McLaren boss Ron Dennis feels Ayrton Senna was completely dedicated and derived tremendous satisfaction out of racing

London: Ron Dennis will always remember the practical jokes and the day he flipped a coin for one-and-a-half million dollars with Ayrton Senna.

Nor will the McLaren boss forget the intelligence, the business acumen and sheer brilliance of a champion whose charisma dominated Formula One.

Next week’s San Marino Grand Prix, possibly the last at Imola, marks the 10th anniversary of the race in which Senna died and Formula One will again pay tribute to one of its greatest heroes.

“What I experienced, what happened, left me speechless,” Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher, now chasing his seventh title, said this week, recalling Senna’s crash.

“It was the first time I was confronted by death in my sport. For a while I doubted whether I wanted to carry on at all,” added the German, who was chasing Senna’s Williams when it speared off into a wall at the Tamburello corner.

Dennis, whose cars took Senna to three titles and 35 of his 41 wins, has also revisited that day in his mind often enough but would rather focus on the good times they shared in a six-year partnership.

“The way I handled it was to think about it extensively, compartmentalise it, put it in a special place in your own mind and then focus on life,” he said.

“I do not think Ayrton would change anything that happened. He lost his life doing something he was passionate about and it was his life, to the exclusion of many things that other drivers and individuals enjoy.”

“He was completely dedicated, completely focused, derived tremendous satisfaction and uplifting emotional experiences out of racing and winning races,” said Dennis.

Senna was intense, emotional and fiercely competitive. He also had a burning sense of injustice, particularly after Suzuka 1989 when he was disqualified from the title-deciding Japanese Grand Prix, fined $100,000 and given a suspended ban for dangerous driving.

Frenchman Alain Prost, Senna’s team mate, won the title after he and the Brazilian collided. “He was deeply affected by the unfairness that took place after that particular race and in fact retired,” said Dennis. “And it took a great deal of effort on my part to convince him to come back and race.

Senna left McLaren at the end of 1993 to join Williams and was killed in only his third race for a team that would be dominant in 1996 and 1997.

The break was painful but Dennis believed Senna, by then a close friend, would have returned eventually.

“I vividly remember being in Magny-Cours staying at some run-down chateau somewhere and we were outside talking. And in that conversation it was very clear to me that he regretted in some ways going. “I can’t remember the words... but most definitely the message was ‘I don’t feel at all comfortable and I’ll be back.”

Senna’s time at McLaren, from 1988 to 1993, was also highlighted by practical jokes.

“He didn’t have a sense of humour and it was important that he had one,” said Dennis.

“It became an amusing mission for Gerhard (Berger) and myself, practical jokes ran consistently through the team and they were sometimes extreme.

Berger tossed Senna’s briefcase out of a helicopter over Monza, filled his Australian hotel bed full of frogs and excelled himself when he doctored Senna’s passport.

The Austrian replaced the Brazilian’s photograph with what Dennis described as “an equivalent-sized piece of male genitalia”. When Senna flew home, his passport was not inspected until he stopped in Argentina.

“They were not amused,” recalled Dennis. “He spent 24 hours in Argentina because they wouldn’t allow him to pass through without the passport being rectified. But of course, he did not admit it for months.”

Neither did Dennis admit the pain he suffered in Mexico when he ate a bowl of chilli sauce after Senna bet him $1,000 he would not be able to.

That was chicken-feed compared to the biggest gamble of all, right at the start of Senna’s McLaren career.

Locked in contract negotiations, he and Dennis agreed to toss a coin over the last $500,000. Dennis won.