This film, compelling as it is, raises more questions than it answers. It charts the rise and eventual untimely death of Ayrton Senna with great passion and intensity and even one such as I, who has an inbuilt distaste for Formula One, couldn’t help but be drawn into the internal politics of it all. And at the very beginning it was Senna himself who is quoted as saying that Formula 1 is all about politics and money. And there is the rub. Having made this declaration, very little is specifically laid out about the politics and the money. Yes, it’s implied in just about every scene but by the end of the film we are no wiser about who is really pulling the strings and what the politics are really about other than money of course.

The other frustrating aspect of the film is Senna himself. Was he a man of the people, finely in tune with Brazilian poverty and the corruption and political brutality that went with it, or was he just another rich kid from Brazil who was in it for the thrills and spills? The film suggests that Senna was a Brazilian sporting icon adored by the oppressed people of his country, yet all the scenes of Senna show him surrounded by the wealthy white European elite with hardly a black face to be seen. I would have liked to have had this aspect of Senna’s life explored more deeply but we are only left to surmise and draw our own conclusions. Was Senna another Pele or was he just another symbol of the extreme disparity between the rich and poor in that emerging country? No answer was provided.

Further frustration comes from the portrayal of the ongoing duel between Prost and Senna. Was this rivalry just the natural rivalry between two champion drivers or was there more to it. It appears from the film that Prost had the backing of the F1 hierarchy and that Senna was the outsider gate-crashing the elite party. But is that an accurate reading of the situation? Should we side with Senna, who repeatedly tells us he is on a mission from God, or should we regard the whole sport, Senna included, as a bunch of rich men playing out their fantasies at great expense, while the rest of the world gropes along in poverty and destitution. You can see where my prejudices lay in respect to motor racing and this film does little to challenge my preconceived notions of F1.

It is a little coincidental that the very same weekend that I got round to watching the Senna movie, the Formula One carnival made it debut in India. It is this country above all others that has the dubious honour of having the greatest juxtaposition between extreme wealth and extreme poverty, greater even perhaps than Brazil. The notion of Formula One cars whizzing around the newly built racing circuit in India, while landless labourers and their families scratch about to stay alive, ought to appal all of us that have moved on from the Jeremy Clarkson head up your own arse mentality. But when has morality and fairness ever had any say in modern professional sport.

To single out Formula One is to ignore the obscenity of the entire global sporting industry from FIFA and the IOC through to the obscene wages paid in the English Premier League. There is one key difference though. While a Kenyan or Ethiopian long distant runner can rise to compete at the highest level, no matter what their social and economic background, or a youngster from a village in Africa or a run-down housing estate in Europe can rise to the pinnacle of world football, it is inconceivable that a similar situation could arise in Formula One racing. That belief is firmly entrenched in my mind and this portrayal of Ayrton Senna did nothing to disabuse me of this view.