49 Top Quotes by Race Car Driver Ayrton Senna
Welcome to our collection of quotes by Ayrton Senna. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna da Silva (Brazilian Portuguese: [aˈiʁtõ ˈsẽnɐ dɐ ˈsiwvɐ] (listen); 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in 1988, 1990 and 1991. Senna is one of three Formula One drivers from Brazil to win the World Championship and won 41 Grands Prix and 65 pole positions, with the latter being the record until 2006. He died in an accident leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix driving for the Williams team.
Senna began his motorsport career in karting, moved up to open-wheel racing in 1981 and won the 1983 British Formula Three Championship. He made his Formula One debut with Toleman-Hart in 1984, before moving to Lotus-Renault the following year and winning six Grands Prix over the next three seasons. In 1988, he joined Frenchman Alain Prost at McLaren-Honda. Between them, they won all but one of the 16 Grands Prix that year, and Senna claimed his first World Championship. Prost claimed the championship in 1989, and Senna his second and third championships in 1990 and 1991. In 1992, the Williams-Renault combination began to dominate Formula One. Senna nonetheless managed to finish the 1993 season as runner-up, winning five races and negotiating a move to Williams in 1994.
Senna was recognised for his qualifying speed over one lap, and from 1989 until 2006 he held the record for most pole positions. He was also acclaimed for his wet weather performances, such as the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix, the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, and the 1993 European Grand Prix. He holds a record six victories at the Monaco Grand Prix, is the fifth-most successful driver of all time in terms of race wins and has won more races for McLaren than any other driver. Senna courted controversy throughout his career, particularly during his turbulent rivalry with Prost. In the Japanese Grands Prix of 1989 and 1990, each of which decided the championship of that year, collisions between Senna and Prost determined the eventual winner.
It's important that the drivers stay together, because in difficult moments we have each other. If we are not together the financial and political interests of the organisers and constructors come to the fore.
I believe that we start to see our true personalities when we go through the most difficult moments. This is when we get stronger.
Just because I believe in God, just because I have faith in God, it doesn't mean that I'm immune. It doesn't mean that I'm immortal.
Once you are in it you are in it, you have to go all the way to the end because you commit yourself to such a level where there is no compromise. You give everything you have absolutely everything. Sometimes you find even more because you require more if you want to stay ahead and you want to win.
You commit yourself to such a level where there is no compromise. You give everything you have, everything, absolutely everything.
As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.
If a person has no dreams, they no longer have any reason to live. Dreaming is necessary, although in the dream reality should be glimpsed. For me this is a principle of life.
Whoever you are, no matter what social position you have, rich or poor, always show great strength and determination, and always do everything with much love and deep faith in God. One day
you will reach your goal.
I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant.
You either commit yourself as a professional racing driver that's designed to win races or you come second or you come third or fifth and am not design to come third, fourth or fifth, I? race to win.
With regard to performance, commitment, effort, dedication, there is no middle ground. Or you do something very well or not at all.
I believe if you are doing something like competing, like motor racing, you either do well or forget it.
By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver because we are competing, we are competing to win.
It's going to be a season with lots of accidents, and I'll risk saying that we'll be lucky if something really serious doesn't happen.
Of course there are moments that you wonder how long you should be doing it because there are other aspects which are not nice, of this lifestyle. But I just love winning.
These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.
Because I believe in God and have faith in God, it doesn't mean I am immortal. It doesn't mean I am immune, as has been claimed. I am as scared as anyone of getting hurt, especially driving a Formula One car.
I was already on pole, then by half a second and then one second and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car.
Then suddenly something just kicked me. I kind of woke up and realised that I was in a different atmosphere than you normally are. My immediate reaction was to back off, slow down.
I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It's a way of life for me.
Racing, competing, it's in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.
Wealthy men can't live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.
I don't know driving in another way which isn't risky. Each one has to improve himself. Each driver has its limit. My limit is a little bit further than other's.
And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension.
On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit'. And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.
It was like I was in a tunnel. Not only the tunnel under the hotel but the whole circuit was a tunnel. I was just going and going, more and more and more and more. I was way over the limit but still able to find even more.
You will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race. The helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.
Money is a strange business. People who haven't got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles.
