“If you look at those three drivers, there was actually a decade between each one that I worked with,” he said. “And a decade in Formula 1 is a century in the real world – so there were completely different requirements.
“When we had Senna in the 1984 season we had no data collection.
“We relied on the driver to tell us the water temperature, the RPM on the straight line, all sorts of things – he had to look at the analogue gauges on that dashboard and memorize the numbers when he arrived.”
As Symonds told Motor Sport in 2017, Senna was invaluable to the team in this case, despite being “astonishingly unfit”.
“At Ayrton it was the first time I met a driver who didn't have to use his whole brain to drive the car and still had a lot of capacity left to think about what was going on. This was incredibly valuable in a time without data collection.”
However, over time this skill had to be shifted to other areas of automotive and racing.
Alonso has long been known for his unwavering confidence
Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images
“When we arrived at Schumacher ten years later, we recorded a lot of data and with Alonso, to be honest, we knew more about the car than the driver.”
Despite all the changes in the rapidly evolving world of Formula 1, Symonds says every talent has certain characteristics that are necessary for success at the top.
“If you ask in what ways they were the same, the answer is this amazing sense of self-worth,” he offered.
“I think this applies not just to racing drivers, but to every top athlete: this incredible belief that they are the best and will win.
“They can be vulnerable at times, but ultimately I think the drivers have overwhelming confidence – not all of them have won championships, but they all share the same confidence.”
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