Ayrton Senna

For Brazilians of a certain generation, the death of Ayrton Senna is not unlike September 11 or the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news on May 1, 1994.

“It’s funny, it doesn’t seem like it was 20 years ago,” his sister Viviane Senna said of the Formula One great’s fatal crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

“It seems so long ago and yet so recent.

“There’s no one who, unsolicited, doesn’t tell me what they were doing and where they were when the accident happened. Everyone knows. Everyone remembers. It’s incredible,” she told Reuters.

Even though two decades have passed, Senna still casts a mighty shadow over both his sport and Brazil. The three-times world champion followed in the slipstream of compatriots Emerson Fittipaldi and Nelson Piquet but his success and popularity left both behind.

During Senna’s peak years between the first title with McLaren in 1988 and his death in a Williams in 1994, Formula One almost rivaled football as Brazil’s most popular sport.

Things are different now, in Brazil at least, and Formula One has lost that passionate following. Felipe Massa is the country’s only active F1 driver and Senna remains the last champion.

Even Viviane says her brother would today baulk at what she classed “first a business, second a business and third a business, and maybe a sport in fourth or fifth or sixth place.

“I don’t think it would be just him, lots of people don’t think Formula One is as exciting,” she added, in an interview in Sao Paulo at the Ayrton Senna Institute, the educational charity she now runs.

“The role of the car is even greater today than it was when Ayrton raced. The drivers made much more of a difference back then. Every race was a show, there was always a mishap, something electrifying always happened.

“Ayrton was called the ‘King of Trouble’ because wherever he went something would happen so there was competition back then.

“It was a sport that had excitement. Today it has lost that.”

Senna, nevertheless, said if her brother were still alive he would probably still be involved in the business, perhaps managing a team like past triple champions Jackie Stewart or Niki Lauda did.

Ferrari ambition

She also said that, like all drivers, Ayrton had harboured ambitions of driving for Ferrari.

“He always told me that he would like to race with Ferrari. I think he’d liked to have done that before he retired.

“Now I think he would be involved in racing in one way or another, maybe with a team or as a businessman.”

The Ayrton Senna Institute is a non-profit organisation envisaged by Senna before his death and created by his sister a few months after the tragedy.

Based in his home city of Sao Paulo, it raises funds through donations and by licensing Senna-related merchandise.

The money is used to create innovational projects to benefit Brazil’s public schools and the cash helps prepare 75,000 teachers and professionals each year.

More than two million children are aided annually and the institute is recognised by UNESCO for the work it does. Viviane, 55, is one of Brazil’s most respected leaders.

However, she lamented the lack of visionaries elsewhere in a nation that is having enormous trouble in preparing to host the 2014 World Cup, due to kick off in less than two months.

Stadiums are late, including the one built by Ayrton’s favourite team Corinthians. Airports and public transportation projects have been scaled back or abandoned altogether.

“I think all Brazilians know that we could have taken more advantage of this opportunity,” said Viviane.

“We haven’t developed our airports, we haven’t built the infrastructure. We’ve done less than we could and should have. That’s not opinion, it’s reality.

“I think Brazil has got much, much better over the last 20 years, there is an immense potential and talent here, like Ayrton had, but talent and potential needs opportunities first and foremost and Ayrton had that.”