The Life of Senna: The Biography of Ayrton Senna

Very good condition when received book promptly. Have just started reading this very touching account of Sennas life. It gives a good insight into this genious who was second to none. It is difficult not to be affected by his life story.

Great book.

Books on Aryton Senna have become something of a cottage industry, since his sad demise - all the more reason for them to do justice to someone, of whom Frank Williams said was "first and foremost an amazing human being and secondly, a great racing driver." So it's no mean task and this is quite an enjoyable read in places, but does not quite get there. Firstly, there is little in the book that we did not already know about Senna and seems to collate a huge number of quotes already in the public domain from other books and press articles. Also, as other reviewers have commented, it is very repetitive and contradictory, with the same quotes surfacing on more than one occasion, which undermines enjoyment of the reading. To say the least, it seems as though the book has had little or no pre-publication proof reading. Evidence of this is also to be found in the number of basic errors, which for a writer of Rubython's repute, must be embarrassing - for example, unless I was following a different formula, there were no Wiliams-Hondas in 1991 and Senna did not win at Monaco in 1983....a good eight months before he actually raced an F1 car, let alone started winning with one. Secondly, for me at least, the most damning part of this book was the dismissive and contemptous attitude towards Alain Prost (in which the writer seems to dislike Prost more than Senna did). In this regard, I beleive the writer has completely missed the point. Firstly, no one would seriously beleive that Prost in terms of sheer skill (if not outright speed) was anything other than well-matched to Senna? One of the reasons they fell out was because they threatened each other's supremacy. To suggest that Senna's biggest rival was Nigel Mansell is ridiculous. By attempting to be-little Prost, the writer actually detracts from Senna - one of the things that made Senna so great was that he overcame the genius of Prost with sheer speed and will to win and raised the bar to an impossibly high level. Jo Ramirez's old quote even surfaced in the book when he said 'they only ever worried about each other,' meaning that the others never came close...but that's yet another contradiction. One other aspect of the book, on which readers can only draw their own conclusions, was the candid and hellishly graphic description of the medical details of Senna's accident. I personally found it a little upsetting and others more sensitive than I, will be shocked. I wondered if we really needed all that detail, afterall, Sid Watkins, a key player in the unfolding horror, specifically said in his book, that he would not be going there. I had heard that Senna's family strongly objected to the book; if that's true, it's not difficult to see why. Putting this to one side, it was not a bad holiday read on the whole, but I am ultimately disppointed, as it promised far more than it actually delivered. The only time we will get the definitive book on Senna is if someone such as Nigel Roebuck could download the collective memories of Ron Dennis, Alain Prost, Frank Williams, Jo Ramirez and Gerhard Berger. Now that would really be something.

Lithuania is right observing that the chapters seem to be written by different people. That is true in fact. Tom Rubython was the publisher of the official F1 Magazine which existed from 2001 until 2003. During 2001 and 2002 each month articles were published on Ayrton Senna, written by various journalists. This book contains all these articles (but not the great pictures accompanying them in the magazine) but there is no mention of the people written them. Rubython takes credit for it, which is typical for the man. In his short spell as publisher in F1 (he was coming from business magazines) Rubython was able to piss off a lot of people in F1 for revealing a lot of "behind-the-scenes" secrets. McLaren boss Ron Dennis shouted to him in Monaco 2001, after the magazine wrote an article on Newey-gate, "that he would hate him for the rest of his live" as Rubython revealed in his own column. As the publishing date of this book has been delayed for years I gather someone like Dennis has delayed its approval for some time. Has it been worth the wait ? Not if you have all the issues of F1 Magazine...

This is a cynical, bloated, amateurish piece of hackwork seemingly published to tie in with the tenth anniversary of Senna's death. In attempting to be definitive, it merely becomes overlong and phenomenally boring. That the greatest Formula One driver of his era's life can be reduced to such banal prose is almost impossible to believe. Rubython also makes no attempt at impartiality - whenever he discusses the great rivalry between Prost and Senna he does so in terms that denigrate the Frenchman. (He's little better on the relationships between Senna and any other driver, or official). Rubython's writing never rises above the turgid, and his grasp of basic facts is shaky. By far the best book on Senna is Richard Williams' elegiac "The Death of Ayrton Senna". Christopher Hilton's "The Hard Edge of Genius" is much a better book on Senna's early career and first couple of seasons in F1. Both books give far more insight into Senna the man, Senna the driver and Senna the phenomenon. All that's left in here is a rather lip-smackingly grotesque obsession with the minutiae of Senna's death, and some rather over-sentimental material about his family life. Difficult to recommend to anyone but the most uncritical Senna fan, this is merely tedious hagiography, full of unnecessary padding, written in the kind of pseudo-exciting journalistic prose that reduces a great driver to a collection of cliches.

This book is huge!

page légèrement jaunie mais pas de problème car il s'agit d'un livre d'occasion