EXPERIENCE WITH GOD
As soon as he left the car after the 1988 Japonese Grand Prix he went to a lonely place between the pits and the paddock. Jo ramirez worked as a protector, keeping people away from him.
He stayed in that place for at least half an hour, completely alone and silent, very concentrated, a contemplative look in his eyes. It surprised me: he had won his first F1 Championship and his first reaction wasn’t celebration.
A few hours after that, I asked him why. He told me “Lemyr, in the very moment I was thinking about everything that happened in the race, because I’m sure I felt a real presence of God, like He was in communion with me and the car, creating some kind of unit – a fusion”. It had been so strong and overwhelming for Ayrton that he’d almost lost his concentration and the race.
That time all by himself served for him to reflect on all things he had experienced up to then and realise that all the sacrifice he’d made were worth it. He had conquered.