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UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Pupil Senna’s final prophecy

reaches well beyond
Sunday May 1st 1994

Prophets have power, even
over death, and the visonary
outlook of Ayrton Senna is
as pertinent now as it was
on this day 26 years ago.
Words: Manish Pandey
I
t’s the twenty-sixth May 1st
since 1994. The first still has
a heart-wrenching vivacity to
it that time hasn’t mellowed
one bit, for me. I spoke to so
many people and sifted through
a hundred accounts of the Imola
weekend as I tried to piece
together what was really going
through Senna’s mind in that
last season, in those last few
days, in the last few minutes of
his precious life.
The pressure was already on,
going into the season, courtesy
of an FIA reprimand for a

boyish altercation with Eddie
Irvine after the Japanese Grand
Prix of 1993. Senna reasoned
that he had put his head above
the parapet, especially (and
ironically) on matters of driver
safety, once too often and that
this was a way for the authorities
to shut him up. In a sport which
thrives on media, total control
of the message is vital, and he
was discouraged by his first taste
of his 1994 Williams. Worse,
though he said little, he was
disapproving of the whole breed
of cars for the season to come…
There is an over-simplistic
analysis of the electronic
driver aids in the 1992 and
1993 F1 cars – that they were
either ‘on’ or ‘off’. In reality,
they were dialled in, honed,
and had a qualitative effect on
the car’s driveability as well
as a quantitative effect on its
performance. In Senna’s view,
stripping these aids from cars
designed around them made
the cars impossibly difficult –
even dangerous – to drive at the
limit. In pre-season testing,
drivers were spinning off all
over the place. Worse, Jean
Alesi and JJ Lehto (Michael
Schumacher’s teammate) both
had such massive accidents that
they fractured neck vertebrae –
they broke their necks. Senna’s
words, at the time, now seem
prophetic ‘We will be lucky if we
get through the season without
serious injury – or even worse.’
By the time of Imola, the
third race of the season, the
competitive pressure on Senna
was immense. His Williams, for
all its prodigious power, was an
uncomfortable dog and he had
failed twice in it, in Brazil and
in Aida, whilst Schumacher
had won both rounds. On
Friday, Senna forced his way
2 3
A shroud has swept over our motor-racing world that we
couldn’t have predicted, even three months ago – just as
it did back in 1994. Death has that power.
Martin Donnelly, mangled – opened his bible at a random no Grand Prix on this end-
both legs pointing the wrong page, looking for solace and April, early-May weekend
way – in Spain in 1990, Senna guidance. He read words for the first time that I can
(already on pole) went out again which he interpreted as God remember. Coronavirus means
and destroyed his own lap time. would give him the greatest that we won’t be watching Max
He did it for his fellow drivers. gift of all, that day. At the Verstappen at the first Dutch
He told the circuit ‘to get time, it seemed that it was his GP since 1985. A shroud has
fucked’ if it thought it could do final prophecy. swept over our motor-racing
that to one of his own. It’s the twenty-sixth May world that we couldn’t have
At Imola, by analogy, he 1st since 1994. Twenty- predicted, even three months
MIKE KING /2014 GETTY IMAGES
took aside elder-statesman five have, mostly, become ago – just as it did back in 1994.
Niki Lauda, friend Gerhard indistinct because I don’t Death has that power.
Berger and adversary Michael mark them in any way except But Prophets have power,
Schumacher and, despite the for a few moments of quiet even over Death, and Senna –
inferno of that weekend 26 contemplation when it pains me the Prophet – summed up our
Ayrton: forever in the
years ago, laid the foundations that Senna has been gone for yet world, today, when describing
hearts of racing fans of a new Grand Prix Drivers’ another year. the inequalities between
Association – ready to protect But May 1st 2020 will, in rich and poor, exalted and
into the medical centre to their own, as he prophesized many ways, be as distinct as humble, black and white – all
see his Brazilian protégé, they would need to. 1994 because Coronavirus rendered irrelevant, today, by
Rubens Barrichello, who had On that final morning of has swept much of our normal a microscopic RNA virus:
survived a massive accident at his life, May 1st 1994, Senna lives away. So, there will be ‘We all breathe the same air.’
Variante Bassa escaping with
a wrist sprain and broken
nose. On Saturday, Senna
commandeered an official
car and inspected the spot at
Curva Villeneuve where Roland
Ratzenberger had been killed,
hours earlier.
Regardless of the fury of the
authorities, that righteous
anger that made Senna such a
formidable adversary, on and
off track, was simmering just
below the surface. What had
seemed instinctive, when he
first stepped into the new breed
of car; what had been borne
out by two unprecedented
WILLIAMS GRAND PRIX
preseason accidents – and what
he had witnessed, first-hand, at
Imola, brought out the fighter Senna disapproved of
the breed of cars used in
in him. When he had seen 1994’s ill-fated season
#MyFathersCar
In 1972 my father sold his AC Cobra, a 1966 289 he drove 365 days a year, to fund the installation of central
heating in the marital home. My mother was several months pregnant with my older brother. The car he
replaced it with was a Lime Flower yellow Austin A110, heavily discounted because the colour, by the dealer’s own
admission, made it unsaleable. Was it sin or sacrifice? When he died a few years ago, I found, amid dog-eared
photos from road trips to Le Mans, the Cobra’s key fob and bonnet badge. He had never really let it go. In 2006
fast food
How to eat (what else is there
to do?) like il Commendatore
By Richard Williams @rwilliaims1947
To celebrate his 90th birthday,
Enzo Ferrari invited all his
employees to a lunch in the
factory building at Maranello.
No journalists were invited. No
sponsors. No executives from
Fiat, the majority shareholders
in the company. Just the
1,742 people representing the
generations of workers to whom
he felt closest.
When they sat down together
at tables for 12 on February
18, 1988, having welcomed the
arrival of their legendary boss
with a long round of applause,
they were served a typical local
menu: tortellini, followed
by roast beef, succeeded by
zampone – the pork dish that is
as much a speciality of Modena,
his home town, as its celebrated
balsamic vinegar. Enzo loved
food, and this was the sort of
thing he had eaten most days
of his life in the private room
at the back of Il Cavallino, the
restaurant opposite his factory
gates, often with his drivers or
engineers, or in the evenings
at the Hotel Reale, close to his
home in Modena.
The history of Zampone di
Modena goes back to the 16th
century, when the town was
besieged by the army of Pope
Julius II, forcing its starving
inhabitants to create a dish
from scraps and leftovers. It is
a boned-out pig’s trotter filled
with minced pork: lean meat,
belly, back skin and fat, boiled
together and seasoned with
white pepper, nutmeg, cloves,
cinnamon, cumin and garlic
So, ask a butcher to prepare
your Zampone and serve it
sliced on a bed of lentils. Then
wash down with Lambrusco,
the region’s sparkling red wine,
a favourite with Ferrari
mechanics down the ages.
Zampone served exactly
as Enzo demanded
4 5
Music for
the open
Road
Dennis Wilson,
‘River Song’
By Jason Barlow @jasonbarlowuk
‘They say I live a fast life. Maybe
I just like a fast life. I wouldn’t
give it up for anything in the
world. It won’t last forever,
either. But the memories will.’
So wrote Dennis Wilson in
the sleeve notes for the Beach
Boys 1964 album All Summer
Long. The self-confessed black
sheep of the three Wilson
brothers, Dennis was also the
only one who actually lived the
lifestyle so eloquently hymned
by his genius brother: the surf,
the Californian girls and,
of course, the cars. But he
didn’t always exercise perfect
judgement. Famously, he got
mixed up with Charles Manson,
introducing him to key late-
Sixties Hollywood scenesters.
(It didn’t end well.) He also
starred alongside James Taylor
in 1971 road movie Two-Lane
Blacktop, and generally lived life
bouncing off the rev limiter.
Rock’n’roll’s unholy demons
had their wicked way with him,
and he was sadly complicit.
So expectations weren’t
high when Dennis became
chassis no. COB6055 sold at Goodwood for just shy of a quarter
of a million pounds. My brother and I do not talk about this.
Matt Master @harcourtmaster
Share your family car stories with the hashtag #MyFathersCar
the first Beach Boy to go solo.
Sure enough, and despite warm
reviews, 1977’s Pacific Ocean Blue
didn’t sell, but like so many
great albums its underground
status blossomed over the years.
It sounds like a lost Seventies
classic, a million miles from the
Beach Boys breezy harmonies,
funky and soulful in places,
bruised and mournful in
others. But always heart-
stoppingly beautiful.
It opens with River Song, a
gospel-tinged epic fashioned
around a gorgeous piano motif,
whose yearning for bucolic
release is somehow contained
within just 3mins 44 seconds.
Wilson sounds at once broken
yet alive to the possibilities, All in the detail: the
strung-out but determined to perfect brew is just
like the perfect lap
strike out for something better.
‘You’ve got to do it, do it, do
it/you’ve got to run away…’ quick I’m a process guy – even
with my driving. It’s why I
he sings as the song fades, but love testing. With coffee it’s
Dennis could only run for
so long. He drowned in
COFFEE the same – the detail. Getting
the weight just right, to the
December 1983, aged just 39. From bean to cup with the 10th of a gram. Monitoring
precision of a racing driver temperature and humidity
to get the grind right for
– just don’t rush it extraction; under extracted
By Marino Franchitti @MFranchitti it’ll taste sour (the water moves
through too quickly), over
It came from cycling. Mark extracted will be bitter. Same
Webber said to go to the with the milk – you have to
Espresso Lounge in Tring introduce the bubbles at the
when I was out riding. The right temperature then texture
coffee was amazing. it to the right temperature too.
My brother went to Aron, There’s pleasure in getting it
the owner, to get me the same right, sure, but seeing others
make of machine he uses for enjoy their coffee is the best
my 40th. It’s a Fracino; a thing. That’s what I miss at
properly analogue thing. the moment.
 6 7

REMEMBRANCE
OF THINGS PAST
The EN5-2A towards Lagoa on São Miguel island
in the Azores. A serene landscape by Leo Cackett

@LEOCACKETT
– and a stark contrast with the dust and drama he
captured in his NASCAR study for Issue Four.
Camera: Canon 5d
mark4Lens: 35mm f1.4
Exp: 1/1000 sec; ISO 100
#RatTales
“I’m notoriously shambolic in my planning. This is partly because I believe editorial excellence and creativity can’t
be locked down. This can often piss-off Guy because he likes to iterate and evolve an idea, just as he does with the
rest of Coldplay, but I enjoy the thrill of serendipity. We did not originally plan to run a story on how the Nazi-era
Auto Unions influenced Audi’s design language around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But a conversation
with ex-Ford (and Audi) design supremo J Mays — as frank as ever — alerted me to this fact. A quick call to the
ALL THAT
YOU CAN
LEAVE BE-
HIND
Let’s loosen the patriarchal
grip on motorsport for good
By Jesse Hawkins @1JessicaHawkins
Before competing in last year’s
inaugural W Series, I admit I’d
been a bit sceptical about the
merits of racing in an entirely
female line-up. Why separate
the sexes in one of the few
popular sports that isn’t gender-
segregated? I wanted to race –
and win – against men.
But it isn’t that simple. As long
as there aren’t lots of women
competing visibly in motorsport
– and there still aren’t – young
girls simply won’t be inspired
to reach for the same goals. You
need role models to believe you
have a serious shot at something.
You have to see it to be it. And
W Series is now putting more
women on the grid, inspiring a
new generation of female racers
into the driver’s seat. Believe me,
without it, they simply wouldn’t
get that chance.
My work as a stunt driver – most
recently in the new James Bond
film No Time To Die – might sound
dangerous, but it has been one
of the stabilising aspects of my
career, especially financially. It’s a
job in which I actively put myself
in harm’s way yet it provides me
with a safety net.
Before W Series I experienced
so many disappointments, so
many promises of funding that
weren’t fulfilled. It’s wrong
that crippling costs of racing
should get in the way of natural
talent, but that’s the nature of
our sport. W Series, however,
charges its drivers nothing to
race. Not a penny. Not a cent.
The motorsport industry –
along with the rest of us – is on
pause. No one is racing. I hope
that, when the engines start
up again, we return to a world
where young girls from all
backgrounds have as much
of a chance to race as boys do.
8 9
wonderful Stephen Bayley confirmed there was
substance in the idea and he filed the first of many
outstanding pieces for The Road Rat – two more of
which will feature in the upcoming Issue Five.”
Michael Harvey
father, and met a local legend ill
movies at ease with the big time.
The film casts fresh-faced Jeff
Yes, Junior Johnson was The Bridges in the role of Junior,
Last American Hero – and although John Candy would
have been far closer to the mark.
an unlikely one at that Junior only starts racing for
By Matt Master @harcourtmaster the prize pots that will spring
his father from the county jail.
The man Tom Wolfe called ‘a Slide geetar and ’70s soft porn
lead-footed chicken farmer’ soundtracks score a torrid
died last December after nearly journey for Junior and his good
90 glorious technicolour years.
Bootlegger, racoon hunter,
old boys from the pinewoods
of Ronda to the only-slighter-
moonshine distiller and dirt
oval deity, Junior Johnson’s
brighter lights of the Hickory
500, ‘where the cars are fast and
was a life carving something the women are faster’.
from nothing. This was the
man, after all, who brought
With Johnson a consultant, the
racing is surprisingly authentic,
slipstreaming to NASCAR,
drafting his underpowered
abetted by a clamorous orchestra
of massive V8s and breathless
home-builds to unlikely glory Tannoy commentary.
against the might of Detroit. When the big win comes it
It was Wolfe’s essay ‘The does so with far more pathos
TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION
Last American Hero is Junior than modern Hollywood would
Johnson. Yes!’ that inspired allow. Junior’s squeeze ditches
the film that purloins its title. him for another driver and he
Wolfe went deep into Carolina’s climbs the stairs to meet the
backwoods to shine a light on press utterly underwhelmed. It’s
the Robin Hood of stock car a nuanced, thought-provoking
racing, a man who learned to film about an unlikely,
drive running whisky for his fascinating antihero.
@mikeyharvey
Fast& loose
The brief communist foray
into F1 that led to Soviet
Union disillusion
By Tom Arron @norramot
It’s difficult to keep track of how
many small F1 teams attempted
to join the Grand Prix stage in
the ’80s. You might remember
Rial and EuroBrun, but what
Komanda Moskvitch GP –
communist Russia’s only foray?
The team remains shrouded
in mystery but what is known via
shipping records is that the cars
arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the
1988 season opener, transported
from the Port of Odessa in a
cargo vessel containing leather
footwear and chromium ore.
The team’s struggles began
immediately: the first of its two
chassis was impounded at the
border because an enterprising
mechanic had filled the
sidepods with contraband –
rumoured to have been caviar.
With a number of journeyman
drivers reluctant to winter
in Uzbekistan for the team’s
rigorous but mandatory
training programme, official
paperwork shows KMGP
had no nominated drivers.
However, Rio native Roberto
Moreno, at home ahead of his
F3000 campaign, was drafted
in alongside Tiff Needell –
eager to have a second bite of
the F1 cherry. With his car
impounded, a disgruntled Tiff
immediately returned home and
his new day job at Top Gear.
Moreno fared little better.
Moskvitch GP’s supposedly
revolutionary G88 design had
only existed on paper, and when
the young Brazilian arrived at
the circuit he was shocked to
discover the team struggling
to fit the enormous AZLK
V16 engine into the rear of an
adapted version of a two-year-
old Lotus 98T. Inevitably, the
engine didn’t fit and the team
withdrew its entry from the race
and the championship.
A resurfacing of political
tensions in the Eastern Bloc has
made it difficult to get anyone
involved in KMGP to go on
the record, especially as some
of the executives have risen to
positions of authority in the
Russian government. Moreno
refuses to talk about it at all –
whenever asked, his response is
to shrug his shoulders and act as
though it never happened.
However, we’re told that the
ultimate proof of KMGP can
still be found in the back of an
inconspicuous warehouse in
the Port of Rio de Janeiro,
where the car seized by
customs still resides.

2020 AMERICA’S CUP EVENT LIMITED
The New York Yacht
Club – the Ferrari of the
America’s Cup
americas
cup & F1
What the rich man buys
when he has absolutely
everything else (including
a share of Aston Martin)
By Michael Harvey @mikeyharvey
T
here is, in the next Road
Rat a different take on
Aston Martin, its current
troubles and hopeful
exit from. At its centre
is of course the character of
Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian
rag-trade billionaire hitherto
known as ‘Lance’s Dad’. The
thesis is that Aston Martin’s
problem is its ambition; that
realistically it can never be
Ferrari and that its real role in
history is as a rich man’s vanity
project — Brown, Livanos,
Gauntlett and now Stroll. “It’s
just like,” I said to the story’s
writer in a blinding moment of
clarity, “the America’s Cup.”
The America’s Cup is the
ultimate vanity project for
wildly and absurdly wealthy
alpha males. Just look at the
names; Vanderbilt, JP Morgan,
Lipton, Sopwith, Ted Turner,
Alan Bond, Larry Ellison,
Swiss-pharma gazillionaire
Ernesto Bertarelli and
petro-chem unimaginable-
onaire and Britain’s richest
man, Jim Ratcliffe.
The last two are of interest
to Ratchet readers who’ve
maybe not given much thought
to the America’s Cup before.
Bertarelli was the backer of
the unlikely two-time winning
Swiss (think about it) boat
Alinghi. He’s also just invested
in Aston Martin. Ratcliffe
meanwhile, under his Ineos
business flag bought out
entirely Sir Ben Ainslie’s Land
Rover-sponsored team two
years ago. He’s also a backer of
Mercedes’ F1 team. Mercedes F1
team boss, Toto Wolff also just
bought in to Aston. The two
worlds are colliding.
That shouldn’t be any
surprise. America’s Cup yachts
are today as sophisticated as
any F1 car and just about as
expensive to run. The latest
generation of boats from the
US, Italian, Kiwi and British
10 11
Emirates Team New
Zealand will host 36th Cup
in their own back yard
VIRTUAL EYE / EMIRATES TEAM NEW ZEALAND
LUNAROSSA/CARLO BORLENGHI
HARRY KH
Luna Rossa are the The America’s Cup was
‘Challenger of Record’, so a British idea. They’ve
help make the rules never won it in 169 years
teams were due to take to the prototype for a new kind of a fan of catamarans — bella for Mercedes F1 expertise now
water for the first time last
weekend in a warm up event,
America’s Cup, with locked-in
rules and reduced costs, a kind
figura and all that. Yet the
foiling revolution introduced
via the team’s Mercedes-Benz
Applied Science division.
but didn’t. Even with the waters of old-school F1-on-water. (The first in the America’s Cup of Eighteen ex-Merc F1 team
off Cagliari, Sardinia your
stadium, the pandemic will
idea lives on in the ‘Sail GP’
series, with near identical boats
2013 had introduced a modish
‘adrenalin sports’ element the
members are now working
across disciplines at Ainslie’s
shut you down. A second event to those of the 35th Cup). The appeal of which was impossible Portsmouth base on the second,
due in Portsmouth this summer Kiwi entry beat the defending to ignore. So, with its strings evolution boat which will
has also been cancelled. American team in Bermuda quite probably pulled by compete the preliminaries and
The 36th America’s Cup thanks to a simple, clever the Italians, the Kiwi’s hopefully final competition
proper is due to take place in technical advantage much like announced that next year’s in its truncated form that will
Aukland, New Zealand next Ross Brawn’s team did in F1 in Cup would be compered in take place in Aukland between
March. The venue is always the 2009. Only there was no time 75ft monohulls — but 75ft November and March.
choice of the defending team for the other teams to copy it. monohulls that also foiled. It’s thought that the wildly
as — remarkably — is the spec All the hydraulic power It’s an abiding memory of different designs of the four,
for the boats. This was rarely on the 50ft, hydro-foiling, mine during the 35th cup of first-generation boats will
a controversy until 1988 when wing-sailed catamarans had chasing Ainslie’s Land Rover converge a little as they evolve,
the Americans brought a gun to to come from the crew, via boat in a 750bhp RIB — and but also that Ainslie’s slap-
a knife fight and turned up in hand-cranked pumps. Given witnessing the sailing boat sided hull has an aerodynamic
in a small catamaran to trounce the boats could sail at speeds pull away. The new boats, advantage. His foils are being
the massive 90ft monohull over 50mph — yes, fifty miles bigger and at 6.5tonnes heavier developed and manufactured
entered by challenging nation an hour — the more hydraulic are just as fast. Ainslie’s has next to Lewis Hamilton’s
New Zealand. It ended up in power the more control and the swapped Land Rover support furloughed W11. Advantage
court, as the competition has Kiwi’s figured if the crews legs enough for the
done many times since — a were more powerful than their UK team to win
far call from the original arm, then why not give them the Cup for the
‘friendly competition between pedal-powered cranks. They first time ever?
nations’ envisaged by the Royal sailed away from everyone. Who knows, but
Yacht Squadron of Cowes, The complication was that come March next
England in 1851. the Kiwi’s were backed by the year one insanely
Next year’s event has yet to Italians who had flounced rich man or
see any court action but is no out of the competition earlier another will no
CFD Engineer Max
INEOS TEAM UK
less controversial. The 35th after a rule change. Now the Starr working on the
doubt have felt his
Cup took place in Bermuda Italian effort, led by Prada boss Team INEOS UK race money very
in 2017. It was meant to be a Patrizio Bertelli has never been yacht ‘Britannnia’ well spent.
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