In Deutsch  (cipi@playf1net.ro)

After I watched the movie “Beyond the Sound of Speed”, dedicated to the life of Ayrton Senna, I had a feeling of irritation. Something important had not come out. I did not know what. I remembered people who knew him saying how fast he was, strong, how he loved kids. Bluntly speaking: this is what close ones always say about the departed.

What was there not said? The movie did not speak of Senna’s deepest human dimensions, not related to racing, biographical data, the duel and the relationship between him and Alain Prost, who was right (as if justice could be on one side this time!?).

This is what I’d like to talk about: the depths of Ayrton Senna, his belief, something becoming a taboo, obsolete and retrograde in the public space, virtually becoming a taboo in the name of freedom. I would like to talk about faith; Senna’s faith in God.

I would like to go back to the moment in which he said he saw God in the last lap of a race won, and to the other countless times when he stated that his results are God’s will, God’s hand at work.

In the film, acquaintances somehow excused him for what he had said. “He did not say how God looked, but that he saw Him.”  “He seemed really convinced and serious about what he said, what can I say…”. “It was his right to believe in something like this”, and “we all commit such crimes sometimes.”.

Crimes!!!

People said that he was good, brilliant, that they respected him, but they could follow and understand him only up to a point of his journey. They could not follow him on the path leading to God. I think that Senna was irritated by the fact that all around him, in Formula 1, there was this technical view on life and this technical environment. When creating the fastest car in the world with the best engineers and win, and when you do not create it, you lose, where is God? Is it just man and his knowledge. But where is God? Perhaps there is nothing beyond. In this hostile environment to spirituality and the Absolute, he, Senna, who had a country at his feet, he was the one still thinking, believing, and especially knowing something else. And I think that is why he was modest throughout his life, because he knew he could not take all the credit for what he had accomplished.

Well, I think that Senna, like all men of genius who manage to remain modest in their fame, like all chosen people – so as to not shy away from using big words – was meant to discover God. But most of us cannot follow him in this quest. Senna shows us that when you do something passionately, and sincerely listen to your heart and follow its path – because the heart is an organ of knowledge by feeling, sometimes superior to reason – you cannot fail in everything you want to do, and, more importantly, you cannot not meet with God.

Orthodox Easter is around the corner, and on May 1, 1994, when Ayrton died, it was Orthodox Easter. I believe that God took Senna in a blessed day to really show the world that Senna knew Him in life, and that on that day, on May 1, 1994, another race day, Senna met again with Him. This time forever.

But we did not understand much of this mystery. We say it’s a fluke, a coincidence perhaps. Someone said that this is how God wishes to remain anonymous, stay humble, stay hidden behind things. But this does not mean that God wishes to remain unknown to the others, certainly not as unknown as He stayed on the day of the resurrection of His Son. From the beginning, through 1994 and to date to 2014. We hope that all pilots finish the race well on Sunday, April 20, when we celebrate Easter. None of the pilots has yet testified – at least not publicly – that he has met with God.

Everything happens for a reason. And now I think of the one I believe to be a great pilot, the best in modern times. Let’s light a candle and say a prayer these special days to another son – like the rest of us – a son given, and not of the same being as God, let us pray for Michael. For Michael Schumacher.

Blessed holidays!