Juan Fossaroli once had a cap that belonged to Ayrton Senna himself. The ornament quickly became his most prized possession, one he held dearly. The story of how it got into your hands and then how it disappeared from them is magical and difficult to believe from beginning to end.
Juan Fossaroli is the pitlane reporter for ESPN Argentina and covered more than 400 Grands Prix Formula 1 since 1991, always focusing on the Latin American and Argentine market in particular. He is a well-known character in the paddock, but few imagine that he carries with him an almost mythical story that directly links him to Ayrton Senna and the cap that the idol wore on the podium when he won the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix.
A bid of destiny: the acquisition of the cap
“It was March 28, 1993, to be exact. It was the Brazilian Grand Prix, which Senna won for the second and last time, because unfortunately he died in the accident in San Marino the following year.”
“At the 1993 Grand Prix, it was pure celebration. On the podium, Juan Manuel Fangio (is wearing) a cap, with which he came hugging. He hands the prize to Senna and then hugs him. Along with this, the Brazilian receives the cap, and there are several photos of Ayrton bathing in champagne wearing it.”
“Then the celebrations end, Senna is very happy, this time without physical problems like in 1991, and he picks up the cap bathed in champagne, with ‘Brazil 1993’ written on the side, with his right hand.”
“I was watching the celebration from the photographers’ tower, that big tower in Brazil (São Paulo), without doing anything. Senna throws his cap to the height of the podium, straight into my hand. It’s something I tell and, every time I tell it, I get emotional because I say I didn’t try. It’s not that I threw myself in like a crazy person. I reached out and took it, I swear on my children,” said an emotional Juan Fossaroli in a conversation with ESPN.
That cap with “Goodyear” written in gold on the front covered a distance of around 35 meters from the podium, and from Ayrton Senna’s hand, to Juan Fossaroli’s hand.
What is the probability that the cap with which a winning F1 driver celebrated on the podium will fall into your hands in a crowd? What is the probability that the driver who threw the hat was the legendary Ayrton Senna?
Everything that surrounds Ayrton Senna has an air of magic, and, consequently, everything that belonged to him has become a kind of relic. Every fan’s dream of having a souvenir signed by the late three-time Brazilian champion can happen in the most unexpected and opportune way. That’s what happened with Juan.
“When they saw me pick up the cap, all the fans started shouting at me, but I put it under my vest”, he recalls.
“I remember that, at that moment, Fernando (Tornello, F1 narrator for more than four decades) was in the cockpit and I was very happy. I said to him: ‘I have the cap’. And Fernando said: ‘Give it to me!’ , because he also liked Senna, like all of us, but I stayed with him”.
“Some time later, Senna arrives in Buenos Aires, there is a press conference and I go there with my cap. I wanted to see if he would autograph it for me. I arrive at the press conference and say: ‘Ayrton, I have the cap he wore in Brazil , can you sign it for me?’ Senna takes a folder he had, opens it, puts the cap inside and closes it. He tells me: ‘This cap is mine’ and I swear I was paralyzed, but it was a joke. He gave me back the cap and I asked him to sign it for me, but I didn’t have a pen, so he took a gold one and wrote ‘Ayrton Senna 93’”.
“Well, unfortunately, the following year he died and a special Senna program was made, the cap was used and I shared the whole story,” continued Fossaroli.
As Juan said, Ayrton Senna would die at 2:17 pm on May 1, 1994 at the Dino and Enzo Ferrari circuit in Ímola, in the fateful San Marino Grand Prix, where the Austrian Roland Ratzenberger had also lost his life the day before. So the cap became even more valuable to him, and people who knew of its existence were offering him literally tens of thousands of dollars, but it was impossible to part with this treasure for money.”
“At one point, I was offered 25,000 euros for the cap,” he explains.
The mystique continues: the disappearance of the cap
One day, 16 years after the cap fell into his hands, Juan Fossaroli had a nightmare and when he woke up, he realized that it hadn’t been just a dream, his cap was gone.
“In 2009 I moved. At that time, I kept the hat on a shelf, and I always wanted to make a glass display case for it. But, as I traveled to all the races, it was difficult. It’s not that I left it lying around, it was safe on a shelf.”
“I’m moving, but I don’t want to take the cap right away, because then you don’t know where they put it. So, I wanted to take it at the last possible moment. And well, the move, the tiredness, everything made me forget- it on that shelf and, the next day, when we left everything empty, it stayed there, and we sent someone to clean the house. At that moment, I was totally unconscious, I didn’t remember, I was asleep.”
“A couple of days later, you could even say that I dreamed about the cap, or I thought that the cap was there, in my new place. I got up at midnight and looked for it all over the house, in boxes, and I couldn’t find it. We called the lady who was cleaning and she said: ‘I saw this cap lying around and I threw it away'”, Juan Fossaroli relives that dark moment, as if telling a tragedy worthy of the Greeks. “I was furious because she (the cleaner) was partly to blame, because no one should throw away something that doesn’t belong to them.”
“Obviously, I believed her, because you wouldn’t know that the hat was Senna’s, and autographed. Many people said to me: ‘How did you leave that trophy behind?’ but, on the contrary, it was as if I said well, I’ll leave it until the end to be sure.” that, just as he arrived from heaven, he departed in a way that was also somewhat mystical”.
“Maybe it ended up in a garbage truck, in a vacant lot, but I hope that someone used it without knowing that it belonged to Senna, and that he had all this history. And I hope that that person, at least, appreciated it “.
“It was a very important property and, even more so with everything that happened afterwards, because Senna didn’t win again in Brazil, it became a legend. We didn’t know that at the time. So, it was my turn to have a piece of history in my hands.”
So the next time you see Juan Fossaroli lap a Grand Prix, remember that this poor man owned the cap with which Senna hugged Fangio at the 1993 Brazilian GP. And that he also lost it, so equally mystical.
