Bruno Senna

Bruno Senna

Senna at the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans
Date of birth	15 October 1983 (1983-10-15) (age 27)
Formula One World Championship career
Nationality	Brazilian
2010 team	Hispania Racing
2010 car #	21
Races	11
Championships	0
Wins	0
Podiums	0
Career points	0
Pole positions	0
Fastest laps	0
First race	2010 Bahrain Grand Prix
Last race	2010 German Grand Prix

Bruno Senna Lalli (born 15 October 1983 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian Formula One racing driver and the nephew of the late three-time Formula One world champion Ayrton Senna. His mother is Ayrton's sister, Viviane. His father, Flávio Lalli, died in a motorcycle crash in 1996. He wears a slightly modified version of his uncle's helmet.

Career

Early career

As a child, Bruno raced go-karts against Ayrton on the family farm, and Ayrton regarded his nephew's potential very highly. When leaving McLaren at the end of 1993, Ayrton said: "If you think I'm fast, just wait until you see my nephew Bruno". ^[1] Ayrton's death while driving a Williams at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, however, brought Bruno's own racing career to an abrupt halt.

At Imola in 2004, however, on the 10th anniversary of his uncle's death, Senna was given an example of his uncle's 1986 Lotus 98T as a gift from an Italian friend. Senna drove the car at the 2004 Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix meeting in São Paulo, at Interlagos, where Ayrton had won in 1991 and 1993.

Ayrton's McLaren team mate of the 1990–1992 seasons, Gerhard Berger is a close friend of the Senna family and has advised Senna on his career. Senna's sister, Bianca, meanwhile, has managed his affairs and sponsorship acquisition.

In 2004, Bruno competed in six races of the Formula BMW UK series for Carlin Motorsport, scoring six points.

Formula Three (2005–2006)

In 2005, he moved on to the British Formula Three International Series, driving for the Räikkönen Robertson Racing team owned by then-McLaren Formula One driver Kimi Räikkönen and his business managers David and Steve Robertson. His results included three podium finishes in the last seven races of the season, as he finished tenth in the final standings. In 2006 he stayed with the team and finished third in the series standings behind champion and teammate Mike Conway and Oliver Jarvis, taking five victories. He won the opening two races of the series at Oulton Park in the wet. He again won the first race at Donington Park and then won the second race at Mugello in Italy, again in the wet.

Senna had a massive crash during the first race of round five of the series at Snetterton. On lap 2, he and Hitech Racing's Salvador Durán clashed wheels on the Revett Straight at nearly 150 mph (240 km/h). Senna's car took off just before the bridge, and may have even clipped it, while cartwheeling through the air.^[2] His car landed violently and careered along and down the safety barrier for some distance, but Senna walked away. His car however was damaged beyond immediate repair and Senna missed out on the second race of the day.

Bruno Senna driving a Dallara F304 in a support race at the 2006 Australian Grand Prix.

On the rear wing of the car he had advertised the Ayrton Senna Foundation web page.

In 2006, Senna competed in the Formula Three support races at the 2006 Australian Grand Prix, winning three of the four races.^[3][4]

On 28 May Senna made his first appearance on Monaco circuit, as a guest in the Porsche Supercup event. Unfortunately, he was forced to retire at the first corner because of a clutch failure.

In October 2006 he appeared in an eight-part weekly series called Vroom Vroom on British TV station Sky One. Each week he would drive a different car being tested on the show, as quickly as possible, to the top of a multi-storey car park.

GP2 Series (2007–2008)

In October 2006 Senna was said to be targeting a seat on the Formula One grid by 2009.^[5] He signed to drive for the Red Bull-sponsored Arden International team for the 2007 GP2 Series. He finished fourth on his debut at Bahrain and soon after scored his first win in the feature race in Spain. In the single race Monaco event, Senna struggled owing to poor tyres.

During the four week break in the GP2 series between the Monaco and French races, Senna took part in the third round of the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli European series at Silverstone on June 9 and 10, 2007. Driving an F430 on a weekend devoted to the 60th anniversary of Ferrari, Senna won both races, starting each from pole. The purpose of this involvement was to gain a better understanding of the circuit, which is on the GP2 calendar.

Senna driving for iSport International at the Silverstone round of the 2008 GP2 Series season.

At Silverstone, a mistake during qualifying on the Friday meant Senna started 26th and last. After a great start Senna was able to finish 11th in the feature race. The sprint race was not any better in terms of points with a 10th place finish. A poor qualifying session at the Nurburgring for the feature race meant Senna started 16th but was up to ninth after a cleverly timed first pit stop. However he was given a drive-through penalty after being involved in a collision with Adam Carroll and ended up finishing a poor 15th. The Sprint race ended on the first lap after a collision. At Hungary for both races, Senna finished out of the top ten after struggling with the set-up of the car. The feature race in Turkey brought another poor result, however Senna finished sixth in the sprint race and with it came his first points since France. At Monza Senna finished fourth after starting fourteenth. Starting fifth for the sprint race Senna had an excellent start by moving up to second, however after contact with Luca Filippi resulted in bent steering, Senna managed to finish third and on the podium for the first time since France in July. At Spa Senna showed raw pace through practice and set the third fastest time early on during Qualifying for the feature race. However a stall on the grid meant he started 22nd and while fighting to make up ground he got a bit of oversteer and then the camber changed, ending his day in the tyre barrier. Starting at the back of the grid for the sprint race, Senna finished eighth leaving Belgium pointless. At the season finale in Valecia Spain, Senna ended the feature race with a DNF and thus starting the sprint race from 19th could only manage to finish 14th. This was a positive season on the whole for Senna finishing in the top 10 in only his third full year of single seater racing, with one win and three podiums.

Senna switched teams for the 2008 season, moving to iSport International, where his team-mate was Karun Chandhok.^[6] He also drove for the team in the 2008 GP2 Asia Series. In the second round of the season at Istanbul Senna collided with a stray dog during the sprint race. The suspension of Senna's car was damaged in the incident, causing him to retire. Senna himself escaped without injury, while the dog died in the incident. Senna won the GP2 Feature race at Monte Carlo, the first time in 15 years since the Senna name has shown at the top of the leaderboards at the principality. It also moved Senna to first position in the points table, although he was to eventually finish runner-up in the championship to Giorgio Pantano.

Le Mans Series (2009)

Senna had been holding out for a Formula One drive for 2009, and after he realised this would not happen, he began looking at other opportunities to keep him "race fit" ahead of negotiations for a 2010 drive in Formula One. He tested with the AMG-Mercedes DTM team, but after holding talks with the outfit he decided he did not want to commit himself to the series.^[7]

After testing an Oreca LMP1 car, Senna joined the team to race the 24 Hours of Le Mans^[8] and the Le Mans Series. His first race was the 2009 1000 km of Catalunya, teamed with Stéphane Ortelli, finishing 3rd.

Formula One

Senna demonstrating a Ferrari 312B2 Formula One car at the 2008 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Bruno Senna sampled a Formula One car for the first time in November 2008 when he tested for Honda in Barcelona. Honda assessed the Brazilian during their first winter test at the Circuit de Catalunya on November 17–19. His tasks included an initial familiarisation with Honda’s RA108 car and its systems before progressing to a full programme during which the team intended to evaluate his performance, technical skill and ability to work within a large team organisation.

Despite Senna, over the course of the three day test, coming to within 0.3 seconds of then Honda F1 racing driver Jenson Button, the later announcement that Honda would withdraw from Formula One with immediate effect amid the economic crisis appeared to have significantly lessened his opportunity of a 2009 race seat in Formula One, unless the squad were to find a buyer before the beginning of the season in March. Senna was expected to be the team's second driver were it to make the 2009 grid,^[9] until Rubens Barrichello was reported to have re-signed with the team.^[10] Senna decided not to sign with Mercedes for 2009 DTM season "to focus completely on his Formula One chances".^[11] Bruno Senna said to the BBC in an interview that he didn't want to negotiate with Lotus F1 because of sentimental reasons as his uncle Ayrton Senna took his first win with Team Lotus. He also told the BBC that "I felt important to enter F1 now otherwise I would never be in it". He also told the BBC he had been negotiating with Manor GP, Campos Meta & one existing outfit rumoured to be Brawn GP as he was close to securing a drive the previous season but Barrichello renewed his contract with Brawn. ^[12]. Rubens Barrichello admitted he was lucky to be driving for Brawn. Barrichello said "I'm just lucky that at this time F1 has changed a little bit". He also wished Bruno the very best in the future, saying he only had a position as Ross Brawn chose the more experienced person because of lack of testing time. He also said he was sure due to Senna's potential that he would get a drive next season.^[13]

Hispania (2010)

Senna driving for Hispania Racing at the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix; his Formula One début.

On 30 October 2009, Senna announced that he had signed a deal to race in Formula One in 2010;^[14] on 31 October 2009, Adrián Campos confirmed that Senna would be driving for Campos Meta.^[15] It was unclear whether Senna still had the drive after the takeover of Campos by José Ramón Carabante, with new team principal Colin Kolles saying the new-look team would need to find extra funding, review the existing operation, and announce the driver line up in due course, with no mention of Senna. On March 2, Campos announced a name change to Hispania Racing. Two days later, Karun Chandhok was confirmed as Senna's team-mate.^[16]

After nine races, Senna was replaced for the British Grand Prix, with Sakon Yamamoto filling his seat.^[17] Senna returned to the driver's seat for the German Grand Prix with Yamamoto replacing Chandhok in the team's other car.

Racing record

Career summary

^* Season in progress.
^† As Senna was a guest driver, he was ineligible to score points.

Complete GP2 Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete GP2 Asia Series results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Complete Formula One results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

^* Season in progress.

Notes and references

External links

• Official site
• Pictures of Bruno's car on the Crash.net website
• Career details
• BBC Sport 'Meet the New Senna' 16 July 2008

Hispania Racing F1 Team Founders: Adrián Campos | José Ramón Carabante Personnel: Ben Agathangelou | Daniele Audetto | Colin Kolles | Geoff Willis 2010 drivers: 20. Karun Chandhok | 20. Christian Klien | 20/21. Sakon Yamamoto | 21. Bruno Senna 2011 drivers: 22. TBA; 23. TBA 2010 test drivers: Christian Klien | Karun Chandhok 2011 test drivers: TBA Formula One cars: Hispania F110