A quarter of a century ago I had the good fortune of being in a position as a pro photographer to cover a couple of year’s in the life of Ayrton Senna. Working for The Associated Press, Reuters and IPA (who handled the Marlboro F1 & MotoGP account at the time) during these years I had F1 media access.
I departed the F1 scene in the early 1990s to pursue photojournalism in South Africa and for over two decades negatives and slides of ‘My Ayrton Senna Years’ lay in boxes – many never before scanned or printed or seen in digital format. Early 2016 I began the task of scanning this body of work spanning 30 years of my photography career. Naturally my Ayrton Senna images were first into the scanner, prompting fantastic memories of an era of the sport I am proud to have covered.
Now I present these photos of my greatest sporting hero – many of which have never been seen before – the first selection of many that I am discovering as I open boxes and blow the dust off these precious slides and negatives to bring them back to life.
source: Paul Velasco
