年轻时的埃尔顿·塞纳如何让F1精英们抓狂
The 比赛的F1历史播客《F1 Rewind》第二集中，Edd Straw与Mark Hughes回顾了埃尔顿·塞纳从托勒曼到莲花车队时期的崛起，以及他如何令围场内的资深对手们大为恼火。
卓越的赛车掌控能力和惊人的速度，是埃尔顿·塞纳在通往一级方程式的道路上、以及他在托勒曼车队的新秀赛季中，被认定为未来冠军的两大特质。
但正是在他的第一次一级方程式转会——加入路特斯车队之后，塞纳才真正在一坧1中留下了自己的印记，因为他经常让那些（资历远比他深厚的）对手们懊恼不已。
这就是埃德·斯特罗和马克·休斯在《F1 Rewind》第二期节目中深入探讨的故事，这是The 比赛推出的全新一级方程式历史播客，它以全新的视角和当时未必可用的角度，重新审视大奖赛历史上的一些最重大的故事（以及其中涉及的车手和车队）。
塞纳在路特斯的岁月，实际上是他加入极为成功的迈凯伦之前的一段学徒期——同时也是一支开始走向瓦解的路特斯车队的最后辉煌——在这段时间里，他真正成为了一级方程式精英们眼中的一根刺。
这位日后三夺世界冠军的车手，在1983年夺取英国F3冠军前后就已引人注目；罗恩·丹尼斯曾提出，如果塞纳承诺长期效力迈凯伦，就为他的F3赛季出资，而在那个赛季中他还为威廉姆斯（1984年没有空余席位）和布拉汉姆进行了测试。
不过，塞纳最看重的还是掌握自己的命运，因此他决定选择托勒曼——签下三年合同，附带一条相对温和的、约10万英镑的解约条款——作为进入F1的第一步。
当然，塞纳在新秀赛季就让人刮目相看；最突出的是在因红旗中止的摩纳哥大奖赛上获得亚军，此外还在布兰兹哈奇和埃斯托利尔登上领奖台。
因此，托勒曼的合同实际上只是把他在路特斯的首秀推迟到了1985年——路特斯是另一支对他F1首秀表示过兴趣的车队。这本身没有问题；塞纳签了合同，而路特斯也达到了触发解约条款的条件。
问题在于，塞纳在这次转会消息公布之前并没有提前告知托勒曼车队——不过正如斯特劳所说，这确实展示了“塞纳做事是多么主动”，也表明他当时就已经“非常有意识地避免被任何车队控制”。
休斯——正是在塞纳征战F3期间见过他的人之一——接过了这段故事。
“在规划自己的职业生涯方面，塞纳绝对是无情地讲究策略，”他说，“这一点在他早年的青训车队生涯中也能看到。”
“他想要那种独立性。他完全做好了做一切必要事情的准备，只为了在那一刻坐进他所能得到的最具竞争力的赛车。”
斯特劳补充道：“他非常深入地参与了合同和细节。即使在那个时候，也有不少关于他在合同谈判和细节上非常吹毛求疵的故事。他不是签完字就一走了之；他真的把一切都掌握在手中。”,
我认为这是塞纳具备的素质之一，即使是在他职业生涯的这个阶段。他知道自己需要去莲花车队。而且他也做好了面对一点混乱的准备。
正如前面所说，这一切实际上只是让塞纳的转会行动被搁置了一年——而他的行动往往早已经过他自己精心计算，这一点我们稍后会再谈到。
托勒曼车队确实在1984赛季倒数第三站蒙扎比赛中把他排除在出场名单之外，这件事大概给了塞纳一个教训：在转会消息正式公布之前，他没有按照正确的顺序提前告知托勒曼车队。
但他加盟路特斯时已经带着极高的声望——而且他也没有辜负这份声望。也许不是立刻兑现：在赛季揭幕的巴西大奖赛（他的主场）排位赛中，他被队友埃利奥·德·安杰利斯击败，但塞纳仅在代表路特斯的第二场比赛中就夺得了他的第一个大奖赛冠军，而且这可以说是他41场分站冠军中最出色的一场。
"他自己也这么认为，"休斯说，"他认为那是他所有大奖赛胜利中最伟大的一场。
"统治级的杆位。雨中从发车到冲线一路领跑。最快圈速快了大概四分之三秒？差不多是这样，完全的统治。他领先第二名整整一分钟。这简直就是一场对他实力的非凡展示。这就是你所面对的车手的水平。
"而且我想，正是在那时，你可以说人们真正看清了：这不只是塞纳在一辆竞争力不足的赛车里超水平发挥，就像他在1984年所做的那样。这一次是，'好，现在有一辆能够夺冠的赛车了。看好了'。没错，非凡。"
1985年的路特斯97T毫无疑问比他前一年驾驶的托利曼赛车更具竞争力，但这辆车并没有塞纳表现出来的那么出色。（毕竟，这是一辆在空气动力学上与路特斯1983年参赛赛车非常相似的赛车，到1987年他在车队的最后一个赛季时也没有太大变化。）
这意味着要想保持竞争力，塞纳必须聪明地选择进站时机——但这同时也意味着他惹恼了周围已成名的车手，从队友德·安杰利斯开始，波及的范围还要广得多。
“这个赛季——尤其是85赛季的塞纳——我真正喜欢的一点，是他在多大程度上让所有人都恼火，”斯特劳说，“这是年轻车手的经典戏码。”
“在里约测试时，他和奈杰尔·曼塞尔发生了碰撞，因为周一里约测试的早晨两人有点不愉快，曼塞尔当时在跑正赛模拟，不想毁掉自己的数据，所以塞纳被激怒了。随后在当天晚些时候他们发生了碰撞。
"接着在伊莫拉，也就是第三场比赛，普罗斯特批评塞纳采用'三级方程式式的驾驶战术'。
"在摩纳哥的排位赛中，阿尔博雷托出于报复把他逼上了逃生通道。因为塞纳实际上是被莲花车队经理彼得·瓦尔指示去挡阿尔博雷托的路的，这大概就是塞纳与彼得·瓦尔那段并不怎么愉快的关系的开端。
"塞纳和瓦尔并不完全意见一致；塞纳有点在发号施令，而瓦尔则是那种军人背景出身的人。他上过桑德赫斯特军事学院。所以他是那种非常讲指挥链的人，'我说了算'。
"而实际上，随着塞纳在莲花车队逐渐开始掌控话语权，这段关系也慢慢走向瓦解。
塞纳并不是第一个以这种方式行事的人，但从某种意义上说，他是现代急于上位的年轻车手的原型，也标志着漫长学徒期的终结——尽管他在路特斯车队的确待了三年。
斯特劳说："这种车手一进来就知道自己足够优秀，完全不打算退居其后、慢慢等待。他们的态度是：'不，我要当一号车手，我要自己做决定，我要把自己送进最好的车队。'"
休斯说："真正特别的车手一进来就能达到近乎立刻在前排竞争的水平。虽然未必面面俱到、完全成熟，但他们确实具备竞争力。"
斯特劳补充道："不过我确实很喜欢这种搅扰所有功成名就的顶尖车手的戏码，[马克斯]·维斯塔潘就是这么做的，迈克尔·舒马赫也是——他可把塞纳惹恼了，不是吗？所以你会看到这种事情越来越多。"
“我认为，正因为塞纳作为一名车手的影响力如此之大，塞纳的传奇才延续至今。我觉得车手们几乎都更加意识到，需要从一开始就成为一个极其难缠的对手（这正是塞纳带来的影响）。”
塞纳在路特斯车队的数据令人印象深刻：第一年就拿下七个杆位、两场胜利以及另外四次登上领奖台；在车队的三年里总共取得六场胜利。
他能在车队进入第三个年头，多少有些出人意料，因为塞纳选择留队，签下了一份新的两年合同。
但这背后是有盘算的：那份两年合同中包含一个解约条款，允许车队或车手任何一方，无论处于什么情况都可以退出合同。而塞纳这个精于算计的人，早已开始为1988年获得迈凯伦的席位暗中运作。
本田在那个赛季与迈凯伦有合作关系，而塞纳早在1986年摩纳哥大奖赛时就促成了与本田的首次会面，使莲花能在1987年使用本田引擎，从而为第二年起通向迈凯伦铺平了道路。
“解约条款（提前解约的条款）定在八月初之前的某个日期。所以很显然，如果不是不得不签，莲花是不会签下这一条的，”斯特劳说。“但这说明了塞纳在车手市场上拥有的话语权，而且他毫不犹豫地使用它。”
“（塞纳身上）有一种急于求成的暗流，还有些许挫败感。他对莲花当时的处境并不满意。但他显然也意识到再留莲花一年的价值，因为本田即将加入，而这一切都是宏伟计划的一部分。”
埃德和马克在《F1 Rewind》第二集完整版中对这些内容进行了深入分析，请务必在此收听。
英文原文
Supreme car control and a devastating turn of speed were two qualities that marked Ayrton Senna out as a future champion on his path to Formula 1 and during his rookie season with the Toleman team.
But it was after his first F1 move, to Team Lotus, that Senna also made his mark on F1 as he routinely left his (significantly more established) rivals disgruntled.
That's a story that Edd Straw and Mark Hughes dig into for the second episode of F1 Rewind, the new F1 history podcast from The Race, which revisits some of the biggest tales from grand prix racing (and the drivers and teams involved in them) with a fresh perspective and angles that weren't necessarily available at the time.
Senna's Lotus years were, in effect, an apprenticeship before his ultra-successful McLaren move - and a last hurrah for a Lotus team that was beginning to unravel - where he became a proper thorn in the side of the F1 elite.
The driver who would go on to become a three-time world champion caught the eye before and during his title-winning British Formula 3 campaign in 1983; Ron Dennis had offered to pay for Senna's F3 campaign if he committed to McLaren long-term, and during that season he tested for Williams (which had no space for 1984) and Brabham.
Senna wanted control of his own destiny above all else, though, and so the decision was to pick Toleman - on a three-year deal, with a relatively modest release clause of around £100,000 - for that first step.
Senna, of course, turned heads in his rookie season; outstandingly with his runner-up finish in the red-flagged Monaco race, but also with podiums at Brands Hatch and Estoril.
And so really the Toleman deal just deferred his arrival at Lotus, another team that had showed interest for his F1 debut, until 1985. There was no problem with that, per se; Senna had signed the contract, and Lotus had met the threshold for the release clause.
The problem was that Senna hadn't told Toleman before his move was announced - even if that did demonstrate, as Straw says, "how proactive Senna is being" and how already he was "very deliberately avoiding being under the control" of any team.
Hughes - one of those who saw Senna during his F3 campaign - picks up the story.
"[Senna was] absolutely ruthlessly strategic in his planning of his career," he says. "You saw it in his junior career as well.
"He wanted that independence. He was quite prepared to do what was necessary to get in the most competitive machinery that he could at that moment."
Straw adds: "He was very much involved in the contracts and the detail. And even at this time, there's stories of him being quite pernickety in terms of those contract negotiations and the detail. He wasn't just signing it and off he goes; he really was on top of things.
"And I think that's one of the qualities Senna had, even at this time in his career. He knew he needed to be at Lotus. And he was prepared for there to be a little bit of a mess."
As suggested, this only really ever put Senna's movements - which he'd often already calculated, something we'll come back to later - on hold for a year.
Toleman did bench him for the antepenultimate round of the 1984 season at Monza, something that probably taught Senna a lesson for not following the right sequence of events in telling Toleman before his move was announced.
But he joined Lotus as a driver with a very big reputation - one he lived up to. Perhaps not instantly, as he was outqualified by team-mate Elio de Angelis at the season-opening Brazilian GP (his home race), but Senna claimed his first grand prix win on only his second start for Lotus, and it was arguably the best of his 41 victories.
"He thought so," says Hughes. "He thought that was the greatest of all his grand prix wins.
"Dominant pole. Start to finish in the wet, in the lead. Fastest lap by, what, three-quarters of a second? Something like that, totally dominant. He was a minute clear of second place. Just an extraordinary demonstration of just who he was. That's the level of driver that you're dealing with.
"And that's when, I suppose, you could say it was properly apparent this wasn't just [Senna] punching above his weight in a less than fully competitive car, which he'd been doing in '84. This was, 'OK, here's a car that is capable of winning. Watch this'. And yeah, extraordinary."
The Lotus 97T of 1985 was undoubtedly more competitive than the Toleman he'd driven the year earlier, but it wasn't as good as Senna was making it look. (This was, after all, a car that was very similar aerodynamically to what Lotus had campaigned in 1983, and hadn't changed all that much by the time of his final season with the team in 1987 either.)
And that meant to be competitive, Senna had to box smart - but that also meant ruffling the feathers of the established drivers around him, starting with team-mate de Angelis but extending much further.
"The thing I really like about this season, '85 in particular with Senna, is the extent to which he annoys everyone," says Straw. "It's the classic thing with a young driver.
"In Rio testing, he has a collision with [Nigel] Mansell because they have a bit of an annoyance in the morning on the Monday of a Rio test and Mansell's on a race run and didn't want to spoil his numbers, so Senna gets irritated. Then they have a collision late in the day.
"And then you've got, at Imola, [Alain] Prost - that was the third race - criticises 'F3 driving tactics' from Senna.
"[In Monaco, Michele] Alboreto forces him up an escape road in retaliation in qualifying. Because Senna actually got told by [Lotus team manager] Peter Warr to get in Alboreto's way as well, which was probably the start of actually the Senna-Peter Warr relationship, [which] didn't go particularly well.
"Senna and Warr didn't entirely see eye to eye; Senna was sort of calling the shots, whereas Warr was this kind of military background. He'd been to Sandhurst. So he was very much a kind of chain of command [character], 'what I say, goes'.
"And actually this gradually kind of unravels through the time at Lotus when Senna sort of starts calling the shots."
Senna was not the absolute first to do it this way, but he was in a sense the prototype for the modern-day young driver in a hurry, and the shift away from long apprenticeships - even if his Lotus spell did last for three years.
"It's a driver who comes in, knows that they're good enough and is really not prepared to hang back and wait," says Straw. "It's like, 'No, I'm going to be number one. I'm going to make decisions. I'm going to get myself into the best team'."
"The really special ones can come in at a level where they can compete at the front, pretty much straight away. Not necessarily fully rounded, but can compete," says Hughes.
Straw adds: "But I do just love this spell of annoying all the established top drivers, which [Max] Verstappen did, which Michael Schumacher did - he annoyed Senna, didn't he? So you start to see that happening more and more.
"And I think because Senna was so influential as a driver, the legend of Senna endures to this day. I think drivers are almost more conscious of the need to be a massive pain in the neck straight away [because of the impact Senna made]."
The statistics from Senna's Lotus spell are impressive: seven poles, two wins, and four further podiums from his first year; and six wins in total across his three-year spell with the team.
The fact that ran into a third year was something of a surprise, as Senna elected to stay with the team on a new two-year deal.
But there was a calculation behind that: that two-year deal included a break clause that allowed either side, team or driver, to get out of it regardless of the situation. And Senna, the operator that he was, had started his machinations towards a McLaren seat for 1988.
Honda was in the picture with McLaren for that season, and Senna had instigated the first meeting with Honda - as early as the Monaco GP in 1986 - for Lotus to take its engines for 1987, thus creating a route to McLaren for the following year.
"It [the break clause] was before a date in early August. So obviously Lotus wouldn't have signed that if they didn't have to," says Straw. "But that tells you the power Senna has got in the driver market, and he's not afraid to use it.
"[There's] that undercurrent of [Senna being] in a hurry, a bit of frustration. He wasn't delighted with where Lotus was. But obviously realising the value of that extra year with Lotus, because Honda's coming on board and it's all part of the masterplan."
Edd and Mark analysed all of that in depth in the full second episode of F1 Rewind, so make sure you listen to it here.
The Race ·
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