Ayrton Senna - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Senna was born in the Pro-Matre Maternity Hospital of Santana, a neighbourhood of São Paulo city. The middle child of wealthy Brazilian landowner and factory owner Milton da Silva and his wife Neide Senna da Silva (whose family is of Italian lineage), he had an older sister, Vivane and a younger brother, Leonardo.

The house where Senna spent the first four years of his life belonged to João Senna, Neide's father, and was located on the corner of Av Aviator Gilherme with Gil Santos Dumont Avenue, less than 100 meters from Field Mars, a large area where they operated the Aeronautics Material park and an airport. He was highly athletic, excelling in gymnastics and other sports, and developed an interest in cars and motor racing at the age of four. Senna also suffered from poor motor coordination and had trouble walking up or climbing stairwasys by the age of three. An examination with a specalist that examined an electroencephalogram and found that Senna was not suffering from any problems. His parents gave Senna the nickname "Beco". At the age of seven, Senna first learned to drive a Jeep around his family's farm and gained the advantage of changing gears without the use of a clutch.

Senna attended Colegio Rio Branco in the São Paulo neighbourhood of Jardins and graduated in 1977 with a grade 5 in physics along with other grades in Mathematics, Chemistry and English. He later enrolled in a college that specialised in Business Administration but dropped out after three months. Overall, his grades amounted up to 68%.

Senna's first kart was a small 1 HP go-kart, built by his father using a lawnmower engine. Senna started racing karts at Interlagos and entered karting competition at the age of 13. He started his first race on pole position. Senna faced rivals who were some years older than him but managed to lead most of the race before retiring from a collision with a fellow rival. His father supported his son and Senna was soon managed by Lucio Pascal Gascon. Senna won South American Kart Championship in 1977. He contested the Karting World Championship each year from 1978 to 1982, finishing runner-up in 1979 and 1980. He was the team-mate of Terry Fullerton in 1978, whom Senna later felt was the rival he got the most satisfaction from racing against.

In 1981, Senna moved to England to begin single-seater racing, winning the RAC and Townsend-Thoreson Formula Ford 1600 Championships that year with the Van Diemen team. Despite this, Senna initially did not believe he would continue in motorsport. At the end of the season, under pressure from his parents to take up a role in the family business, Senna announced his retirement from Formula Ford and returned to Brazil. Before leaving England, however, Senna was offered a drive with a Formula Ford 2000 team for £10,000. Back in Brazil, he decided to take up this offer and returned to live in England. As Silva is a very common Brazilian name, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Senna. Senna went on to win the 1982 British and European Formula Ford 2000 championships under that surname. For that season, Senna arrived with sponsorship from Banerj and Pool.

In 1983, Senna drove in the British Formula Three Championship with the West Surrey Racing team. He dominated the first half of the season until Martin Brundle, driving a similar car for Eddie Jordan Racing, closed the gap in the second part of the championship. Senna won the title at the final round after a closely fought and, at times, acrimonious battle. In November that year, he triumphed at the inaugural Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix with Teddy Yip's Toyota powered Theodore Racing Team.