Formula One: Senna, a man who really cared

Ayrton Senna da Silva: is his legacy to be recalled in statistics or memories? Numbers on a page or emotions stirred? Sporting supremacy -- or rare humanity?
The stories of his on-track talent, the utter determination and all-consuming passion are well chronicled. Indeed, 161 Grands Prix, 64 pole positions and 87 front row starts reflect all that. To cap it all off 42 Grands Prix victories and three world titles - in 1988, 1990 and 1991.
His fierce rivalry with McLaren-Honda team-mate Alain Prost, concern for drivers' safety and the humility that was so visible with children and ordinary motor racing fans confirm the passion and personality of a man whose death 20 years ago, in 1994, will be remembered again, and so vividly, on May 1.

That afternoon, at Imola, capped a tragic, black weekend at the San Marino Grand Prix, where he started his final race from pole position.
Saturday's qualifying had brought the brutal death of Austrian Roland Ratzenberger, a shock that sent a shudder of apprehension and misery through an overcrowded paddock.
Friday had seen Senna rush to the bedside of his protege Rubens Barrichello, then only 21 and in his second season of Formula One, after he had survived a massive airborne crash during afternoon practice. It was the first huge shock. And Sunday delivered more.

But in this anniversary year, as Honda prepare their comeback, it is Senna the man that many, including this correspondent, will remember: the smiles, jokes and kindnesses that were a part of his unique charisma along with the intensity and single-minded passion.

Memory can play tricks on us, but not when so many remember the same things at the same place.
In a rush at the Hungaroring in 1987, he stopped to answer a question with a serious frown. In Lotus overalls, he smiled and then ran on to catch lost time.
Later that year, at Monza, he shuffled shyly in slanting late-summer sunshine as he stood with Prost at a McLaren announcement to confirm the formation of a dream team - Prost and Senna, McLaren and Honda.
In Paris, where the sport's ruling body celebrated 500 Grands Prix, he agreed to sign, for my son, a menu printed for the occasion. 'Joshua? How do you spell that?' he asked after mistaking the name for George, more common in English at the time. He duly signed and remembered.