Back then, the F3 schedule was incessant. Senna racked up six victories at Silverstone alone.
The Van Diemens and his F3 Ralt are all promised for the Festival. Then we get to the F1 cars. In 1983, Senna was hot stuff for F1 teams. He tested for McLaren, Brabham and most famously Williams, driving an FW08C at Donington Park.
That very car will be in the Silverstone lineup. But like the other big teams, Williams passed on signing Senna for 1984 – d’oh! – which is why he ended up in a Toleman.
It was at Silverstone in the autumn of 1983 that Senna sampled the British minnow’s TG183B, immediately gelling with mercurial designer Rory Byrne, who urged his team chief, Alex Hawkridge, to snap up the young man.
After a tortuous contract negotiation – even then Senna knew his own worth – Senna made his F1 debut for Toleman in 1984. At his second race, in South Africa, he scored his first world championship point, finishing sixth despite losing his car’s nose and having to be lifted from the cockpit, such was his dehydrated state of exhaustion. Both the Silverstone test chassis and his first F1 race car are on the Silverstone Festival list.
As you would expect, a grand lineup of Dayglo and white McLarens and mid-1980s Lotus turbos will cap the display and some of them are expected to take part in on-track parades on the Saturday and Sunday.
