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formulinos · 4 years ago

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SEGA Hyperfixation Corner | The 1993 European Grand Prix

sometimes in history, we have a hard time realising that certain events and relevant people coexisted in the same moment in time. for instance, the university of oxford already existed when the aztec empire was created or how 1929 was when both anne frank and martin luther king were born. for me, it didn't kick in until recently that the lap of the gods, the greatest lap that we have ever seen in formula 1, took place in the same grand prix as the sonic trophy. in fact, if you think about it, the sonic trophy was *the* reward given to ayrton senna for pulling that insane lap! so, today, for this hyperfixation corner, we're gonna tie all the loose ends and come to peace with the 1993 european grand prix, or better, the 1993 SEGA european grand prix.

part 1: it takes AGES to sponsor a team part 2: your dreams are the same as mine - the race circuits of autopolis and donnington park part 3: it takes AGES to sponsor a grand prix part 4: the race of the gods epilogue: where in the world is the sonic trophy?

disclaimer: this edition isn't actually sponsored by sega and i have never made a single buck out of this blog. in fact, i have lost money since i started doing this. i am a broke student. please don't sue me if you're reading this sega.

part 1: it takes AGES to sponsor a F1 team

All of this starts in the 1960s, when a bunch of companies joined together to form Sega Enterprises, a company that had its roots in providing slot machines and things of the genre to US military men in Japanese bases during the war (can you believe THAT'S how Sega started? Me neither). With the company's growth, Sega's operation became focused on the Japanese market and their area of expertise was arcade games - something they became very good at in the 70s/80s - and as money grew and so did their operations, they formally came back to their roots in America and, most importantly for our story, expanded their business to Europe with an office in London. They were going global baby, and soon they weren't satisfied with only arcade business, they wanted to get inside your house too. So, by the 90s the video game industry was booming and with it… Nintendo, also Japanese, also in vidya and doing much better than Sega due to the fact they actually knew how to market their releases. Not only they had consoles, but two bitching franchises in Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda and the Game Boy (I always wanted one of those). Sega had a few consoles released (Master System and Mega Drive) and in 1991 they landed a MAJOR hit with Sonic the Hedgehog and its ramifications, their answer to Mario.

You guys won't be seeing any memes due to the ABSURD levels of Sonic exposure there will be here, so I might as well start with this absolute banger here

Sonic was so big that the console they marketed with it, the new Sega Genesis actually managed to outsell the SNES outside of Japan, so all they had left to do was propose a portable player, in that case, the Game Gear, designed to be a portable version of Master System. As the Game Gear launch was very slow (it was released in 1990 in Japan but only in 1991 in Europe/North America and it took them another year to get to Australia), Sega needed to boost their visibility as much as possible, since they seemingly had the advantage in Sonic of a more compelling character but the Game Boy was far much popular due to being smaller and having a better battery - even though the Game Gear screen was in color while the og Game Boy was in greyscale. Anyway.

TBH the amount of Pokémons that exist doesn't make sense to me. I have a friend who recently bought a Game Boy just to play Pokémon Red. How is the Pokémon red if it's on greyscale? Anyway, I really don't get video games.

So, money for ads wasn't particularly a problem, they just needed strategies, and Sega Europe came up with a partnership with F1, on the basis of it being a sport watched worldwide with the fastest cars in the world and they had as a mascot the fastest hedgehog as well, so it just made sense, I guess. Overall, Sega already had some know-how of how much potential there was in Formula 1 since they had a series of arcade games called Monaco GP that was later transported to their console platforms, and in 1992 they even made a version called Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II that had input and narration from the man himself….. so of course they proposed a sponsorship to Williams for the 1993 season.

South Africa, 1993. You can see that the lads are in full Sonic gear (blue suit, red shoes, white racing gloves). Alain actually kept the red shoes for the rest of the championship and both of them had Sonic on their helmets. Every day.... every day I thank Sega for that one.

OK, I'm not going to be biased here because Williams was the best choice for Sega, factually. The 80s were extremely kind to them when it came to competition - 4 WDCs and 3 WCCs, even more special when you think that they were founded in 1977 - so, at that point they were one of the top teams on the grid and England based, very comfortable for Sega too. McLaren are also Brits and for 1993, both teams had a world champion in their team (McLaren had Sega's partner Ayrton Senna while Williams had just hired Alain Prost back from retirement), but Williams had two advantages: they were the most recent champions and their brand identity/livery was yellow, white and blue (due to their sponsorships with Canon and Camel, amongst other brands), while McLaren had Marlboro Red all over their cars and working with a brand that has the colours of their direct competitor is not so cash money.

Actually, a question mark appeared while I was researching for this. In an interview for Eurogamer in 2016, Simon Morris - one of the marketing heads for Sega Europe at the time recounts that:

"We knew one of Damon Hill's oldest friends and via this contact we committed to giving him the money which was instrumental in getting a drive with Williams that year. Bringing sponsorship into Williams meant that he got his seat confirmed, which meant he was in a position to do what he later did, which was win the world championship in 1996 and become the first - and at this moment in time, only - second-generation driver to do so."

Lovely, except that in a 1993-aired documentary about Williams preparation for the upcoming season (shot at the end of 1992) there is no direct mention of Sega on the livery or race suits- expected anyway since they're not gonna test the car that's all set. But, more interestingly, you can see in it that Damon's helmet that as far as late 92 when he was announced as the next Williams driver, there was no Sega decal and, in 1994, Sega only returns as Damon's personal sponsor later in the season after Senna's passing (as you can see here in a picture taken in May but not here in the team presentation with Ayrton -notice how Senna's suit has his personal sponsors). So, I actually think it's fair to say that Sega didn't have as many ties with Damon Hill as Morris claimed they did but oh well.

Naturally, they threw so much money at Williams that the only reason the team didn't become Sega Williams was that Canon was already there. Since as I previously mentioned the livery already matched the Sega brand, the result was even more interesting as when you look at the FW15C, their contender for the season, at first you don't even notice how much detail there is in it, but as this video from Blackbird Automotive shows, they were everywhere, from the body of the car to the rear wings and even in the mirrors. Morris said that they even considered painting the floor of the car so that if it went upside down during a crash, the Sega logo appeared (ok cycle path go off I guess).

The decal on the side that makes it look as if Sonic is driving the car himself is chef's kiss, not going to lie. Curiously enough, the mirrors decals (that can't be seen here because honestly you could have been removed from the cars after 1993 and you can't see them when Damon took the car for a spin in Goodwood.

There is also an interesting tidbit I didn't know, and for that I credit Badnik Mechanic (who basically has a YouTube channel devoted to Sonic and did a really cool video on the Sega/F1 partnership). One of Sega's marketing strategies was a series of TV spots called "Sega Pirate TV", where a bunch of crazy looking characters would take over the TV stations in the middle of fake ads and push their own TV shows (and Sega products with it). The "mascot" for Pirate TV was a skull with crossbones behind it (called the Sega Pirate) and this becomes relevant when you look at the rear wing of the Williams car: for every win Williams had during the championship, a little Sega Pirate would be added to the livery with the location of the GP.

Fun fact: McLaren, in return, added a small decal of a hedgehog being ran over by the Marlboro chevron on their car after Ayrton took the second GP of the season in Brazil, according to Peter Burns motivated by the fact of Williams' then marketing honcho having worked for McLaren a few years before.

Last interesting tidbit I thought was cute was that in double rear-wing races, when they had extra space, Damon would have a decal of Sonic raising one finger (not the middle finger!!! creeps!!!) - he also took the racing number 0 as #1 was reserved to the champion, Nigel Mansell, who was in CART - while Alain took #2 (he didn't want to be 0 lol) and, because of that, Sonic would raise two fingers on his car!

part 2: your dreams are the same as mine - the race circuits of autopolis and donington park

We’re gonna head back to 80s Japan to actually look at how we got to Donington. Japan’s economy has always been weird, to say the least, and the little capitalism study they had going on back later became known as “bubble economy”. The international implications that that has are incredibly surreal so here is a different sort of technical break.

TECHNICAL BREAK: BABURU KEIKI

I think we’re all aware that due to that small uneventful happenings during this little get together called World War II led to a rapid growth in Japanese economy between the 50s and 70s, that began stagnating from 1973 to mid-80s with the oil crisis. Hats off to Japan, they managed to keep it together relatively speaking during that and still had some economic growth, joining the vanguard of major world potencies as they kept making correct investment choices in their industrial and educational sectors.

Anyway, the hows don’t really matter, the whats do. Around 1985, the Japanese Yen was worth waaaay less than the US dollar, which sucks theoretically as the currency rate is stupid but since money is all made up and the Japanese industry has basically taken over the electronic industry, that meant that importing products from Japan was silly easy and the preferable route while exporting to Japan was stupid hard, so while the Japanese folk were lining their pockets with the trade surplus and receiving several investment proposals, the Europeans and the Americans were relying a bit too much on them and not making any bucks back. To solve this, the Plaza Accord was signed in 1985 in order to put a halt to this and a series of interventions took place to depreciate the dollar in relation to the German, French, British and Japanese currencies (gentle reminder Europe was only invented in 1993 and the Euro in 1999).

If that was the only measure the US had pushed Japan to do (and hey. I’m Latina. I will blame everything I can on the Europeans and the Americans), that would have been OK. However, they also gaslit them into being more relaxed over their domestic policies in order to appreciate the yen a bit more, and so the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan did, loosening up their financial regulations, opening their stock market and progressively cutting the interest rate during a year until it was just half of its original number. The result was that domestically, the money power jumped upwards due to the new economic scenario: people’s money was worth more and they were allowed to invest more in it, so the real estate market became crowded as fuck, people would take bizarre loans to get real estate as investment, the taxes were pathetic, and then ???? profit, etc. On the other hand, the dollar depreciation started making the Japanese exports less attractive in comparison to the US products, the shift in the industry meant that in a matter of years, the Japanese products were more expensive and no one wanted to buy them. Since Japan was relying so much not only in their industry but in the export aspect of it, and since more and more of their economy during that period was basically relying on the fantasy aspect of it (make crazy investments and then wait for it to pay off), the market crashed HARD in 1992 and people just went bankrupt. Was all of this necessary? No. Do I understand the economy after this? No. But we’re gonna get back to the context now.

I told you the bubble bursted...

END OF THE TECHNICAL BREAK

The Japanese economic miracle of the late 80s before the bubble burst comes into play with the Asian Grand Prix project. Japan’s automotive industry took part of the economic miracle of the 50s-70s and they had some sort of presence in F1 since 1964, when Honda first attempted to have a team, later expanding their participation from the 70s onwards with the creation of the Japanese Grand Prix, taking place at the Fuji Speedway, the appearance of Japanese drivers starting with Hiroshi Fushida and team sponsorships - Sega isn’t special.

Naturally, with more money comes more imagination, and[says this while crying and pleading for mercy] Bernie Ecclestone knew where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Soon, the prospect of having another race take place in Japan became a proposal, and the asset bubble made it possible for all sorts of real estate investors to just..,,..,.,, build race circuits…. please make it stop I don’t understand money but I know these people are doing stupid things blease….,..,,.,

The biggest and therefore, more favoured proposal was made by Tomonori Tsuramaki (guy in the picture above, this is literally the ONLY picture i can confirm it's of him), who wanted to make things more classy. If the bubble made some people rich during that period, Tsuramaki-san became a bajilionaire as he was already a banker/real estate investor and, crucially, insane. He took it to himself (and his company, Nippon Tri-Trust, originally a steel manufacturer) to hire a constructor, Hazama, to build a race circuit close to the Mount Aso volcano, located in the Kyushu island. Naming it a circuit is a crime, to be frank. The lad ended up spending FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to build not only a circuit but also three hotels, a spa and a ski slope. He wanted to turn the Grand Prix into a full experience, and he soon decided to also create an art gallery there, filled with Monets and Magrittes and what have you, and, as the pièce de résistance, a Picasso he bought for 51.3 million dollars.

"Las Noces de Pierrette" (1905), by Pablo Picasso, the 51 million dollar painting

Tsuramaki named the whole complex “Autopolis,” really making it clear that he wanted to create a whole ass city and make it a synonym with racing in Asia. Just in case you didn’t think he was ballsy enough, he decided to sponsor Benetton F1 from 1990 to 1992 - in fact, Benetton personnel like Nelson Piquet and Flavio Briatore were in the Autopolis inauguration ceremony (of course they were) and the tactics worked as the Asian Grand Prix to be held in Autopolis would take place at the third round of the 1993 Formula One Championship.

the Autopolis track layout... looks kinda cool tbh!

B190, B191 and B192, the three Autopolis sponsored cars. I'm sorry I didn't find any pics of the Autopolis inauguration ceremony but I hope to have compensated this with THREE WHOLE YEARS OF MONEY SPENT BY A CIRCUIT IN TEAM SPONSORSHIP. Also, interesting to note: the average figures for 2015 sponsorships were 17 million pounds for the sidepods and around 2 million pounds for the top of the nose. I'm sure these figures aren't exactly what it cost for in the 90s, but considering F1 sponsorships were never cheap, the fact that between 1991 and 1992 Autopolis had to change their placement from sidepods to nose... red flag.

Of course, if this had actually happened then we wouldn’t be talking about a shitty rainy afternoon in England, and as you can imagine the 500 million dollar project blew on Tomonori’s face pretty hard. Turns out, the whole idea of putting a circuit in the middle of buttfuck nowhere is not that practical, and there were little to no roads that could take you to Kyushu. Once you did get there though, good luck finding a place to stay because there were practically no operational hotels and the ones that were around were fucking expensive, as apparently the Autopolis Experience was just for the mega rich. The second the bubble burst, so did Tomonori’s wealth, unfortunately, and he had to file for bankruptcy, leaving a vacancy in the calendar. Enter Tom Wheatcroft.

Wheatcroft was born in 1922 to a relatively humble family and from an early age he fell in love with motorsports, going regularly to Donington Park to watch races, attending even the Grand Prix there in 1937 and 1938. The war kinda kept him away from his hobby for a bit, to say the least, and after it was over he created a construction company, successful enough to start a race car collection in 1964.

Just so what we're clear... these are the 1937 and 1938 Donington Grand Prix

The collection soon turned into Wheatcroft Racing, a team that would buy ex-works chassis from Brabham and rework them for competitions they would enter sporadically. Sincerely, the model was shit because the investment just wasn’t there, my guy would buy a 2 year old Brabham to race twice in Formula 2 and call it a day. Still, that was good enough to build a relationship with… [cries once more] Bernie Ecclestone, and once again we will get back to it shortly.

Tom would sponsor a few drivers over the years, but the real apple of his eye was Donington Park, that had been left abandoned after the war. He bought the circuit and a good chunk of the surroundings for 100 thousand quid, seemingly a cheaper investment than the Autopolis, but quickly proving itself to be more expensive than it looked as it took six years for the reconstruction of the track to be finished. Still, Tom liked the aesthetic of having a sort of museum around - familiar much? - and transferred his racing car collection, by then the biggest one known to men, to the circuit (you can see what the museum looked like in 2018 here in this very cool video of Circuits of the Past on YouTube!)

They had a whole room for McLaren... and for practically every British team tbh.

Donington Park held a few races over the years while Tom lobbied hard to get it to join the Formula One roster from 1983 onwards, hosting several junior Formulae races over the years. He got close in 1988, but eventually the RAC (the union of the British circuits) went with Silverstone instead, vetoing the participation as anIrish Grand Prix as well. Hm. I prefer not to speak. I suppose that Tom Wheatcroft would live to see his dream come true, as Bernie called him up after the Autopolis bankruptcy news and proposed to him the date. That way, the European Grand Prix was born again.

I think it’s a good moment to highlight that I don’t think Wheatcrofty here is any better than Tsuramaki for having cute childhood dreams instead of a 51 million dollar Picasso. At the end of the day, both of them had the same goal of building a circuit and getting a F1 race to be held in it. While Tsuramaki-san got so close but ultimately didn’t get to have his beloved Autopolis to host the Asian Grand Prix, Wheatcroft managed to see it happen once… and then quit making formal bids the following years because he felt the return was minimal. So, basically Capitalism sucks and eat the rich, but if you really look closely Tomodori was a big victim of western-centric economy and you know… dumb ideas. And Donington Park kinda flopped too after all. The British man is not that much better than the Japanese man, that’s my point. He had a Picasso… that’s clout.

part 3: it takes AGES to sponsor a grand prix

The “European Grand Prix” title had been given over the years to races that the FIA wanted to happen but that couldn’t under the standard country name format (for instance, Brands Hatch held the 1983 European Grand Prix because the British Grand Prix title was already held by Silverstone). Same thing happened here, but it still made it feel different and exciting as all of us F1 fans are happy with so little. Still, when you cancel a Grand Prix out of the blue and replace it for another one, a few headaches are expected. For instance, sponsors pulling out of it… right?

Sega saw an opportunity. Well, not Sega exactly, just Sega Europe. Ok, to be more precise, Simon Morris and Phil Ley, the two dudes that were responsible for the Williams sponsorship thought that they might as well go full throttle (what do you mean “full throttle”?) and just paint Sega blue and stamp Sonic everywhere in Donington Park. That way, they got the naming rights and made sure that everyone knew that this was not the Sony European Grand Prix. It wasn't the Nintendo European Grand Prix. Fuck it, this wasn't even the Monopoly European Grand Prix, this whole party was only possible due to Sega and you are gonna shove a Sonic figure up your ass. If I just tell you what they had, this wouldn't be half as fun as showing it, so take a good look at the circuit decoration:

Yeah, there are Sega Billboards everywhere besides just the Sega car, BUT there is also...

A big fuck off zeppelim - No, sorry, a "Sega Blimp"...

A big Sega Game Gear screen and...

Sonic and Tails (idk who that one is but he seems shy uwu) fursonas to hang out with the lads. But if you are like me who only watches F1 for the milfs, don't worry:

Yeah. Sonic Grid Girls.

Sonic Grid Girls.....

"But tumblr user formulinos, this isn't enough," you might tell me. "There must be more Sonic! I can't get enough of that blue mf with the spiky hair!". And I won't reply with words, because I won't need them. I will only show you this:

Unfortunately, not everything is about pleasure in the Hyperfixation Corner, and I must give you terrible news. As the weather became worse during the weekend, they took it down due to safety concerns - if anything happened and they needed a helicopter, then a huge Sonic could be a bit of a trouble, so it's just better to KILL THE POOR INFLATABLE SONIC THAT NEVER HARMED ANYONE and you can actually see it slowly getting deflated through the weekend before the race in these two Damon Hill onboards (please, this is so funny):

friday qualis: good weather, good sonic, can't lose

saturday qualis: sonic is down bad

This was more of a visual chapter just so we could address the blue hedgehog in the room. If you want to see some extra footage, like Alain and Damon suffering while pretending they they're interested in the Game Gear and our Lady Di, this lil video has some stuff that could interest you. Done with playing games [david caruso.gif], let's get to the sexy part.

part 4: the race of the gods

Theoretically, we don’t really need racing context here since this is only the third race of the season. However, because there can never be peace, only pain, leave it to Senna and Prost to make a mess out of F1. They’re like 50 at this point so why are they still bickering. ANYWAY.

The teams that did make it to 1993 - because there were 3 bankruptcies - were thriving since the cars had so many gadgets and technological/electronic controls that they're still considered the most refined out of all F1 history... until all of those got banned because the FIA will FIA. Williams were the favourites for the season because not only was their duo amazing, but they had the hottest car since Adrien Newey and his friends had turned the thing into the Batmobile.

note: i'm not gonna get into the merits of the FW15C here because it warrants a post of its own. maybe one day if i stop hating Williams or if any of you car geeks out there are interested, please go ahead, make my day!

Williams took round 1 in South Africa but since Senna was down to make their lives as miserable as possible, he got his Obligatory Brazil Win with McLaren in round 2. Although we are far from Suzuka in 1990, it is relevant to note that Prost and Senna were still… Prost and Senna and it's a well known fact that in order to get Alain back from retirement, Williams had to agree not to sign Senna as well as part of the contract - someone was traumatised! The result was that Ayrton was under a contract per race agreement with McLaren, but most of all, he was LIVID that Prost had vetoed him out of a Williams contract and there would be revenge!!!!!! (Except there wasn't because Alain won the championship and retired again, they realised they were in love all along and then Ayrton died. But that's not the point).

Finally, we get to Donington Park, all adorned in Sega fashion and.. the weather slowly turned to shit. It was lovely on Friday with a blue sky, lovely sight, etc. but by Saturday it was already clear that it would rain [RIP Sonic Inflatable 1993-1993]. Still, things were ok enough that the two practice and qualifying sessions - yes, they held qualis over two days, got the best time of each driver over the two days and then decided the starting grid on that - were interesting with the variations. Even though Senna was first on Qualifying 1, the Williams had managed to do better on the second day and we had Alain on pole, while Ayrton was in fourth. The whole starting grid is worth checking out, but for didactic purposes I'm gonna ask you guys to just focus on the three first rows for now. (yes graphic design is my passion)

note: this is Sauber's first year in F1, interesting to many since their car was branded as "concept by Mercedes-Benz". honestly, you could tell looking at their first season that it was indeed, just a concept, not a concrete car, but you know… Sauber is iconic and they were able to show Mercedes that a proper comeback could be very cool and sexy.

When I say it was clear that it was going to rain, I mean they expected some drizzle, not the downpour that greeted everyone on Sunday. Alain was a bit concerned since historically, he wasn't a big fan of wet conditions while Ayrton… well, le mec had a right to be concerned:

But that was OK, Williams had covered him by hiring a Weather Control centre nearby to send them their rain predictions. Plus, he had pole in the most sophisticated car of all time (so far), Ayrton was in fourth with a shitty McLaren, Damon and Michael were his boys, there was nothing to sweat as long as his race start was chill. Yeah.

youtube

Yeah.

I don't even know how to explain the massacre that started right there. Ayrton got pushed out by Michael (classic Schumi), lost a position to Wendlinger who took advantage of it and just decided to become Speed, destroyer of Drivers. Of course you can call some other first laps excellent, like Kimi's first lap in Portugal 2020, but Kimi's charge started from the get-go in a damp track. Ayrton started his charge after being pushed back, losing his position, getting back to it and by the end of it all, being comfortable in the lead with a 4 second gap. IN THE POURING RAIN. He didn't even care about the spray… Jesus. It's just sublime.

While Ayrton was having one of his certified "tunnel vision" moment, Wendlinger and his concept Merc were off to the gravel trap holding hands with Michael Andretti (as in F1 WDC Mario Andretti), who hadn't been able to finish a single race in 1993 yet, truly having a shit rookie season for someone who was already doomed considering his teammate was in the middle of reaching driver's nirvana. However, there was another rookie, a guy who most people call "Rubinho" who was enjoying quite a bit the wet conditions. The Wendlinger/Andretti tussle meant that Barrichello had managed to jump from P12 to P4, overtaking the entire midfield on the way to it. In his own words, although his Jordan was pretty mint, he didn't understand why everyone was driving so slowly. PLEASE.

Senna only furthered his gap, not even taking 4 laps before he started lapping the field - and he did that multiple times. He was rushing it, for sure, as he knew he only had as good as the rain would allow him to and the track was starting to dry up, with Williams closing the gap that had gotten to 6.8 seconds. Teams were starting to despair as it seemed swapping to slicks was now reasonable, and Martin Brundle's Ligier opened the pit lane. Was it the right call? I'll let the audience be the judge:

I'm not gonna laugh but I will cackle at the audacity of this man to spend 20+ years talking about how drivers are washed up when he was never washed down for starters. Even Coulthard had two good races. Anyhow.

While Rubebs, Schumi and Jean Alesi were battling for fourth, Damon took himself to pit first on lap 17, followed by Senna the next one and Alain the one after. However, the rain came back right after, causing Prost, who was afraid of water, to immediately duck back to get new wets. This is a GREAT time to remember you guys Williams had the Weather Control centre giving them advice on how to handle their tires. By lap 25, when Damon Hill came back for his new set of wet tires, we had:

Gerhard Berger go in, out, and back in due to a suspension failure

Mark Blundell tossed aside by Senna when he decided to battle for positions with Christian Fittipaldi while Ayrton was trying to lap them

Schumi spin. Schumi spin :(

Ok, to be fair you can't see that well in the gifs that Senna just pushes Blundell aside... but it did happen. I'm not insane.

By my maths, 8 drivers were out - Katayama and and JJ Lehto had also dipped between Brundle's spin and the first part of pit drama - and this was barely one third of the race done. Still, it took 4 more laps (and two more DNFS from Alliot and Aguri Suzuki) for Senna to come in for his set of wets. Didn't really matter though as it got dry again and the whole pit party started AGAIN in lap 34, with Prost blinking first (seriously, what's with Alain and the rain?). This time, Ayrton actually agreed with the Weather Centre assessment and pitted just one lap afterwards, but whatever lead he had was ruined when the wheel gun decided to fuck the right rear tire and he had a 19 second pit stop.

I mean, I was angry. Senna was just having a normal rainy Sunday it seems.

Jean Alesi joined his friend Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari pits after he also retired, unable to start his car after a pit stop. By lap 40, the Williams came back for wets as it was raining AGAIN, but this time Senna said "fuck it" and skipped the pit stop. This proved to be Very Wise, as the rain stopped again, came back and stopped one more time in a space of mere 8 laps, bringing Prost back to the pits once again for slicks because he wanted to pull as many fast laps as Senna did! Did this work? No! He stalled his car!

When he came back, Senna had lapped him and his teammate and the random Brazilian at Jordan were also ahead. Depressing. To make matters worse, Damon Hill pitted the next lap, came out behind him and when they were fighting for third, Alain locked up his wheels and got called to the pits again due to fears of a puncture. Scenes, but he managed to save face since Andrea de Cesaris was busy also DNFing due to gearbox issues. Thanks for that one, Andrea!

The race went on and it was basically done. Rubens says that at this point, when he got the memo he was in P2, he almost bust a nut. He looks at his mirrors and notices Senna is there, right behind him. The whole thing is chaos, but he is weirdly calm. It didn't feel too early for a rookie to win, it felt just right, and the Old Man be damned, he might be his racing hero but it was time for him to become the symbol of the new generation! Everyone was going to hear of Rubens Barrichello and his incredible feat at Donin- wait, what? A blue flag? "Rubens, you need to let Senna through, he is P1". Ok, nevermind, the world could become more acquainted with Rubinho in the next round.

Senna heads one more time for the pits in lap 61, but since McLaren has always been McLaren, they're not ready for him, so he needs to go straight. This turns out to be the best thing ever, because the Donington configuration meant that the pit lane was a shortcut if you ran through it at normal speeds, which everyone did anyway because the speed lane limit was only invented after San Marino 1994 after the Minardi came bursting through, running over everything that was available (yes. That San Marino Grand Prix).

After Senna's last pit stop in lap 62, all was as good as over. What we had left were three more retirements: Thierry Boutsen and Derek Warwick had faulty gearboxes while my guy RUBENS BARRICHELLO GOT MUGGED 4 LAPS TO THE END OF THE RACE BECAUSE THE JORDAN DECIDED TO LOSE FUEL PRESSURE. FUCK OFF HE WAS IN THE PODIUM!!! ALL I FEEL IS RAGE AND PAIN!!!!

Anyway, not all was lost. Senna won, deservingly so, Damon actually managed to make it to second place without getting lapped… and Prost was there since Rubens wasn't.

A little nice touch that Sega gave to the GP was that once it was finished, the Game Gear screen they had actually displayed "Game Over". Maybe I should get into vidya after all...

The last surprise that Donington Park held for us was at the podium. They really had Tom Wheatcroft, who was fulfilling his dream of hosting a Grand Prix race with perhaps one of the most sublime races of all time hand to Ayrton Senna, perhaps the greatest driver to have ever,,, driven and who had just gone through 2 hours of pure bliss and was still visibly in heaven… they really gave him a Sonic trophy.

epilogue: where in the world is the sonic trophy?

If both Tom and Ayrton were more than OK with the Sonic trophy, Ron Dennis was not, and the rumour is that while McLaren had on contracts that drivers would only be able to keep replica trophies, he actually hated how Sega had seemingly made F1 look cheaper (get a therapist) and kept Sonic captive in a cabinet for over 20 years, until McLaren brought it back, first for a picture in 2018…

And then finally, to the trophy cabinet at their Technological Centre in June 2020!

To round things up, while Ayrton got to shine in Donington Park, Alain came back from it to win his fourth title, before ceding his seat to his rival (ultimately killing him). If it makes it better, Alain and Ayrton actually called it quits after 1993 and let bygones be bygones, with Senna going so far as asking Prost to stick around one more year because they made each other better. While Ayrton would never get to win a fourth title himself, I think we can see with his outdriving of the McLaren car in 1993 that he was far from done after his championships.

Tom Wheatcroft tapped out of further Grand Prix during the rest of his tenure as the owner of Donington Park. Turns out dreams were only as good as they could line up your pockets and as fun as the race was, it wasn't that lucrative and, nowadays, Donington is administered by MotorSport Vision, owned by Jonathan Palmer and some close friends. Unfortunately, the museum was closed in late 2018 and Tom's Grand Prix collection was sold. As to Autopolis, it is currently owned by Kawasaki (cool motorbikes!) and while they still haven't held a Formula 1 race, they have a lot of success as part of the Japanese motorsports route. And Tsuramaki-san? I have no clue, I honestly couldn't even find if he was still alive online, the only piece of news I got was when one of his horses died???

Finally, Sega are more than OK, going through some very necessary restructuring (pandemics, huh) and celebrating this year the 30th birthday of our homeboy Sonic. Even though they toned it down with Williams for 1994 and didn't sponsor a Grand Prix again, they don't really regret it, since because of the legendary shit that Senna pulled on lap 1 and how it has been aired over and over for nearly 30 years now, it's impossible not to see along with it several Sega logos and Sonic drawings everywhere. While they don't get paid for the reruns, it's enough to get people to keep talking about the brand way after its heyday and well, isn't that the intention behind marketing? Sounds like everyone was happy to me.... Except Rubens.

This is it for the Sega Hyperfixation Corner this time, thanks for reading it. Feel free to let me know if you loved it or hated it, and see you around for the next one! Screw you guys, I'm going home!

#hyperfixation corner #1993 european grand prix #historic f1 #ayrton senna #sonic the hedgehog #FINALLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY F OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!#SINUSITIS 47373 X 1 ANA!!!!!!!

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