5 best races of Ayrton Senna

Japanese Grand Prix, 1988

At this time teammates with fierce rival Alain Prost, Senna secured pole position at qualifying, with Prost behind him in second. With McLaren-Honda on the front row on what was essentially Honda’s home circuit, it was the Professor, Prost, who took the lead quickly ahead of Ferrari’s Gerhard Berger. Polesitter Ayrton Senna’s car stalled completely on the track on the first lap, with other drivers quickly overtaking him.

Despite seeming doomed to a retirement, Senna managed to get his car moving again courtesy the sloping nature of the Suzuka Circuit. Despite this, he had dropped to near the back of the grid by that time, so returning to the front seemed near impossible for the Brazilian.

But once his car was back in action, Ayrton Senna pulled out all the stops to flat-out race, and by the second lap had already overtaken 6 drivers. Another two laps later, he was almost in podium contention.

He pushed through a series of very fast laps to take the lead from his teammate, and with the end of the race inching towards a wet track, he would end up lapping a number of drivers he had been trailing to take a 1-2 for McLaren-Honda and taking his 8th win of the season.

He would eventually win that year’s championship title as well.