“I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant.”

It’s been eighteen years since the last driver fatality in Formula 1. On May 1, 1994, Ayrton Senna died after an accident at Imola.

His legacy to Formula 1 will surely never be forgotten. Motorsport lost a true legend that day, someone who will never ever be replaced.

If you have a chance, I highly recommend watching the documentary Senna (I know I say this a lot but really). I will definitely be doing so later today.

This clip from Top Gear was one of the first times I truly understood just how amazing Ayrton was. I was at the Tail of the Dragon with a bunch of car friends, and one friend showed me this. I couldn’t help but cry.

Finally some large awards show fully recognizes the beauty of Senna. The Oscars straight up snubbed the documentary, but BAFTA, or the British Academy of Film and Television Arts sees things differently.

Senna was nominated for the BAFTA awards for Best Editing, Best Documentary, and Outstanding British Film. It went two for three, losing out on the last category to Tinker Tailor Solider Spy.

Congratulations to everyone who worked so hard on the film!

Once again if you have not seen this movie…

Senna has a DVD release date in the United States of March 6, according to Amazon. The Blu-Ray edition will be out a month later. However, it’s already available for watching on Amazon’s instant video service for $3.99 or on Netflix instant.

Please do yourself a massive favor and watch this film if you haven’t. It didn’t win these two awards for no reason.

And remember: you will be asked to provide your own Kleenex box.

Just as planned, Bruno Senna was confirmed as Williams’ other driver.

The team also said that Senna will drive February 9th during the first test in Jerez.

In the statement from Williams, Senna says, ”It will be very interesting to drive for a team that my uncle has driven for, particularly as quite a few of the people here actually worked with Ayrton. Hopefully we can bring back some memories and create some great new ones too.”

A Twitter user pointed out that now Bruno will have driven for two teams that his uncle had driven for…kind of. I guess there’s not much of a chance at McLaren with Honda engines though.

In an interview with Autosport, Bruno Senna said it was not all about the sponsorship money he’s bringing in. He says the team put him through rigorous testing to prove his worth.

Bruno, anyone can go out and get sponsors, but of course they want the best driver with those sponsors. But who cares, if that means you over a couple other drivers, that’s enough to even make cynics of pay drivers like me very proud.

And thankfully Autosport asked the question I have seriously been wondering about for weeks: what exactly does your family think about you driving with the team your uncle was with when he died?

Senna said he believes everything happens for a reason, and that his family is nothing but thrilled that he has a drive.

Congratulations, Bruno!

Photo from Flickr user Gregory Moine

More dates and more cities were announced a couple days ago. These are the official ones found on the documentary’s Facebook page. Check it out if you are interested in finding a meeetup for fans on the day of a release, or for any information on a special advance screening.

For example, tonight is a special screening at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. It’s free, and doors open at 4pm, movie starts at 5. It’s going to be first come, first serve, so if you’re interested, get over there!

Find all the dates and theaters below the cut, including Canadian dates and cities – theaters in Montreal are the only ones not TBD.

» Continue reading “Senna Movie Update: Now With Theaters And More Cities”

After first only giving a vague US release date of August 12, the group behind the Ayrton Senna documentary, Senna, have given specific release dates. Now if only August could get here really, really fast.

Senna will start on a limited NY-LA release on August 12, and then open each weekend in more select cities. There are more dates to come, and I hope that the response is so overwhelming, a wide release becomes necessary. At the very least, I think it’s already safe to assume these cities are going to need more times than they think.

I have heard nothing but good things about this movie, even that non-racing fans can enjoy it. The film has won several awards at film festivals, including most recently the Audience Award for Best International Feature at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

Here are the release dates:

August 12: New York, Los Angeles

August 19: Chicago, Philadelphia, Cambridge, San Francisco, Berkeley, Washington DC, Detroit, San Diego, Miami, Nashville, Dallas

August 26: Atlanta, Minneapolis, Denver

August 29: Seattle

September 2: Indianapolis, St. Louis

More to come.

I was not an F1 fan when Senna was alive, but I think any Formula 1 fan knows who he is, and ends up searching around the internet for more and more information. There’s no doubt that he was absolutely amazing. I cannot wait to see this movie, because it means I get to see actual footage of him outside of YouTube.

One of the big off-track stories of the Canadian Grand Prix involved Lewis Hamilton paying a visit to Christian Horner of Red Bull Racing. Their meeting was short, only 15 minutes, but it caused endless speculation that Hamilton was looking to make a move to RBR.

Hamilton has denied the meeting had anything to do with a desire to switch teams, citing the fact that McLaren is the only team besides Red Bull to have won any races this season. He’s also made it clear in the past that he would love to spend his entire career with McLaren. It’s entirely possible though that before his teammate’s win, he was very upset with McLaren’s performance issues.

Meanwhile, his teammate, Jenson Button, was the subject of recent rumors that McLaren was not going to re-sign him, and supposedly Ferrari is interested in him. It is now believed that McLaren is looking to re-sign him, and news of a deal should come in the following weeks.

The only drivers currently signed to long term deals with their teams are Sebastian Vettel with Red Bull and Fernando Alonso with Ferrari. It will be interesting to see if either driver commits to an extended deal with McLaren.

In other British F1 related news, Virgin Racing will be providing a screening of the Senna documentary to fans at the British Grand Prix. The movie was released in several European countries from mid-May through the first weekend in June, but does not open in the United States until August 12.

Virgin is not the only team planning fun events for fans. Both Mercedes and Team Lotus are holding contests to celebrate National Motorsport Week. The winners will get to join the team’s pit crew for an event. Mercedes contest winners will join the team for the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and winners will join Team Lotus for a straightline speed test in July.