Why 'Senna S' is absent from Williams' latest F1 car

Since Senna’s tragic death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, Williams’ F1 cars have featured Senna’s personal logo as well as the phrase, “Ayrton Senna sempre” - “Ayrton Senna forever” in Portuguese.

Williams launched its new FW44 on Tuesday afternoon with the logo no longer present on the front nose.

Speaking after the launch of the new car, Capito said it was now time for the team to “move on”.

“The decision was [that] we want to move on for the future,” Capito explained. “We have a new era, we have a new car and we refurbished also our museum, where we have a special area where we celebrate Ayrton.

“I think we need to look now in the future and not showing the drivers the ’S’ all the time in the car and not reminding them what happened. I think now it’s time for the team to move on and be very honourable to Senna and having a very dedicated space in the museum and honour him there.”

The Grove outfit was taken over from the Williams family by Dorilton Capital in the second half of 2020.

Capito confirmed that the decision to remove the Senna logo wasn’t discussed with the Williams family.

“We didn’t have a consultation or talk with the family,” Capito added. “But we are working with the foundation and we will increase our efforts with the foundation and then work with the foundation how we can support the Senna foundation more.

“I think that there are more people that will benefit from this and if it can help people especially through the foundation and I think that’s a very good programme but it has to be still finally defined.”