The last ‘private’ photograph of F1 driver Ayrton Senna taken before his death goes on display in London

On April 29, 1994, photographer Jon Nicholson was standing in the Williams’ Formula 1 (F1) garage at Imola Circuit, Italy, camera by his side, when he spotted Ayrton Senna, helmet in hand, looking up pensively at one of the video monitors hanging from the ceiling. It was the first practice session of the San Marino Grand Prix weekend — in which Ruben Barrichello, travelling at around 225km/h (140mph), clipped the kerb and was launched directly into a tyre barrier. The impact, which knocked him unconscious, measured 95g.

Snap, snap.

In qualifying, the next day, Roland Ratzenberger crashed into a concrete barrier and died. It was the Austrian rookie’s third-ever Grand Prix.

A day later, on May 1, Nicholson found himself inside the driver briefing room, moments before the actual Grand Prix. ‘Ayrton was just not engaging at all, with anything,’ he says. ‘I had Frank Williams on one side, Adrian Newey and Patrick Head on the other and he’s [Senna] looking at me going: “John, they’re making me race, they’re making me race, I don’t want to race”.’

‘My first reaction was: come on Patrick, come on Frank, you’ve got to say something here. And he kept going, and I just said to him, “Ayrton, I’m a photographer, go and talk to Bernie. What am I going to do?” through the back of the camera.’

Snap, snap.

‘Two hours later he was dead.’

The photographs are among the last taken — ‘definitely the last private ones’ — of a man synonymous with F1.

‘It’s haunted me for the whole time,’ concludes Nicholson.

The two images are part of an exhibition of the photographer’s work, titled Exactly What I See, on display at Connolly in Mayfair. The luxury British fashion and leather brand has been in operation for more than 140 years — predating even Country Life — and has had a longstanding relationship with the automotive industry. In years gone by, Connolly’s finished leather has graced the seats of Rolls Royce, Bentley and Aston Martin models; discerning Ferrari and Jaguar clients can opt to have it fitted inside their vehicles — including the ‘new’ limited Jaguar E-Type.

On July 12, when the exhibition shutters, Nicholson will ‘retire’ the profile shot of Senna — which he initially let sit, undeveloped, in a drawer for a quarter century.

Nicholson is adamant that he wanted to be an all-round sports photographer — ‘I’ve done all this motorsport racing, but I’m not really a motor-racing fan’ — but he also talks about a niggling desire to ‘be the Don McCullin of motorsport’ specifically. And perhaps it was all inevitable. After all, he was friends with Damon Hill, the 1996 F1 World Champion and Senna’s Williams teammate. ‘I shared an office with him [Hill] in Shoreditch, in the mid- or early-80s and we spent two days a week trying to get him sponsorship and two days a week trying to get me work as a photographer, and we did nothing except race around London,’ he reveals. ‘Oh, but we had this dream that one day he would win a World Championship and I would be there to take his picture.’

Despite the multiple tragedies of the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix — which forced the F1 governing bodies to usher in a wave of new safety regulations — the decade as a whole is seen as something of a ‘golden era’. There were cataclysmic rivalries and rampant technological advancements; Michael Schumacher and Adrian Newey were well on their way to taking their much-deserved seats in the pantheon of F1 greats. It was loud and brash; it was glamorous in a gritty way, and sexy in a macho one; adverts for tobacco were plastered everywhere.

‘The sport, not the people, are too manufactured now,’ says Nicholson, who hasn’t been to a Grand Prix in years. ‘Can you imagine telling James Hunt not to swear on the radio,’ he adds, referencing headmaster-like attempts made by FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) President Mohammed ben Sulayem, to clampdown on bad language. Last week, Max Verstappen, four-time World Champion and current Red Bull driver, hinted to the press that even expressing a dissenting opinion could result in a monetary fine.

These days, you are more likely to find Nicholson in Skegness than you are Silverstone, photographing totalled or derelict classic cars in ‘quintessentially British’ banger races. ‘When I got there [to his first banger race] I thought “holy sh*t, this is a great story”. I would relate it back to some of the great British photography documents of the last 30, 40 years. It’s a tribe, it’s a sub-culture, it’s about people, not about bangers.’ The banger project isn’t finished yet, but some of the early imagery, all in timeless black and white film, is also on display at Connolly. A young Schumacher’s detached and totally focused gaze, caught through rain and his visor, displayed in close proximity to a woman wearing a t-shirt with the words ‘F*CK OFF’ emblazoned on it. In the background, two men are busy hoisting a car that’s definitely seen better days onto the back of the truck. ‘It is a state of the nation, it is a venting of frustration of Brexit, of governments, of the sh*t we’re going through — and everything is right there. And they get as hyped up and as serious about it as these guys [the F1 community]. And I think that’s great.’

‘Exactly What I See’ is on display at Connolly on 4, Clifford Street, until July 12. Visit the Connolly or Jon Nicholson websites for more information.

Isabel Ettedgui, the founder of Connolly, recently sat down with 'Country Life to speak about her 'Consuming passions'. You can read the entire interview, here.