Bruno Senna arrived on the Formula 1 grid in 2010 to much fanfare, not least due to the familial connection with his uncle, Ayrton.
While his time in Formula 1 came in largely less successful machinery than his three-time World Champion uncle, he raced success in his time in other paddocks, now holding different roles both in and out of motorsport to this day.
Senna arrived on the grid with the backmarking HRT operation in 2010, having kept sharp in LMP1 racing the year before after finishing as GP2 runner-up in 2008.
While, in truth, the car was not a world-beater by Formula 1 standards, Senna finished above two of the three team-mates he had in 2010 in Sakon Yamamoto and Christian Klien, with a second P14 finish from Karun Chandhok keeping him above the Brazilian come season’s end.
Senna would sign as reserve driver for Renault in 2011, but found himself in a race seat by mid-season as he replaced Nick Heidfeld – before going on the move to a permanent seat at Williams for 2012.
While Senna beat team-mate Pastor Maldonado 11-8 in terms of a race head-to-head that year, finishing in the points-paying positions on 10 occasions, it was Maldonado’s shock victory at the Spanish Grand Prix that earned him the bulk of his points for the season, and ultimately meant he finished 14 points ahead in the standings.
While Senna was shown to be at least a match for his well-backed team-mate, a rookie Valtteri Bottas replaced him at Williams for the 2013 season, with team principal Frank Williams thanking the Brazilian “for his hard work over the past year” and wishing him “the best of luck going forward.”
This was ultimately the end of Senna’s Formula 1 career, and reflecting on it with Tom Clarkson on the Beyond the Grid podcast in 2024, he admitted being held in high regard simply as ‘Ayrton’s nephew’ was not was he was aiming towards, and wanted to compete on his own terms.
When asked if he had felt ‘done’ with F1 when he left, he replied: “In some way, yeah. It was kind of like, it felt like I was not welcome there. I never felt part of it.
“It sort of felt like it was something that was not really meant to be. And trust me, I love the cars there, the F1 cars are something else. I don’t know if it’s my personality or whatever, but it felt like it was very hostile towards me for some reason.
“There was one side, which was people were like, ‘Oh, he’s a Senna, so he’s like racing royalty’ or whatever. That’s not I was looking for.
“What I wanted to do was get a real chance to prove what I could do – and this is the thing that I was never getting. And I think that sort of frustrated me, because I was never getting that properly.”
After his Formula 1 departure, Senna took on an ambassadorial role with McLaren that has seen him help with development with several of their road cars, such as the P1 GTR, the 675LT, the Senna and Senna GTR – by driving them to offer feedback, while also continuing his racing career up until 2020.
He initially went into GT racing before combining that with a one-season stint in Formula E, but worked his way back up the classes in endurance racing and became LMP2 World Champion in the World Endurance Championship in the 2017 season – a year he puts alongside his GP2 title-challenging campaign as being among the best of his career.
Fittingly for the family connection link, one of his team-mates for a portion of that year was Nico Prost, son of four-time World Champion Alain, though Prost’s personal points tally was not enough to be a title-winner himself after missing a round, though Senna described their partnership as an “amazing” and “cool” experience.
Senna came closest to taking outright victory at Le Mans in his final start there, for Rebellion Racing in the LMP1 class in 2020 – splitting the all-conquering Toyota cars to take second place overall while partnering Norman Nato and Gustavo Menezes.
After retiring from racing in 2020, Senna has continued his ambassadorial work with McLaren, having been seen behind the wheel of his uncle Ayrton’s 1991 title-winning McLaren MP4/6 at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2024, among other appearances for the brand.
Away from the circuit, Senna has found more time for another passion in his career: drone racing – or, more specifically: electric flying cars.
Senna is a development pilot and global ambassador for Airspeeder, the first series dedicated to electric flying cars, and has professed to his love of building and flying FPV [first person view] drones in his spare time.
At the end of 2024, he and his wife Ludovica confirmed the arrival of a baby together, as their “little miracle” extended their family.