Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Senna Qualifying Lap at Jerez

I found this Senna qualifying lap at Jerez from the late 80s - you can really hear him blipping the throttle as he goes through the corners to keep the turbo boost pressure up. Half way through the lap, Senna comes out of a high speed corner to find the track 2/3 obscurred by slow moving cars and just manages to avoid them. This was pretty common during qualifying in those days. At the time, teams used qualifying tires that would not even last a single lap so it was quite common to slow right down on the out / in laps. Michael Schumacher recently eclipsed Senna's record of pole positions (although it took him a lot longer) but it's a different era. In addition to qualifying tires, teams would send the cars out with barely enough fuel for one qualifying lap, special engines that could only be used for a limited time and even special qualifying cars with the radiator / air scoops removed for better aerodynamics. Qualifying laps in that time were a work of art. Another You Tube find: This video of Schumacher mis-judging the pit entry speed and knocking the jack man off his feet.

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