Ayrton Senna

About Ayrton Senna

Ayrton Senna, who passed away in 1994, remains one of the most significant figures in motorsports history, earning him an HPI Rank of #738 among global historical influencers. The Brazilian racing driver was renowned for his nearly unparalleled skill in wet conditions and his intense, passionate approach to Formula 1 racing, securing three World Drivers' Championships before his untimely death at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.

Despite this high historical standing, Senna's modern internet attention appears disproportionately large. In 2025, he garnered 2.9 million Wikipedia pageviews, resulting in an Attention Gap of +9x, indicating significant overattention relative to his historical importance score. This level of digital interest surpasses that given to fundamentally more influential historical figures like Antoine Lavoisier (#324 importance, 373K views) or Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (#428 importance, 56K views), who receive far less digital traffic.

This intense online focus shows a marked recent decline, however. His 2025 annualized views were down 24.7% year-over-year, and momentum between the first and third quarters dropped by 39%, suggesting a cooling of recent public interest despite the existing overattention bias.