Ayerton Senna had a pretty healthy appetite for money, says former McLaren chief

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Having won 35 of his 41 F1 races and three world championship titles with British racing team McLaren, F1 legend Ayrton Senna redefined racing in the 1980s and 1990’s. before his death in a Formula 1 car crash in 1994. Before Senna joined the British racing team, the negotiations were stuck with Senna insisting to get 50 million dollars more than he was offered per year. In an interview with Mirror, former McLaren chief Ron Dennis disclosed how a coin flip to have a bet about the Senna’s salary meant that the team saved 50 million dollars per year for three years.

“Ayrton had a pretty healthy appetite for money. We started to butt heads on money, half a million, and couldn’t agree, and this got really tense – it was becoming relationship-threatening. Everything had to be black and white for him and the concept of chance didn’t enter his psyche, so I said: ‘Let’s flip a coin’. He completely lightened up; this was fun. After a bit of a debate about who would do it, I flipped the coin and won the bet,” Dennis told Mirror.

Senna had approached Dennis in 1982 urging McLaren to offer him a test drive for the British team. While talks happened for Senna racing in Formula 3 series, the Brazilian did not join the British racing team. Six years later, Senna joined the team on a three-year-old contact and would again renew his contract in 1991. During his time with the British team, Senna finished with 46 pole positions, 55 podiums, 35 race wins and three championship titles. “What neither of us had twigged at the time was that it was a three-year contract, so it was a $1.5m flip. I know it has been seen as a total disrespect for money, but in fact it was a great respect because it was the only way to break our log jam. After that, everything cascaded and off we went.” Dennis explained further.

Senna would race along with Alan Prost for the British team and each of his three world championship titles came with McLaren. In his debut season for McLaren post his exit from Lotus, Senna had 13 pole positions in 16 races and won 8 races to win his maiden championship title. “Ayrton put out the feelers-he saw the team was very competitive and made it very clear that he wanted to join. He reached out and said maybe he could convince Honda to come and, of course, that opened the door and I engaged with Honda. Niki Lauda had pretty much decided to stop, so there was an attraction for the driver and for the engine. That was when I realised Ayrton as an ally was very useful-he was very politically astute,” said Dennis.

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Ayerton Senna had a pretty healthy appetite for money, says former McLaren chief

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