Page: 298, Chapter 21
The weekend also marked
Senna’s first meeting with Adriane Galisteu, the 19-year-old blonde model who
was working as a Shell publicity girl at the event. She remained his girlfriend
for the rest of his life – a real love affair that was the most serious and
public relationship he ever had.
Page: 301, Chapter 21
Senna was still in São Paulo
on Thursday evening and taking up Briatore’s suggestion was a real option for
him. After each of the year’s early races, he had returned home to Brazil to
spend time with his new girlfriend Adriane. He had fallen deeply in love and
wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.
Page: 301, Chapter 21
Straight after the race Senna
headed off to meet Adriane at his beach resort in Angra. He then flew on to
Spain for the Barcelona race: Prost won, with Senna in second, and the
Frenchman took the lead in the championship.
Page: 302, Chapter 21
Come Monaco, Senna had more
or less decided he would race for McLaren for the rest of the year. He opened
up his house in Portugal and brought Adriane to a race for the first time. It
was an entirely appropriate location to publicly announce their romance.
Adriane was so sure he was going to win she had even bought a ballgown to
attend the victory ball.
Senna didn’t let her down –
he retook the championship lead in Monaco.
Page: 309, Chapter 21
The Australian Grand Prix at
Adelaide was Prost’s final race. It was also Senna’s final race for McLaren.
Senna was in the middle of a holiday with Adriane and looking forward to an
event where the McLaren Ford would be competitive around the street circuit.
Page: 310, Chapter 21
That evening Senna and
Adriane went to a Tina Turner concert organised to coincide with the end of the
Grand Prix weekend. It was held within the circuit after the race to encourage
people to stay on and ease the severe traffic congestion. Team personnel had a
special VIP area to the right of the stage. Suddenly Tina Turner struck up her
trademark number, ‘Simply the Best’. She walked stage left and beckoned to
Senna to join her, holding his hand as he came forward and brought him onto the
stage. She told him how wonderfully he had performed that day and how the song
was for him. It didn’t seem like Prost’s occasion to celebrate his retirement
and fourth world championship.
Page: 312, Chapter 21
The final months of the year
were spent solely with Adriane, as Senna prepared for what he believed would be
a certain title with Williams Renault in 1994. Contractually he couldn’t drive
his new car until 1st January 1994, and that suited him fine. As he said: “I
have one regret – that I do not have enough time to devote to my private life.”
Since he had discovered Adriane, Ayrton had finally found the balance. Before
her he had been seen with a succession of Brazilian beauties on his arm, mainly
TV personalities. At one point he had even said he had been cured of marriage,
as Brazilian gossip columnists raked over his previous acquaintances as stories
of his romance with Adriane appeared almost daily. He was linked among others
with Australian model Elle MacPherson, American actress Carol Alt and former
top model Lauren Hutton, a woman nearly twice his age. One columnist avidly
described the reason women found Senna so attractive. The article said that women
saw in his warm brown bedroom eyes great tenderness as well as sexual passion,
and many of them tried to put their feelings into words in love letters to the
man of their dreams. It was typical of the hyperbole of the time. But for him,
for the first time in his life, he had found someone he wanted to be faithful
to.
At the end of 1993, friends
were saying in Brazilian newspapers that he was close to proposing to Adriane.
If he was he wasn’t saying, and he certainly never did. But he did say that
winter: “She carries my happiness,” as he took his nephew Bruno karting on his
private track at Tatui, and joined his two nieces, Bianca and Paula, in the
swimming pool afterwards.
Adriane then joined them and
all five took Senna’s two dogs, Kinda the Schnauzer and mongrel Samanta, for an
evening walk.
The two dogs told a story in
themselves. They had just turned up on Senna’s farm one day by fate. As he
said: “They just came to me. I didn’t go and buy them or programme it. It just
happened. I love them and everything I have, everything that is part of my
life, I love.”
As for the children he said:
“This is my apprenticeship for becoming a father.” And he didn’t mind if
Adriane heard either.
Some time during his last
long Brazilian summer, Senna told friends he had seriously considered retiring
from competition to live permanently in Tatui. His helicopter pad in São Paulo
made it possible for him to travel to his offices every day, and return
mid-afternoon. He had the perfect life and he knew it. Formula One somehow interfered
with that life. Little did he know how it would unravel in 1994.
Page: 313, Chapter 22
The Donington Park circuit
sits right alongside East Midlands airport. Senna had toyed with the idea of
commuting right into Donington from Faro airport near his home in Portugal. He
was glad he hadn’t taken this option. His HS125 jet was sitting on the East
Midlands tarmac ready to fly to Portugal and new girlfriend Adriane. He wished
she was here with him, but he knew that she would be bored in greyest middle
England with nothing to do.
Page: 368, Chapter 29
Just as he was in a class by
himself in the car, Senna’s superior intellect set him apart from others out of
it. It was lonely at the top and sometimes his sense of isolation made him feel
vulnerable so he turned to others for help and strength. His family in Brazil
was a great source of inspiration and comfort. He was closest to his father
Milton and his brother Leonardo but once described his sister Viviane and his
mother Neyde as his two best friends. He had faith in the family unit as a way
of life, loved children – ‘they are the honest ones’ - and wanted to have his
own, probably with his last girlfriend Adriane Galisteu, because he ‘needed
someone to share his life’.
Page: 379, Chapter 29
one of the special karts they
would be driving sent to Brazil so that he could practice. “But unfortunately
it arrived so late that I hardly had any time.”
In the grand finale, he was
dogged by bad luck: he was lying second and gunning for the lead when his kart
developed a mechanical fault. He was out of the race. But he was able to joke
about it: “Better here than next year in the Williams,” he said.
On 8th December he was back
in Paris to face the music at an FIA hearing following his fracas with Eddie
Irvine at the Japanese Grand Prix. After a three-hour hearing, he was given a
two-race ban, suspended for six months. It could have been a lot worse. FISA
president Max Mosley commented: “Senna recognised and admitted that he had hit
[Irvine]. He was honest and fair, responsible and reasonable and we all felt a
great sympathy for him. But what happened cannot be allowed in the sport and
there had to be a penalty. Irvine’s attitude was extremely provocative and
difficult. But Senna also opened discussions in a very heated way.” Senna
refused to comment on the incident but sources reported that he was ‘very
upset’ by the penalty.
He then flew to London’s
Heathrow airport in his plane and helicoptered down to the Williams factory for
a seat fitting for 1994. It was his first visit to the factory and Frank
Williams held a little party in his office for him and Adriane. However, the
visit was kept secret. Williams wanted to hold back all publicity for the
official launch of the car in January.
Only the barest skeleton of
the carbon fibre chassis was ready and Senna offered his opinions on the size
and comfort of the cockpit, so any necessary changes could be made over the
next six weeks; Adriane sat huddled on a tyre in the corner, shivering.
Page: 383, Chapter 29
The first few months of 1994
were spent pursuing those interests and getting the deal together. In between
he spent time with Adriane at his Angra beach house and they had a whole month
together from late January to the third week of February. In between he was finalising
commercial arrangements, with car-maker Audi and the Mont Blanc luxury goods
brand, to officially handle their products in Brazil
It was not until 24th
February that the new FW16 was finally ready, long after some of the other
cars, notably the Benetton Ford B194, had been launched. With the new chassis
launched just four weeks before the first race in Brazil, Senna was faced with
a hectic test schedule. It was a cold and misty Thursday at Silverstone, and
after the covers came off Senna took the car for a 15-lap shakedown test. In
public he praised the team’s efforts, but he privately admitted to his
girlfriend Adriane: “I feel I have arrived here two years too late. The car
drives funny.” He continued: “I went through a lot to finally be able to
sit in that car. But I feel it’s going to be hard. Either I haven’t adapted
myself to the car yet or it’s the car that doesn’t suit me.”
Page: 388, Chapter 29
On 11th March he returned to
Brazil to spend the two weeks before the Interlagos season-opener with Adriane.
After that, he would leave for a whole season in Europe and not return to
Brazil until it ended. It was the first time he had done that, and Adriane
would arrive in Europe in late April May to spend the season with him.
Once out in Brazil, alongside
his press and business commitments, Senna was with family friends and Adriane.
There was discord when photographs of Adriane were published in a magazine
called Caras; Senna thought them unbecoming. But that was a storm in a teacup,
reflecting the fact that he really cared for her and that something more
serious was afoot in his life than even Formula One. The six-month trip to
Europe was a trial run: if it didn’t work she would return to Brazil, and if it
did they would probably be married.
Page: 390, Chapter 29
He stayed in Brazil for
another week after the Grand Prix. The Audi concession launch went well. For a
shy man Senna stepped confidently up to the microphone in front of his 2,000
guests and delivered a speech with the coolness of a professional speaker. It
surprised his father Milton just how good he was. He was clearly enjoying his
new challenge as a businessman. He was as natural at it as he was at driving. A
few days later, he said his goodbyes to his family and Adriane and headed back
to Europe for essential FW16 testing.
Page: 394, Chapter 29
Senna’s girlfriend Adriane
Galisteu was at Senna’s home in Portugal, watching the race on television. When
his car hit the wall, she remembers a selfish thought went through her mind:
“Oh that’s good! He’ll be home sooner.” She waited for him to throw off his
gloves, undo the steering wheel and leap from the cockpit. It didn’t occur to
her for a second that he wouldn’t. Even in the 18 months she had known him,
this had happened a few times, always with the same outcome.
Page: 394, Chapter 29
The Portuguese TV
commentators gave Adriane no cause for concern and there was nothing that
suggested to her that the accident was anything out of the ordinary, certainly
no more serious than other crashes he had survived. She remembered: “I jumped
up from the sofa, holding the plate on which I was having my lunch.” But that
soon changed. She grew more anxious as he stayed in the car. She shouted out to
Senna’s Portuguese housekeeper, Juraci: “What are they waiting for?” She said:
“He must have broken his arms or a leg.” She screamed at the TV: “Get out of
the car, get out!” After a few minutes when he had not moved, she recalled: “I
was motionless and I started to sob."
Page: 395, Chapter 29
Adriane Galisteu was watching
anxiously on television. She looked at his feet for signs of life, for she
understood what she called the language of feet. She saw no movement. His feet
told her he was dead, but she put that thought completely from her mind. By
then the housekeeper was a screaming wreck, and Senna’s close neighbours had
started to arrive at the house to see if there was anything they could do.
Although people at the circuit were calm, on television viewers had seen
everything. The sharper-eyed had seen blood seeping from the car like oil; it
carried on as Senna lay on the ground, staining the track red. It was not
obvious unless you knew what to look for. Later it would be revealed that Senna
had suffered a burst temporal artery and lost 4.5 litres of blood.
Page: 396, Chapter 29
Roaming around the garden at
Quinta do Lago, Senna’s dog also seemed to sense that his master was in trouble
and began barking loudly. The neighbours’ dogs started to bark. Neyde da Silva
called Adriane from the farm at Tatui for information. Adriane had none. After
that the telephone never stopped, as neighbours congregated at the house. The
peaceful retreat had suddenly turned to bedlam.
Page: 313, Chapter 22
Once out in Brazil, alongside
his press and business commitments, Senna was with family friends and Adriane.
There was discord when photographs of Adriane were published in a magazine
called Caras; Senna thought them unbecoming. But that was a storm in a teacup,
reflecting the fact that he really cared for her and that something more
serious was afoot in his life than even Formula One. The six-month trip to
Europe was a trial run: if it didn’t work she would return to Brazil, and if it
did they would probably be married
Page: 397, Chapter 29
Senna was still alive, and
Watkins told Whitaker the problem was his head. Over the crackly radio,
Whitaker mistakenly misheard him as saying he was dead. This would cause much
unhappiness later. Whitaker whispered to Bernie Ecclestone who was eating an
apple. Ecclestone saw no point in hiding the truth from Leonardo and told him
his brother was dead. He said: “I’m sorry, he’s dead, but we’ll only announce
it after the end of the race.” Whilst he was doing this Ecclestone was coping
with his own personal grief, and he calmly tossed the apple core over his
shoulder. Ecclestone knew that, of all people, he had to remain calm. He was
already thinking ahead to what Senna’s death would mean, sub-consciously making
plans and weighing up every possibility. Leonardo mistook his calmness as
indifference and disrespect for his brother, and was astonished that plans were
going ahead to restart the race with his brother dead. He was almost beside
himself with grief, and although it was quickly established what Watkins had
really said, the damage was done: Senna’s brother lost control. Ecclestone told
Whitaker to fetch Josef Leberer immediately to help Leonardo with his grief.
The younger brother was distraught. His last words to his brother had not been
friendly and they were still arguing about Adriane that morning.
Page: 397, Chapter 29
Adriane watched Senna’s
motionless body being loaded into the helicopter. Someone pointed out the red
stain on the ground after he been moved. It startled her. A neighbour tried to
reassure her, saying it was a new kind of fire extinguisher foam. She believed
it at the time, thinking to herself: “Nobody ever thought Ayrton Senna would
die in a racing car. Neither had I.”
Page: 406, chapter 29
In Portugal, Luiza Braga
tried frantically to book a plane, as friends helped Adriane pack enough
clothes for three days. She knew there was little hope, but told herself she
would be by his bedside, waiting for him to recover. It was the only possible
thought, and it kept her going.
Page: 406, chapter 29
As she waited, a neighbour
told her she had heard he had recovered consciousness. Adriane’s own mother
phoned from São Paulo and asked what was happening. Adriane told her she hoped
Senna would recover and that it was not as serious as was thought. Her
no-nonsense mother immediately disabused her of that and made her face reality.
TV Globo was delivering far more accurate information to Brazilian viewers than
the more reserved European television channels, which were waiting for an
official bulletin and shying away from the reality. Adriane’s mother told her
the truth: that only a miracle could save him. After putting the phone down
from her mother, Adriane felt her emotions going out of control. Her friends
gave her a tranquilliser pill. She phoned Neyde da Silva at home in Brazil and
tried to calm Neyde down, telling her she had heard her son had recovered
consciousness. Neyde told her the family would catch a plane to Bologna at
2:30pm (local time).
Page: 407, chapter 29
Oblivious to this, Juraci
drove Adriane to Faro airport. When the chartered plane arrived, around 6:30pm,
Adriane was waiting desperately on the tarmac. As soon as the door opened, she
scrambled on board and into Luiza Braga’s arms. The pilot told them it would be
a three-hour flight. On board, Luiza told Adriane that her boyfriend was as
strong as an ox and that she had heard nothing more from her husband at the
circuit, other that it was very serious. But even as they spoke, Senna was
already dead.
The captain taxied to the
edge of the runway, and waited for clearance to take off. As he waited, a
message was relayed to the plane. The pilot immediately taxied back to the
terminal building, without a word to his passengers. The message was that
Ayrton Senna had passed away, but the captain didn’t want to be the one to break
the news to them. He finally told them there was an urgent call for Luiza back
at the control tower. He said: “I don’t have authorisation from the tower.
There is a call for Luiza and Adriane.”
Adriane shook with fear about
what the call might reveal.
Luiza rushed off as soon as
the plane door opened. Adriane stepped from the plane and was overwhelmed at
the silence in the terminal, the silent people there, betraying the news she
didn’t want to hear. Adriane followed Luiza to the control tower. “I shook all
over, from head to toe,” she remembered. She waited in silence alone. Luiza
Braga was pale when she returned. She took Adriane’s hand. “Adriane,” she said,
but Adriane interrupted her and said: “Luiza, only don’t tell me he has died.”
She replied the only way she could: “He’s died.”
Page: 409, chapter 29
Meanwhile, Luiza Braga spoke
to her husband at the hospital who told her there was no point going to Bologna
and to pack some bags and prepare to return to Brazil for the funeral. Braga
told his wife to take Adriane to their home in Sintra with one of the cars
Senna kept at the villa. He said he would join them as soon as he had got
Leonardo back to Brazil and made the arrangements to have Senna’s returned to
Brazil. He told her to instruct the pilot of the chartered jet, waiting at
Bologna, to go. Luiza explained the plan to Adriane, who agreed: “I gathered
all I had brought from Brazil,” she remembered.” The big suitcase, everything.
The three pieces of luggage that I had just unpacked, less than 24 hours
before, with all I would need to spend the next five months of the European
season by his side. The season that ended before it began.” Before leaving, she
took a T-shirt and shorts of Senna’s she had worn that morning to go running.
Then she walked around the
house and gardens for the last time. The garden and lawns were bathed in
moonlight, as they only can be in the Algarve. She walked by the swimming pool
and then went into his study and checked for messages on his fax. She gazed at
his photographs on his desk for the last time and his trophies. She stopped by
his powerful Swiss stereo player and wondered what was the last music he had
listened to. She pressed the eject button and out came a Phil Collins album.
She slipped it into her pocket, as she remembered: “I wanted to know what had
been the last CD he had listened to in life. That was one thing that I had the
right to share with him. After that I walked in tears around the house.”
At around 10 o’clock, the two
women left for the two-hour drive to Sintra. They were silent, thinking about
what had been a terrible end to a terrible day. Just after midnight, Adriane
pulled into the drive of the Braga home, where Senna had stayed many times and
he had his own room. Adriane went straight to bed, but not in his room. That
would have been too much to bear.
Page: 425, chapter 32
Antonio Braga stayed in
Bologna to make the arrangements to return Senna’s body to São Paulo. The
Bologna authorities refused to release the body immediately, insisting on a
full autopsy. Leonardo da Silva was put on the first flight back to São Paulo
to be with his family. His grief was unbounded, made worse by the fact that his
brother had gone to his grave with the two on bad terms over Adriane.
Adriane Galisteu woke up on
Monday morning in a daze. She had slept very little. When she opened her eyes,
she was unsure whether she had hada terrible dream. She hoped and prayed it had
been a dream. Her future hung in the balance. She soon realised it was the
worst kind of reality.
On Monday Senna’s body had
been moved to Bologna’s mortuary in accordance with Italian law. The mortuary
was surrounded by fans. The body of Roland Ratzenberger was also there,
awaiting its own autopsy.
The Braga house in Sintra,
Portugal was also surrounded by reporters, anxious to interview Adriane.
Pictures from outside the house were being broadcast back to Brazil. The whole
world’s media was interested in the story, as the enormity of what had happened
sank in. With the immediate family incommunicado, the focus was all on the
beautiful 21-year-old blonde model, who, as far as the media were concerned,
was effectively Senna’s widow.
When Braga rang the house
from Bologna, Adriane told him she wanted to come and see Senna’s body. She
told him she felt a desperate need for firm evidence, seen with her own eyes
that he was dead.
Braga advised her against it,
and thought it unlikely that she would even be admitted. She took his advice,
believing she would be able to see him for the last time in São Paulo before
the funeral. In Brazil it was traditional for the coffin to be left open, or at
least to have a glass top. What she didn’t know was that the indent to Senna’s
head and the wound caused by the sharp piece of suspension that had penetrated
the helmet were disfiguring. Cosmetic experts were to despair in trying to make
his face good enough. The coffin would stay closed.
With the bedlam outside the
house, Braga advised his wife Luiza that the best option was to stage a
makeshift press conference in the house for the media and then they would go
away. Adriane agreed to do it. But during the press conference Adriane was
asked some ghoulish questions, especially from Brazilian journalists who had
heard about the rift with the da Silva family and were unsure of her status now
her boyfriend was dead. One female journalist asked her if she had a return
ticket to São Paulo and who would be paying for her ticket. Adriane felt like
she was being victimised by a hostile media looking for exclusive stories on
the drama of Senna’s death. She was in no state to withstand that.
Not so Miriam Dutra, who
worked for TV Globo and had been dispatched urgently to cover the story. Dutra
was very sympathetic to Adriane, who was clearly in great distress. Afterwards
Adriane asked Dutra if she could have all the footage of the crash that TV
Globo had. She wanted to see everything she could about the accident.
Monday came and went for
dazed Adriane, and she was sedated to help her sleep that night. The sedatives
had little effect, as Adriane was still stunned from events.
Meanwhile Antonio Braga and
Galvao Bueno were desperately trying to organise the return of Senna’s body to
São Paulo. Naturally the family wanted it returned to Brazil as soon as
possible. They thought this would be relatively simple until the Italian
authorities told them the autopsy, would not take place until Tuesday. The body
would be released that evening.
On Tuesday morning, Miriam
Dutra collected the footage of the race on VHS videotape and the following day
sent it by messenger to Adriane Galisteu in Sintra. Adriane sat on the sofa and
watched it over and over, accompanied by the Braga children, Luiza and Joanna.
They were obsessed with finding the reason for his crash.
Adriane also telephoned
Angelo Orsi, the Italian photographer who had taken pictures of Senna after the
accident. Adriane felt a desperate need for some physical proof he was dead.
Orsi got permission from the family to send her some photographs.
The autopsies of Senna and
Ratzenberger both took place, as planned, on Tuesday morning. It was
straightforward. The causes of death were no more complicated than in any road
accident victim.
Page: 426, chapter 32
By lunchtime the bodies had
been authorised for removal. Braga and Bueno worked feverishly on the arrangements
to get Senna’s body home that day. They had two options: a direct flight with
the Italian Air Force, or via Paris with Varig. The Italians were quite happy
to fly the coffin straight back to São Paulo.
In the end Senna’s parents
would decide.
Back in Sintra, Adriane was
feeling a cool wind from the Senna family in São Paulo. On both Monday and
Tuesday she had tried to telephone Senna’s parents. She was told by the
family’s maid that both were under sedation and could not be disturbed. After a
while this annoyed her, and she wondered what she had done, especially as she
had shared her grief with Neyde on the Sunday. On Tuesday afternoon she got
through to Viviane’s husband Flavio Lalli, who told her it was a very difficult
situation at the family house and that he was having difficulty talking to his
own wife, who was shattered to the point of speechlessness. Lalli told her it
was impossible for anyone to have any sort of conversation with either Milton
or Neyde da Silva. They had taken the news worse than anyone else. The parents
remained sedated and virtually silent, almost unaware of what was going on
around them.
The Italian Air Force’s offer
was turned down as the family wished his coffin to return home in a Brazilian
plane. In particular Varig, the national airline was very keen to do the job as
Senna had always flown the carrier to travel home. It was important to the
airline that his last flight would be with it. The only flight available was
Varig, flight RG723 direct from Paris to São Paulo, leaving shortly before
midnight on Tuesday.
Braga contacted the Italian
Air Force and asked them to fly the mahogany coffin to the French capital to
meet flight RG723. They readily agreed. The coffin left the mortuary at
Maggiore hospital at around 2pm in a Mercedes hearse, with a police escort.
Galvao Bueno, Celso Lemos and Betise Assumpção followed on behind, with Senna’s
personal belongings, retrieved from his plane and the Williams motorhome.
Word had got around and most
of the route to the airfield was lined with Italians saying their farewells.
There was an enormous sense of guilt amongst ordinary people that Senna had
died in Italy.
At the airport, the Mercedes
was allowed to draw right up to the Italian DC9. An honour guard of two lines
of Italian policemen stood to attention as Senna’s coffin was loaded on the
plane. Brazil’s ambassador to Italy, Orland Carbonara, saw the plane off to
Paris.
The DC9 took off at around
5pm for the two-hour flight to Paris. On the way Braga, Bueno and Assumpção
discussed how often they had flown home with him after a race.
They were all concerned about
the 11-hour flight home on Varig, and were determined that the coffin would fly
home in the passenger compartment and not in the cargo section, as was normal.
Two hours later, right on
time, the Italian DC9 landed in Paris and Senna’s body was taken to a special
part of the terminal to await the Varig flight. There were few formalities. By
then Antonio Braga was on his way to Lisbon, ready to join his wife and Adriane
for the flight to São Paulo for the funeral.
Meanwhile there was some
confusion in Paris. The head of Varig’s Paris office had assured Braga that
they would remove seats to accommodate the coffin in the passenger cabin. He
told them that there were only two people booked in first class and 12 in business class.
Therefore he said the easiest thing to do was to move the 12 to first class as
there were 16 seats leaving the whole busin ess class section free for
Senna’s coffin and his four companions on the flight.
Page: 428, chapter 32
With this arranged, they
awaited the flight. However, when the McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 arrived, the
captain, a pilot called Gomes Pinto, told them the coffin would have to travel
in the cargo hold because of IATA regulations. There was an argument and Bueno
phoned back to the family in Brazil, who contacted Varig’s head office. Varig
faxed the captain and literally ordered him to let the coffin travel in the
passenger section. Bueno recalls: “The captain tried everything to stop us.
First he told us it could not be done because of IATA rules. Then he demanded
an okay from the family.”
There was friction between
Pinto and Bueno but he finally relented and six seats had to be removed to
accommodate the coffin and it was covered by the Brazilian flag. By then, Josef
Leberer had also joined them, flying in from his home in Austria.
Meanwhile Braga had arrived
in Lisbon and immediately gathered up Luiza and Adriane for the flight back to
Brazil. There were no direct flights: they boarded a plane from Lisbon to Rio
de Janeiro, which would continue on to São Paulo at around midnight on Tuesday
2nd May and would arrive at about the same time as the coffin. Adriane sat
motionless with Antonio and Luiza Braga. The stewards were well aware of who
they were and provided them with every comfort.
Senna’s flight home was
almost silent, and broken only by prayer. The window curtains were closed and
Leberer remembers: “It was something that I will never forget. We were there
for 11 hours with the coffin, with the Brazilian flag and a rose on it, but you
know that the soul is gone.” The co-pilot joined them all for some prayers
around the coffin.
When the plane reached
Brazilian airspace 10 hours later, a detachment of Brazilian Air Force fighter
planes formed an escort. Dawn was breaking as the MD11 descended into São Paulo
and as the pilot prepared to land, the fighters departed for their bases. The
landing in half light, as the sun came up, was surreal. It was an unforgettable
experience and something Senna had done many times in life as he came home,
exhausted after yet another race.
Eleven hours after leaving
Paris, Captain Gomes Pinto touched the plane down at 6:15am at Guaralhos
airport. The first class and economy passengers disembarked immediately. The
plane was greeted by São Paulo’s mayor, Paulo Salim Maluf, and state governor
Luiz Antonio Fleury.
At the same time, the Bragas
and Adriane had reached Rio De Janeiro for a 20-minute stopover. The rest of
the passengers disembarked, but the three of them were allowed to stay on
board. Less than a week before, Adriane had flown to Portugal full of hope for
the future. Now she returned to great uncertainty. She was also unsure of the
family’s reaction. She had not spoken to anyone since Senna’s death other than
Flavio Lalli, Viviane’s husband, who had treated her coolly.
Whilst the plane was being
cleaned and refuelled in Rio, she changed into a black suit so she could go
straight to the building where the coffin was to be kept until Senna was buried
the following day. The plane landed in São Paulo just 20 minutes after the
Varig flight carrying Senna.
Waiting were a million
citizens, who had got up early to line the six-lane motorway through the
suburbs from the airport to welcome their hero home for the last time. Most
were under 25.
Brazil’s President Franco had
already declared three days of national mourning, including a day off for
schoolchildren. The Brazilian flag was flown at half-mast on all government
buildings across the country.
It took 30 minutes more to
unload Senna’s coffin. An electric lift carried it down to soldiers from the
Polícia da Aeronáutica, who carried Senna’s body to the fire engine, where it
was draped in the Brazilian flag. The fire engine would carry the coffin into
the city centre to lie in state.
Page: 430, chapter 32
Adriane arrived and was
bitterly disappointed when she discovered the coffin was closed. She said: “I
couldn’t understand, I couldn’t believe, I couldn’t accept it. I thought the
coffin would have a glass lid or something that would allow me to see him for
the last time. But it was completely sealed. I felt terrible disappointment, a
shiver down my spine.”
Page: 431, chapter 32
Adriane quickly became the
centre of attention, as she flitted in and out. She was protected from the
crowds by municipal minders. She needed them, as 8,000 people were passing
through the room every hour; that would continue for 24 hours.
Although relations were
strained, Adriane greeted Senna’s family cordially. But otherwise she kept her
distance. They all had their private grief to contain. Of the family, Neyde and
Viviane, his mother and sister, were in the worst shape. Leonardo simply paced
the room and Milton kept his distance, stoically observing the scene, as was
his way.
Senna’s family came in and
out. Adriane kept vigil all night and did not sleep. She remembers: “I walked
around and felt I was being looked at, watched. I didn’t care. I felt like
jumping into the coffin and screaming.” Friends urged her to rest overnight in
preparation for the funeral, but she refused. She did, however, take a shower
at the Bragas’ nearby hotel.
Page: 433, chapter 32
At dawn on Thursday, Frank
Williams arrived to pay his respects and spoke to Adriane what words he could.
At 10 o’clock the next morning
a 21-gun salute, fired by the 2nd Artillery Brigade, rang out over Ibirapuera
Park. It marked the end of the public viewing; over 200,000 people had filed
past to pay their respects.
It was time for the coffin to
leave. Rose petals were strewn over it, and military cadets took it from the
catafalque to a waiting fire engine for the final 10-mile journey to Senna’s
resting place, the Morumbi cemetery.
Birgit Sauer, the wife of the
head of Volkswagen Brazil, arrived to accompany Adriane to the funeral. They
had holidayed together in the past and struck up a friendship. They were now
united in grief.
Adriane and Birgit got into a
minibus, which followed the fire engine carrying the coffin. Gerhard Berger,
Christian Fittipaldi and Alain Prost, amongst others, also got in. The bus’s
curtains were drawn to protect passengers’ privacy.
At the graveside a white
canopy helped protect family and friends from the sun. In front some temporary
chairs had been arranged. At the front was the family: Milton and Neyde da
Silva, Leonardo da Silva, Viviane Lalli and her husband Flavio and their three
children Bruno, Bianca and Paula. In the second row, Adriane Galisteu and Xuxa
Meneghel. When Adriane took her place in the second row, Xuxa immediately got
up and moved to another seat; perhaps insensitively, the seating plan had the
two women sitting together. Xuxa was the family’s official widow, and arrived
and left with them. It reflected the coolness they all felt towards Adriane,
which was only thawed a little by Neyde da Silva.
Page: 435, chapter 32
Adriane looked at her
boyfriend’s coffin for the last time, and she said in silence: “I love you, but
you left me. I miss you. From now on my life will be a misery.” The ceremony
had lasted for 30 minutes in bright sunlight, under a perfect blue sky.
The mourners were in no hurry
to leave, but gradually withdrew to their helicopters and coaches. Pointedly,
Xuxa Meneghel left in an official family limousine. Adriane Galisteu appeared
to attempt to join a family limousine and was turned away. Later she denied
that she had, and said she was simply saying goodbye to the family. Whatever
happened, afterwards, Adriane was not welcome at the family reception, and left
in the bus she arrived in to join the Bragas at their farm.
The apparent rejection
appeared cruel, but reflected the majority of the family’s view of Adriane and
the reason why Leonardo’s last conversation with his brother had been
adversarial. It later became clear that Leonardo’s mission in Imola had been to
appeal to his brother to give up Adriane. It was the reason she had not
attended the race.
Page: 439, chapter 32
The da Silva family went back
to their farm at Tatui to rebuild their shattered lives. The Bragas and Adriane
went to the Braga farm in Campinas. On Friday she got a surprise when Neyde Da
Saliva arrived. She wanted to talk to the people who had spent time with her
son. Of the family, Adriane got on best with Neyde. After chatting, Neyde
arranged to meet her at Senna’s apartment at Rua Paraguai, where they had lived
together, so that Adriane could collect her things. Adriane had a lot of stuff
there. She had lived with Senna for a year, and for the last month alone whilst
he was in Europe.
Page: 439, chapter 32
Ten days later Adriane went
to collect her things from Senna’s flat. It was her first visit to São Paulo
since the funeral. She found had grown scared of going out, and cowered in the
car during the journey. She remembered: “The sight of the city scared me.”
At the apartment Neyde da
Silva was waiting. Adriane said: “I took the elevator and went up. The door was
half open. Everything looked the same – and at the same time it was so
different. There was no sign of us there. Everything was in its place. There
was no life there anymore. His mother and I sat on the sofa and talked for
about 40 minutes.”
Afterwards she threw her
things in four large suitcases. She asked Neyde if she could keep his
toothbrush.”
When the time came to leave,
both women cried and cried.
Outside it was raining.
CHAPTER 1
Life: 2:17pm
Sunday 1st May 1994
Thursday 7am to Sunday 2:17pm
On Saturday afternoon his
girlfriend, Adriane Galisteu, a 21-year-old model, was arriving to join him for
the whole of the European summer. It had been a month since she had seen him
off at the airport in São Paulo, when he left to start his challenge for the
1994 world championship. They had been together for 14 months and she was
everything he liked in a woman, good-looking but ethereal rather than
beautiful, blonde, small-breasted and long legged but not too tall and with no
attitude. In fact her naiveness was refreshing and their sex life was
stimulating and compatible. She was also intelligent in an unobvious way, with
a perception of things that weren’t always clear. She understood the things
that mattered. He was really looking forward to Sunday evening, when he would
return from Italy and they would be reunited.
He packed a small overnight
bag himself for the three nights he was going to spend in a hotel in San Pietro
near Bologna, whilst competing in the San Marino Grand Prix. There were no
formal dinners or commitments that weekend, so his clothing needs were minimal.
As he packed he remarked to Juraci that life couldn’t get any better than it
was that bright sunny morning in the Algarve. But he was always saying that to
the people around him, reminding them all, and not least himself, how lucky
they all were to be sharing the life Formula One had given him.
But there was a small
irritation in his life that glorious morning. His brother, Leonardo, was
staying until Sunday and would be coming with him to Imola. Leonardo was on a
mission from his family to try and persuade him to give up Adriane. For all
sorts of reasons the family, with the exception of his mother Neyde, who loved
what he loved, detested Adriane. They regarded her as little better than a
peasant girl, and not good enough for their son, the hero of Brazil. The truth
was that it was none of their business, and Senna loved the girl and would
probably ask her to marry him when this summer was over. But this family was
tight, very tight, and usually everything was everyone’s business within a
circle of six people – Milton his father, his mother, his sister Viviane, his
brother and his sister’s husband. Adriane’s arrival marked the start of a long
period living together when he would not return to Brazil for six months,
something he had never done before. This decision had precipitated a family
feud, and Leonardo had been dispatched to try and change Ayrton’s mind. Over
that week, it had led to some rare harsh words between Senna and Leonardo. But
Senna would not be moved. He was staying put for the summer, even if it meant
seeing far less of them, especially Leonardo, as he knew his brother would not
return to Portugal whilst Adriane was around.
Senna spent his time between
two tight groups: his family, with whom he congregated in Brazil; and his
private circle of friends, which was just as tight as his family group, and
with whom he spent time in Europe. Adriane was part of this group which
consisted of around a dozen people headed by Antonio Braga, a wealthy Brazilian
who also divided his time between Brazil and Portugal. The second group had
embraced Adriane, unlike his family, and many would hang around with him at
races. He liked having them around. The upcoming race at Imola would be no
different.
The family dispute had
annoyed him as it meant that Adriane could not join him at Imola for the
weekend when Leonardo was around. If she did there was a danger of a public row
and Ayrton Senna did not wash his private family linen in public.
After his run Juraci prepared
a light breakfast for him and Leonardo, who was returning to Brazil after the
San Marino Grand Prix. She then delivered them to Faro airport, where Captain
Owen O’Mahoney was waiting in Senna’s own BAe HS125 jet to fly them to Munich
for a morning meeting with executives from Audi. Senna had been negotiating to
take over the Audi franchise in Brazil. This was a meeting to finalise the
terms. A few hours after landing they were ready to take off again this time
for Forli airport near Bologna. From Forli the brothers would go by helicopter
to Padua and the Carraro bicycle factory. Senna had a new deal with Carraro to
manufacture a carbon-fibre bicycle called the Senna that would carry his famous
double ‘S’ logo. It had been planned for some time and was one of many new
products under the famous ‘double S’ Senna brand. He was also to import the
Carraro bicycles into Brazil. Annoyingly, the argument about Adriane continued
on the aeroplane. As Leonardo got older, he seemed to get more fractious and
emotional about things. Senna could not understand why his family was so upset.
SOURCE
RUBYTHON, Tom. The Life of Senna. 1St Sofback. London
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