make fun of you to kind of cover that up. So I think that's comes from insecurity too,
00:39:14.460
But the thing that you loved most about the fact that I was Canadian was Jill Villeneuve.
00:39:20.200
I mean, you might be the greatest Villeneuve fan ever. What is it about Villeneuve that you
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
00:40:23.280
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
00:41:24.920
Do you know up until, I'm sorry to interrupt, but do you realize that Beloff's Nuremberg ring record was
00:41:31.620
I didn't know that. I didn't know that it was broken a week ago.
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
00:41:50.160
His drive on Nuremberg was still the most ridiculous thing ever.
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?
00:42:03.100
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
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,
00:44:00.520
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
00:44:52.960
at a certain point in the race. And then Pyronie passed Villeneuve when Villeneuve wasn't, you know,
00:45:00.700
Right. Because, because never in a million years would Villeneuve just like, what I'm
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.
00:49:35.220
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
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
00:53:40.920
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
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01:02:26.320
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01:02:30.620
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01:02:35.480
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