F1 Fanatic

There was a brief discussion about this in the Vettel article but I thought it warranted closer attention, so I did a bit of number-crunching. Assuming Senna had survived Imola, I reckon it would have gone down like this:

ORIGINAL POINTS DEFICIT: 30

- Monaco: Schumacher was great that weekend, but let’s assume the king of Monaco would have won. Deficit: 26
- Spain: could have won from Hill with Schumacher stuck in 5th gear and home 3rd. Deficit: 20
- Canada: Schumacher finished 40 seconds of Hill so it’s hard to see Senna beating him. A close 2nd place probably. Deficit: 24
- Britain: would we have seen the formation-lap antics from Schumacher with Senna in the mix? I’m reckoning not. A Senna win and 2nd for Schumacher. Deficit: 20
- Germany: Ferrari were stunning this weekend so I think 2nd would have been the most for Senna. However Schumacher DNFd so it would have been a good haul. Deficit: 14
- Hungary: another great showing by Schumacher so I reckon another 2nd for Senna. Deficit: 18
- Belgium: this is where it gets tricky. Would Schumacher have had his lap 19 spin? You’d have to imagine Senna would have won this race anyway. Deficit: 14
- Italy: also tricky, as at this point Schumacher was serving a ban for the events in Britain which didn’t happen in this scenario. Benetton’s pace wasn’t that great here (though I’m going by Verstappen’s time, who to be fair wasn’t in Schumacher’s league. So I’m assuming a Williams 1-2. Deficit: 8
- Portugal: another race Schumacher missed. Verstappen did poorly here too but you’d have to fancy Schumacher getting a result. 2nd behind Senna for argument’s sake. Deficit: 4
- Europe: Schumacher finished 24 seconds ahead of Hill. Would Senna have done better, probably from pole? Let’s say he did. Deficit: 0
- Japan: Senna 1st, Schumacher 3rd seems likely. Advantage: 6
- Adelaide: Who knows? Schumacher beat Hill by half a second in qualifying, but Senna would have been closer on race pace as well. Mansell won the race after the famous collision, which does not happen here. Senna leads Schumacher to take the championship by 10 points.

There are, however, some assumptions which alter the balance somewhat:
- Senna still crashes in Imola, instead of just waltzing to victory. So his deficit would have been 8 less and his victory would have been by 8 more points. However from what we know about Senna’s death it seems the accident was just waiting to happen so I’m confident that Senna would still have been the whole 30 points behind.
- Senna has no retirements. Seems a little unlikely.
- Senna always beats Hill. Also seems a bit unlikely.

Verdict? I think it’s too close to say one way or the other. But it’s not the certainty it’s often painted to be.

There are way too many ‘ifs’ involved. But then again, Damon Hill almost took the title, and only lost it because of Schumi’s signature move. So.. I would have to say that Senna would have won the 1994 title.

Could you imagine Adelaide with Senna in Hill’s shoes?! That would have been interesting to see how that incident panned out afterwards!!

Without Senna’s death, it’s also worth considering whether Williams/Senna would have pushed the governing body harder to take action on the possibility of Benetton using traction control.

Like you say though, Schumacher’s mid season DSQ’s determine what would have happened. With them then yes, I think Senna would have won it but without them I don’t think he could have done so – Schumacher was just too good that season.

Personally I believe 1994 was going to be Michael’s year anyway. Senna wasn’t happy with the Williams, nor was Prost really but it didn’t have the handling issues in 1993 (Prost said it felt like it was designed for Mansell, which it was really).

1995 would have been a very interesting year, a clean slate with two equal cars.

In my opinion Senna was a total jerk and very unprofessional.
Too arrogant and selfish. His nature to argue took another drivers life.

“Jerk”? Perhaps. He pushed everybody to the very limit. A “move or be hit” on-track nature was common. But that was his style of racing. He was aggressive. Every driver has done something unscrupulous during their career.

“Unprofessional”? Certainly not! He was, arguably, one of the most professional of his time. He would stay back for hours – sometimes even nights – with his engineers in order to assess the car and how to improve its performance. He was known to spend much of his day (Literally. I’m talking numerous, numerous hours) going over how to approach particular circumstances, what areas of the car need to be improved et cetera. Labelling him as unprofessional is just ridiculous.

“Arrogant”? Again, perhaps. He drove to be the best. He went to McLaren and immediately started trying to destroy Alain Prost – both on the racetrack and in his mind. He would hit other cars, yes. Again, this was psychological. Very few of his contacts were made without reason. Of course, the reasons weren’t necessarily positive, but they were all steps in mentally beating an opponent. Once a driver had moved out the way for Senna so that there wasn’t contact – he would know that every single time he came up to them, the driver was going to be easier to pass. It was psychological and, again, style.

Your accusation of him being “selfish” is ridiculous, however. Senna was an overwhelmingly generous person – both financially and spiritually. He donated millions of dollars to aid the poor in Brazil. As well, he was a great person at heart (watch: http://tinyurl.com/3px6ltm).

I don’t support some of Ayrton’s antics. Contact with Prost at Suzuka in 1990 was downright dangerous and shouldn’t (and never is) seen as a positive move. But your critcisms are – simply put – ridiculous.

I have my opinions on Senna, but il keep this on ’94.

Who really knows? Sometimes i wonder if Clark would have won in ’68 or Villeneuve in ’82? But then I think to myself that its quite disrespectful to those that did go on and win it. They didnt ‘win’ because people died, its about results. Senna *might* have won, but then its possible that Senna might have played a part in Damon Hill winning the WDC.