Fernando Alonso remembers Ayrton Senna

Senna has proven to be a role model in his time as well as for generations to come, including for Alonso.

Fernando Alonso's kart as a child. It had the colors of McLaren, the team of his idol, Ayrton Senna

“He was an inspiration,” said Alonso, 32, at the Chinese Grand Prix in April. “I remember some of the races that we could see in the news in Spain, because we didn’t have the TV coverage of Formula One. I remember I went to school, and on my book, I didn’t have girls — obviously I was too young to have girls on the book — but I had Ayrton there, and the same in my room. I had a big poster of Ayrton and even my first go-karts were in the colors of Ayrton’s McLaren because my father also liked him.”

Fernando Alonso along the kart he used as a child, painted in the colors of the McLaren team

Fernando Alonso during the tribute to Ayrton Senna, held this month of May 2014 at Imola, San Marino

Both Alonso and Senna are linked with what is believed to be a strong inner life, Senna with a sense of mysticism and Alonso with inner strength and self-belief, the Spaniard sometimes suggesting that he follows the creed of Japanese samurai warriors.

Senna, like Alonso, was known for speaking his mind and not shying away from public controversy off the track. Like the Spaniard, Senna was fairly introverted, even timid, and his use of the sport as personal expression and his sense of willpower were also central to his image, as they are for Alonso.

And like Alonso, Senna drove his car to its absolute limit.

“On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit,” Senna once said. “And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, ‘O.K., this is the limit.’ As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/sports/autoracing/ayrton-sennas-legend-then-and-now.html?_r=0