За что я люблю Сенну, это за особенный склад мыслей. Послушав его, я впервые поняла, что значит "характер победителя", и мне кажется, я до сих пор не видела ни одного настолько же целеустремленного человека, человека, для которого "быть вторым означало быть первым среди неудачников".
Он верил в свои силы, в силу своего разума, он верил в то, что может раздвинуть границы своих возможностей:
"You think you have a limit. As soon as you touch this limit something happens and suddenly you can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct and the experience as well you can fly very high."
"I believe in the ability of focusing strongly on something, then you are able to extract even more out of it. It's been like this all my life. It's been only a question of improving it and learning more and more. There's almost no end."
"When you are under a lot of pressure in a particular championship or race it's the one that can put together the combination of agression and calculation that will get the best result. And you need more than anything a very clear mind to understand exactly when is the moment to be aggresive, when is the moment to be calculating."
Он постоянно учился и стремился стать еще лучше, еще быстрее.
"The main thing is to be yourself and not allow people to disturb you to be different because they want you to be diferent. You gotta be yourself. Many times it's through a mistake due to your own personality or character or from interference that you get on the way that you learn, and the main thing is to make sure you learn from your mistakes and get better."
Он жил гонками. До сих пор помню его глаза, когда он говорил вот это, глаза, полные боли, отчаяния и в то же время стремления бороться до последнего...
"Racing, competing is in my blood. It's part of me, it's part of my life. I've been doing it all my life. And it stands up before anything else."
А вот это просто очень близко:
"We are made of emotions. We are all looking for emotions basically. It's only a question of find the way to experience them. There are many different ways to experience emotions. (Perhaps one thing, one particular thing that Formula 1 can provide you is that you know that you're always exposed to danger. Danger og getting hurt, danger of dying.)"
Вот что говорили о нем другие гонщики:
Герхард Бергер, партнер по команде и один из лучших друзей:
"Once he was focused, he didn't feel any pain or stress... He was just in another world."
Деймон Хилл, чемпион мира 96 года:
"Ayrton would enter a corner faster than he'd ever been before and trust that something inside Ayrton Senna would help him and the car around the corner. That's an act of trust or faith or whatever you want to call it.
He explored his ultimate capabilities more than any other driver seemed to have done."
Ален Прост:
"I don't think he was the best driver in setting up a car, but when it came to driving, mentally, getting the pole and being quick in one lap, he really was the best. So I don't think I learned very much because it's a little bit easier to learn about the car and the way you can improve the car than about the mental aspect because you can't change it just like that."
Вивиан, сестра:
"One time they asked Ayrton if he had any enemies. And he gave one of the most beautiful answers he had ever given in any of his countless interviews. He said that life was too short to have enemies."
И его слова о ГП Бразилии-91:
"Everything was happening there: the rain, the heat, technical problems. Everything was there, but I was just absorbing, absorbing and not really reacting to it at that moment. I was just keeping it, keeping it. Because of the tension and the responsibility during the whole race and with the difficulties I couldn't really let much emotion go out. I had to stay controlled and be calculating and cool. Although I had lots of things happening in my mind and body, I had to control all the things because I couldn't make a mistake. I had tried hard to win such a race for so many years. And I was there with a good opportunity... The feelings were very intense, everything was very intense. The pain was harder, the pain was much bigger there... I have experienced a lot of pain while I was driving, already. Many times. But you can't give up. Once you're in it, you're in it and you gotta go all the way to the end. Because you commit yourself to such a level where there's no compromise. You give everything you have. Everything, absolutely everything. And sometimes you find even more because it requires more if you want to be ahead, if you want to win... The pleasure was afterwards. Doing it under those circumstances where conditions were not ideal, but you still did it. Better than anybody else... All the frustration, the pleasure, the sadness, the pain, the triumph: it was such a fixture of amazing feelings."