From: aghao@sersun2.essex.ac.uk (Aghanya O A)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport
Subject: F1: No Williams for Senna in 93
Date: 29 Aug 92 11:05:34 GMT
Reply-To: aghao@sersun2.essex.ac.uk (Aghanya O A)
Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK

Hi.

Ayrton Senna announced after yesterday's qualifying session that his
negotiations with Williams for a drive in 1993 have broken down.  He blamed 
Alain Prost, who he said had negotiated a contract with Williams which allowed 
him to veto Ayrton's inclusion in their 1993 lineup.

"The situation is very clear.  Prost has a contract with Williams and has done
so for two or three months," Ayrton said.  "He refuses to have me there to
drive with him.  That is a shame.  Renault and Williams clearly want me, yet
Prost's actions clearly state that he can't cope with me".

"I tried hard to reach a position where we could compromise, and there were
one or two occassions when I thought we had a contract arranged, but in a 
couple of hours they had changed the situation again".

He then went on to say, "I could stay with McLaren, but as I beleive that 
Williams will again have the most competitive car next season, I woud say that
it is most likely that ****I would stay at home next season****".

MY OPINION:

I have extremely mixed feelings about this announcement for all sorts of
reasons.  I deplore it, because one of the best drivers ever is probably going
to be lost to us for at least a season, and that IS a true loss.  I also feel
sorry for the guy, because he has been shabbily treated, and as I have a great
deal of respect for him, I somehow would rather it was someone else rather than
him.

On the other hand, I have to say that I can clearly remember him doing 
somehing similar in 1985 or 1986 to Martin Brundle (I think), who he expressly
prevented from joining Lotus by prevailing on the team management.  What goes
around comes around, as they say.  Similarly, as I said in an earlier post,
I think he was always the least likely to get a Williams berth next season
out of the three, simply because Mansell already had his fat arse on one, and 
Prost was being guided to his by Renault and Elf.  Realistically, the
only way Senna was/is going to get a Williams drive in 93 is if Mansell quits
for whatever reason, because the team cannot afford to be seen to be firing 
him, rightly or wrongly.  

So, there may be 2 McLaren seats available in 93.  You know the funniest
thing?  Martin Brundle is seen as one of the likely candidates for one of
them, as are Mark Blundell and Michele Alboreto.  The most ironic thing would
be if McLaren got a good engine deal together for 93, and then proceeded to
thrash Williams into the ground...

Anyway, second qualifying started 5 minutes ago, so I go down.  Report later.

Cheers,

	Obi.	

===============================================================================
    .-----,   .           !    Obi Aghanya
   /     /   /        @   !    Fault Tolerant Systems Research Group
  /     /   /----,   /    !    Dept. of Comp. Sci, University of Essex
 /     /   /    /   /     !    Colchester  CO4 3SQ,  UK
(_____'   (____'   (__    !    EMAIL : aghao@essex.ac.uk
       (Waterloo in '92 - for Ayrton! :-) [Told you so! :-)]
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport,rec.autos