“His was the most complex character I ever encountered in the sport” 

For a few days after seeing Senna, I couldn’t get the man out of my mind, and perhaps not surprisingly so. I had, after all, been present at all but a handful of his 161 grands prix, and inevitably the movie brought that time alive again, releasing a deluge of personal memories.

I thought back, for example, to a morning in the spring of 1983, when a phone rang in the Autosport office and I picked up. The voice at the other end asked for Jeremy Shaw, then the magazine’s Formula 3 correspondent. “He’s not here – I’ll give him a message,” I said. “Who’s calling?”

“Ayrton Senna,” said the voice. “Who’s that?” I told him. “Ha! We should meet, have a meal. I want to talk to you – I’m going to be in Formula 1 next year…”