Ayrton Senna's final F1 win: 'I could see the emotion in his eyes'

Leaping into the lead ahead of a hesitant Prost and spinning Williams ‘junior’ Damon Hill, Senna clung on until the Renault’s 100bhp advantage brought the inevitable and allowed his nemesis to win.

However, the Brazilian still came home second, and things would get even better at the next round – his home race in Interlagos.

Senna took advantage of hugely changeable conditions to take a sensational win while Prost crashed out, before claiming another famous victory by dominating a rain-soaked Donington to now lead the championship from the Williams man, 26 points to 14.

Still though, the Brazilian would moan and groan his way through these early races, and Ramirez says it was the only time he and the three-time champion came to verbal blows after the team was pushed to the limit.

Yet again dragging his feet over whether to race, this time before Imola and in relation as to whether Ford would permit McLaren to use an engine on parr with the works Benetton team, Senna turned up at almost the very last minute (15 minutes to be precise) before the first practice session after taking a red-eye flight from Sao Paolo to Rome – and then promptly put the car in the wall.

Ramirez, who had arranged the Brazilian’s flight-plus-private-jet-plus-helicopter to make it in time, had had enough.

“I’d never had a confrontation with Ayrton before that year,” he remembers. “We were all running behind because he arrived so late – I remember shouting at him: ‘It’s all your ****ing fault! We would have been OK, we didn’t have to be like this!'”

Senna would retire from the race with hydraulic issues, but Ramirez admits he found it difficult to remain angry with one of his closest friends in the paddock.

“At the end of it, when he realised he’d buggered up that particular weekend, he smiled when we were having a glass of something – I think that was his way of saying ‘Yes, I’m sorry, I’ve been a son of a bitch’.

“But I think if he hadn’t been that way [so demanding of getting what he wanted on-track], Ayrton wouldn’t have been so good in the car.”

Another consumate win in Monaco though would mean Senna led Prost in the championship a third of the way through with a car and engine package which was clearly inferior.

“For sure we were getting more and more excited that we could be in the running for the title,” says Ramirez. “But we enjoyed [showing what the team could do] with a less powerful car.”

Amid a run of poor results and retirements Senna would ultimately cede to the tide, as Prost pulled clear due to a series of wins in the mid season, with the Frenchman clinching the title with two races to spare.

Meanwhile the Brazilian was moving closer to the switch he had his heart set on – the Williams-Renault, F1’s best car. Prior to ’93’s penultimate race, Senna would be announced as the retiring Prost’s replacement at Grove for the following season.

Ramirez had been tasked by Dennis to persuade Senna not to sign for Williams, but knew he was on a fool’s errand.

“I gave all the arguments I could give to Ayrton, the plans, the new car etc. But the one thing I had no answer to was when he said ‘Look, I want to win races not just with McLaren,’ Ramirez told Motor Sport.

“’I want to win races and championships with other teams. I want to have a more complete career. Fangio won five world championships with four different cars. I want to be like him.”

The announcement almost appeared to act as some kind of release in the Brazilian. He delivered his fourth win of the year in Japan at the championship’s penultimate race, before serving up a vintage Senna weekend in Adelaide to sign off at McLaren.

Before that ’93 Australian GP, he hadn’t been on pole since Montreal the previous year, 18 months before.

However, Senna dug deep Down Under to break Williams’ 24-race pole streak with a 1min 13.371sec round the street circuit, almost half a second faster than Prost.

The lap was something to behold, and ahead of the race Ramirez says the event had a heady and surreal feeling to it.

“For me it was one of the best grands prix of my life, very emotional,” he says.

“When we were just about to start the race Ayrton was sitting in the car and called me over. He actually just wanted to talk to me, but he didn’t want it to get picked up by the team intercom.

“Ayrton grabbed my arm very hard and pulled me into the cockpit. He said he found it very strange doing this for the last time in the McLaren.

“I said ‘I don’t have to tell you how important this race weekend is for us.'”

The pole was the first for a Ford-Cosworth in ten years, the first since Keke Rosberg’s Brazilian GP pole for Williams in 1983. Senna’s Suzuka win had hauled McLaren up to 103 race wins in total, equal to Ferrari. If Senna clinched victory in Australia, it would make McLaren F1’s most successful team in terms of GP wins.

“I said to Ayrton ‘If you win this, I’ll love you forever!’ I could see his eyes were wet. I was worried during the race I might have made him too emotional!”

Ramirez needn’t have fretted. Over a second ahead by the end of the first lap, Senna would pull away tour by tour. Apart from ceding the lead on lap 24 to Prost for a tyre change, the soon-to-be ex-McLaren man would lead the entire race and take a famous win.

“As he stepped from the cockpit, he embraced Ron Dennis and the ever-loyal Jo Ramirez, and Ron said something to him,” wrote David Tremayne in his race report for Motor Sport.

“‘He told me it’s never too late to change your mind!’ said Ayrton. ‘But anyway he said he was happy for me. And so was I, and I said that we must keep the good times, the good moments, and let’s finish that way, with the good things…”

“It was fantastic,” says Ramirez. “We celebrated afterwards in a local restaurant, an Italian trattoria, nothing expensive but with the whole team.

“I gave him one of his steering wheels from that year and made a little speech saying ‘Six years with McLaren: three world championships, 35 race wins – see if you can beat that with another team! But if you can’t, come back, we’ll always be open for you.’

“Either way, with Ron we thought ‘He’s not going to like Williams, he’ll come back, he’ll be back…'”