Motorsport · 1993 · Donington Park, England
The Lap
Starting fourth on a soaking track, Ayrton Senna passes four cars before the opening lap is over, in what is still held up as one of the great laps in Formula 1.
4th
Grid position
3
Positions gained, lap 1
1 lap+
Winning margin
The 1993 European Grand Prix at Donington Park was run in changeable, often torrential wet conditions that punished driving mistakes all afternoon. Ayrton Senna started fourth, behind both Williams cars of Alain Prost and Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher's Benetton.
By the end of the first lap he had passed all three, and Karl Wendlinger as well, going from fourth to first inside a single tour of the circuit. The overtakes were the sort nobody else on the track was attempting in those conditions.
He won the race by over a lap, on an afternoon when the track kept swinging between wet and dry. The opening lap is the part that gets replayed: four places gained in changing weather, at a circuit he barely knew.
Watch the Moment
