Hi there,
Watched this film last night and loved it.
Can a more technically minded person than myself please explain why Senna hurt his arms so much in this race? I understand that he could only drive in sixth gear, but I don't understand why this affected the steering so much. Many thanks!
I think it was the stress. It was a very important race for him.
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The stress played an important role but was not the most important reason: the main concern of Senna on the last 7 laps was to keep rpm high on the slow corners but, having only the 6th gear, he had to do an incredible effort on the wheel to prevent the car to escape on the apex of the corner... And this tremendous effort caused the muscle spasms.
For me this race defines Senna: the other drivers didn´t believe that he drove 7 laps only with 6th gear because they all thought that is something impossible to do. Mclaren had to show the telemetry data...
You can find Senna´s race interview on Youtube; it's in portuguese but there is a version with subtitles in english...
Agree about the intense amount of physical stress and concentration was needed to keep control of the car with only a wild 6th gear but also Senna had numerous rituals. I learnt that he would always cinch his seatbelts very tight. Through practice, qualifying and race day he would be cinching them progressively tighter and tighter. After winning a race we know he would always grab a Brazilian flag from a fan and proudly wave it on his victory lap. We see him do this in the film after winning this race, but in order to grab the flag he had to unbuckle his belts. After the torment his upper body went through during this race combined with the sudden rush of blood that was released when he unfastened his belts, his body went into intense spasming.
One of my favorite scenes from the movie is of the medical team clustered around Senna who had passed out in his car, and Prof. Sid Watkins is there carefully taking off Senna's gloves, finger by finger so that he can hold his hand to get the blood circulation going, and Ayrton is clutching onto Sid's hand for dear life.