Been thinking of the flanderization of Ayrton Senna and how it doesn't seem to have happened to any other driver. Or at least not to the same extent.
Like, yes, every driver gets boiled down to two or three key traits like they're a Sim but most of the time if people care enough to have an opinion on them, they can appreciate there's some nuance there. Whereas in mainstream F1 fandom (and among some parts of the actual F1 community) saying you don't particularly like Senna is the equivalent of saying you don't like cats on early 2010s social media. How dare you?! He is gods gift to mankind. He died for the sins of racing drivers everywhere or something.
I think a large part of it is down to timing. He lived at a time where we learned enough about a driver to get a personality, and where the media is more likely to survive to the modern day (none of that BBC taping over stuff here), but he also didn't live long enough for us to get too much.
Like, I think it would be oh so easy for Niki Lauda to have been reduced down to this gruff, sarcastic asshole who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to get it. Like, he was that, but he was also cheeky, funny, became F1's grandpa who said some stuff he probably shouldn't have but was generally well loved. You couldn't reduce Niki down to three traits because he was constantly showing you the side that conflicted with that image of him.
And maybe we would have gotten this same process with Jim Clark if he'd lived 25 years later, but he didn't.
But the more I think about it the more I think it has to have been down to the branding efforts by the official Senna team and possibly the guilt F1 collectively felt about this death to not go against what was being put out at the time, and now it's so hard to see the truth through the mythology.
Like, Ayrton Senna and then after him Viviane and whoever she hired made such good choices when they picked the traits they wanted that brand to represent. Senna could have modelled his brand as some playboy daredevil. He could have gone down a more "whatever it takes to win" route that I think the Schumacher brand more gives off.
I'm not saying Senna wasn't a "whatever it takes to win" kind of person, but that's not what he was putting as the tag line of his CV, you know?
It's very much this "integrity, honour, determination, hard work" thing that the core is built on so that, even things that don't really support that (if you no longer go for the gap blah blah blah) become associated with those key aspects because they're associated with Senna.
And obviously picking those things is like an easy thing to do. Integrity and hard work are basic traits that most sports people would say they have. But paired with the close association with Brazil, and countering a cultural anxiety that existed in Brazil at the time, you create an icon brand that Senna didn't exactly luck into but was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of.
(Once again thank you to Nelson Piquet for proving that you can't just be in the right place at the right time, you have to actually take advantage of that opportunity)
This started pre-death but doing an analysis of the Senna "brand" now (not necessarily the literal Senna brand but also kind of) you can see those core character traits are the ones that they keep trying to tie everything back to. Those are the quotes being actively shared by people with ties to the brand, the videos of him talking about how hard work is everything and kids need to have honour or whatever are the ones being posted.
So basically what I'm saying is while Official F1 people go along with it and modern drivers and fans lap it up, this is definitely a decision that has been made, keeps being made, and keeps being pushed by the people managing Senna's image today.
Random thought that happened while I wrote this: I think there are a couple of other times where flanderization happened or came close to happening:
Villeneuve Snr - I think if he had died like five years later (and was business savvy) he could have done this. As it is we're like halfway there. He's been reduced to three traits but isn't invoked as much as A. Senna (at least not in the English speaking world)
James Hunt - I think he is definitely reduced to this playboy rich kid sexaholic by the F1 community as a whole, but he just has traits that aren't as marketable these days. But you'll still see his name come up whenever a driver is accused of being a playboy or unmasculine ("James Hunt would never wear that!" James Hunt was wearing denim hot pants and a crop top while he fed his budgies (no euphemism intended), get over yourself).
Nelson Piquet - Piquet has the character traits of "bigot" and "asshole" and I don't think he cares that much. I don't know if it counts as flanderization, but I do think there's more nuance to Piquet than he'd want you to think. Not to the extent it undoes the asshole bigot part, but I do think there's more to him than what his name has become shorthand for.
Anyway, I love talking about this image. It's so fun. Someone fund me to get a phd in The Branding of Ayrton Senna please thank you.
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