This summer marks twenty years since the passing of one of sport’s greatest men, the legendary Ayrton Senna.
Born to wealthy Brazilian landowners in 1960, Senna started racing go-karts in his native Brazil, before moving on to Formula 3 in the UK and then rising to become one of the greatest talents that the sporting world has ever seen, winning three Formula 1 World Championships in ’88, ’90 and ’91.
This McLaren-Honda MP4/6 was the car in which Senna won his last World Championship, after which he departed McLaren at the end of the 1993 season to drive for Williams.
Senna was tragically killed the next year, when his Williams FW16 left the track at Imola’s Tamburello corner, hitting the concrete wall at 145mph. Brazil lost its hero, and Formula 1 lost probably its greatest ever talent.
Senna’s McLaren MP4/6 pictured here is the work of the brilliant Nathanael L, and was suggested to us via the Feedback Page by a reader. Nathanael’s work has featured here numerous times, and you can see more of his McLaren as well as all of his other wonderful vehicles through his Flickr photostream at the link above.
Twenty years on from that awful weekend in 1994, in which Austrian driver Roland Ratzenberger also perished, Ayrton Senna’s legacy continues. Following the implementation of significant safety changes after the events at Imola, no driver has since died in a Formula 1 car, making Senna the last driver fatality in the sport.
It’s also been discovered that Senna secretly donated $millions to the children living in poverty in his native Brazil. He never told anyone, because that’s the kind of man he was.
