Great tribute to Ayerton Senna tonight but how much cooler were the 80's cars than todays? Properly wide tyres, no aerodynamic appendages cluttering up their lines and 1200 hp turbo charged grenades as engines.

Also, ironically, the reason that senna is no longer with us!

not really highclimber….senna was killed in '94 and the cars then were not Turbo'd and nothing like 1200bhp

He was the greatest talent to have ever raced IMO. Totally single minded, worse than Michael Schumacher ever was, but the most talented man to have ever driven an F1 car for sure…

Watching Top Gear tonight got me quite emotional, and watching the footage of the 1993 Donnington GP again reminded me just how sensational he was… I was actually there at Donnington in 93, and to say that to watch him come past us on the 2nd lap in 1st place from 5th was a bit of a shock, would be a major understatement! Quite literally the greatest talent in his most awe inspiring performance… I certainly don't think Schumacher would have been so dominant so early in his career had Senna not been killed at Imola in 94…

Here's my photo of his 1988 Championship winning MP4/4 from Goodwood the other weekend…

Don't quite think my Girlfriend quite understood why this particular car was so special to me given that to her it just looked like a load of other old F1 cars, but this was of course the most succesful F1 car of all time… Senna won 8 races in this in 88, Prost won 7 in his identical car… Only 1 win by Ferrai all season stopped a total McLaren whitewash of 88!

And of course this was Senna's very first world championship too, and the very last and probably the greatest of all the mad turbocharged F1 cars… Watching Lewis Hamilton drive this on Top Gear made me about the most envious I think I have ever been of anyone!