New Delhi: The Ekamra Sports Literature Festival roared to life with the thrill of Formula 1 as Italian author Franco Nugnes ignited the opening session with the legacy of Ayrton Senna.
Diving into his book Senna: Speed, Spirit, and the Myth That Endures, Nugnes transported the audience to the blistering world of high-velocity heroism and human grit. With Sandip Sikdar, Assistant Editor at Hindustan Times, deftly navigating the conversation and P. V. Prasada Rao lending clarity through translation, the session became a riveting exploration of Senna’s fearlessness, fire, and timeless myth—brought alive through Nugnes’ precision, passion, and profound bond with the sport.
The inaugural session of the day — “Senna, Speed, Spirit, and the Myth That Endures” — unfolded as an emotional, intellectually rich and deeply immersive exploration of one of motorsport’s greatest icons: Ayrton Senna .
A Legendary Career Revisited
Sikdar began by contextualising Senna’s legacy through some of the most breathtaking moments in Formula 1 history. The audience was reminded of:
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Donington 1993: the legendary first lap in the rain where Senna passed five cars in 40 seconds, often described as the greatest opening lap in F1 history.
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Monaco 1988 qualifying: Senna’s lap that was 1.427 seconds faster than teammate Alain Prost — a gap almost unthinkable between identical machinery.
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His fiery rivalry with Alain Prost, one of sport’s greatest psychological and political duels.
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His daring rescue of Érik Comas at Spa 1992, where Senna stopped mid-race, exposing himself to danger, to save a fellow driver.
These contrasts — the warrior on track, the guardian off it — laid the foundation for understanding the complex layers of Senna as a person.
Why Franco Nugnes Wrote the Book — After 30 Years of Silence
Franco Nugnes began with humility, noting his limitations in English, but swiftly compensated with candidness and raw honesty. He revealed that he had deliberately stayed away from writing about Senna’s death for nearly three decades.
“I did not want to write about it,” he said. “I followed every investigation, every legal proceeding, but I did not feel ready.”
Everything changed when he gained access to a box full of documents — photographs, unpublished notes, investigation papers, testimonies — preserved from the aftermath of the 1994 Imola tragedy. With the permission of Autopress management, he revisited every detail, every document and every interview.
This launched a multi-year investigative journey where Nunes spoke to:
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Senna’s friends and family
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Engineers and team managers
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Police officials and magistrates
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Doctors, paramedics and track marshals
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Journalists including Ángel Orsi, one of Senna’s closest acquaintances
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Lawyer teams and safety experts involved in the inquiry
The process, he admitted, was emotionally draining. Many of those he interviewed had avoided speaking for years, not out of secrecy, but out of pain.
The Safety Car Driver Who Never Recovered
One of the session’s most moving accounts came from Nunes’ conversation with Massimiliano “Max” Angelelli, the Italian safety car driver at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
The Opel Vectra being used was a slow, sponsor-compromised vehicle — not ideal for leading high-speed F1 cars. As a result, Senna’s tires lost temperature and pressure.
Nunes narrated:
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On lap two, Senna pulled alongside the safety car and gestured to Angelelli, asking why he was going so slow.
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On lap three, their eyes met again, in what would be Senna’s final conscious interaction.
Angelelli later confessed that he lived with guilt for two years. He isolated himself, avoided people, and suffered recurring nightmares—awakened every night at 2:20 a.m.—because he believed he had contributed to the conditions that led to Senna’s fatal crash.
He only opened up decades later, during Nugnes’ interviews. Judges in the Italian courts had also acknowledged that the slow safety car could have been one of the contributing factors.
“It was the most emotional testimony I recorded,” Nugnes said.
The Ferrari Story That Could Have Changed F1 History
Nugnes dropped a revelation that electrified the audience.
Just four days before his death, Senna met Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo privately. Senna, then driving for Williams, expressed a clear desire:
“I want to race for Ferrari in 1995.”
Despite contractual complications, Montezemolo was open to the possibility. The plan was that Senna would attempt to exit his Williams contract during the summer break — and discussions would resume.
That conversation, however, became a footnote in history.
Senna and Prost: A Rivalry That Split the World
Nugnes described the famous Senna–Prost rivalry with refreshing nuance. The journalists of the era were sharply divided — “half for Prost, half for Senna,” he said.
According to Nugnes:
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Senna never referred to Prost by name; he simply called him “the Frenchman.”
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Despite the frostiness, Senna admired Prost’s political sharpness — especially his ability to use the FIA’s French influence under Jean-Marie Balestre.
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Prost, for his part, respected Senna’s unmatched driving brilliance and technical feedback.
“They were like two suns,” Nugnes said. “Two suns cannot shine in the same sky.”
The Weight of Investigation: When Journalism Becomes Crime
In a startling recollection, Nugnes described how criminal proceedings were once initiated against him and his editor Carlo Cavicchi—simply because they sought to expose the truth behind the broken steering column theory.
But neither backed down.
“Our only aim,” Nugnes said, “was to prove that Senna did not make a mistake — that something mechanical had failed him.”
The pressure was intense, but the commitment to truth prevailed.
Senna the Mystic, the Seeker
An audience member asked about Senna’s spirituality, given how today’s athletes openly discuss mental health and personal beliefs.
Nugnes affirmed:
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Senna was “deeply spiritual and religious.”
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His Bible travelled everywhere with him.
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In Italy, as a young and lonely driver, he often turned to God as his emotional compass.
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His obsession with perfection — testing in rain when others retired to the garage — came from a place of discipline that was almost devotional.
Sikdar added that Senna’s gravestone in São Paulo bears the words:
“Nothing can separate me from the love of God.”
Why Senna Still Lives
As the discussion wound down, Sikdar quoted one of Nugnes’ most memorable lines from the book:
“Though Ayrton Senna passed away on May 1, 1994, he never really died. He lives in our minds, in our hearts, and in the spirit of racing.”
The audience responded with a long, heartfelt ovation — not just for Senna, but for the rare honesty and emotional depth with which Franco Nunes shared his memories and findings.
The hall stood up in applause, marking the end of a rich, human and deeply reflective session on a legend who continues to inspire generations — young and old — across continents and across time.
A short five-minute break followed before the next session of the day.
