The worldwide premiere of the “Senna” series on Netflix has brought great interest to historical facts and impressive feats from the racing driver’s career: some well-known and others not so well-known are part of the six episodes. We have selected some of these curiosities and stories that are part of Ayrton Senna’s career and are portrayed in the Netflix blockbuster.

Attention: from now on, you will read information that describes some moments from the series.

Episode 1 – Vocation

Ayrton Senna’s vocation for motor racing was already evident in his childhood in São Paulo and is portrayed in the first few minutes of episode 1. Neyde Senna, the driver’s mother, even says that her son loved driving the family car. To do so, he would sit right at the edge of the seat and see “inside” the steering wheel.

Read more here.

The series also portrays how Ayrton Senna won the first go-kart of his life, at the age of 4: a gift made by his father, Milton, with the famous inscription 007. Still too young to compete, little “Beco” loved to speed up the new toy on the streets of the neighborhood where he lived.

It was precisely in karting that the name Ayrton Senna was impressively built: the Brazilian driver’s achievements with titles in the São Paulo and Brazilian championships projected him to compete against the best in the world. And it was in Estoril, Portugal, in 1979, where Senna came very close to the world title, as portrayed in episode 1 of the Netflix series. With a dominant championship, the Brazilian won the final, but, in the tiebreaker criterion of that tournament, he lost the title, which favored Peter Koene when he won the penultimate heat. The feeling of injustice was so great that today the Karting World Championship crowns as champion precisely the winner of the final heat, that is, the case of Senna in Portugal that year. Click here and learn the full story!

Ayrton Senna’s great achievements in karting opened the first doors to a new phase in his career: formula racing. To do so, the Brazilian had to move to England and convince the Formula Ford team leaders that he would be able to become champion, even though it was his first year racing cars.

And a Brazilian F1 driver and friend of Ayrton was the one who showed the young talent the ropes for his start in international motorsports: Chico Serra. Some stories portrayed with good humor in English in the Netflix series actually happened with these words: “quick man” was how Chico Serra and Ralph Firman, the head of the Van Diemen team, referred to Senna, who wanted a contract that would include more tests and a lower fee because he was a fast driver.

Another curious story is that the name “Ayrton” was actually difficult for the English to pronounce, who called Senna “Harry” or “Harrington” (as appears in one of the scenes with the English racetrack announcer). The dispute with the Argentine Enrique Mansilla was also portrayed intensely in the series and actually occurred in Ayrton Senna’s debut season in England, in 1981 – which even involved an accident between the two.

This is also the period in which another prominent character in the first episode of Senna is mentioned: photographer Keith Sutton, who became Ayrton’s official photographer in his first years in England. Senna wanted to give visibility to the results of his races in his debut year in Europe and Keith, who was also starting his career as a photographer in the junior categories, followed this phase of the Brazilian’s career closely.

Despite the title, Senna announced at the end of that season that he would return to Brazil. What seems surprising (and is portrayed in the series) actually happened in the life of the driver who, at the age of 21, would have to return to São Paulo and work in the family business. Just as is portrayed in episode 1 shown on Netflix, the offers for the 1982 season were increasingly greater and Senna got sponsorship to compete in England again and continue making history, winning another title, this time in Formula Ford 2000.

Read more about the 1982 season here.

And with his return to England, Senna would set his record for victories in a single year the following season, opening the doors to F3 and beginning to arouse the interest of F1 team bosses.

But that’s a topic for episode 2!

Article originally produced for the website Senna.com by Rodrigo França.