MOULDING A FUTURE LEGEND
WSR carried Enrique Mansilla to the runner-up spot in British F3 in 1982, and that attracted newly crowned European and British Formula Ford 2000 champion Ayrton Senna da Silva to try out the team in the end-of-season non-championship race at Thruxton. A year later, he was feted as British F3 champion following a thrilling duel with Eddie Jordan Racing-run Martin Brundle.
“We did a half-day test at Snetterton, and he was very impressive straight out of the box,” Bennetts recalls. “We just took Quique [Mansilla]’s car up there with the same set-up he’d run, Ayrton hopped in, a couple of laps, back in, checked it around, out he went and then I thought, ‘Bloody hell, this bloke’s good’.”
Senna dominated at Thruxton: “Ayrton said, ‘I want to run with you. Everything was perfect, car was great, we were great.’
Unbeknown to me EJ was chasing him as well, but he was probably trying to sign him up for 10 years [on a management contract]. But Ayrton said, ‘I’m happy now, we’re going racing’, and he disappeared – just a handshake, and went back to Brazil. A few phone calls and we got a contract done, and he arrived back quite late, but he was confident.
“One of the things I always remember is that we always got a new car every year, and he said, ‘Where’s the car I drove at Thruxton?’ ‘We’ve sold it.’ ‘But I liked it, I wanted that car. There’s nothing wrong with that car!’ ‘I know there wasn’t, but we start with a new one each year.’ He was quite taken aback that we’d sold that car. We sold it to Helmut Marko for Gerhard Berger [who raced it in the European championship].”