“Ayrton Senna was as hard behind the wheel as he was emotional outside it,” says Lionel Froissart

Old feather of Release, Lionel Froissart is the French journalist who best knew Ayrton Senna. In The Immolated Icon (En Exergue Éditions), the author makes the daring bet of entering the body of the Brazilian by speaking in the first person to recount the tragic weekend of the San Marino Grand Prix thirty years ago. “ It’s a bit of a tricky position and I wouldn’t have done it with another driver, but I had a very special relationship with Ayrton, who I had known for a very long time. There are no fantasies and I have not gone into delusions »admits the 65-year-old author, who enlightens us on certain facets of the pilot.

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LE FIGARO. – Tell us about your first meeting with Ayrton Senna…

Lionel FROISSART. – I worked for Auto Hebdo, in September 1978 during his first race in Europe, at Le Mans, in the kart world championship. On Thursday, I was looking at the fifty guys on the track and I noticed a yellow helmet, the one of the n^o 70 of Ayrton…