Watch the immortalised Senna in a cinema near you

Seventeen years and three months ago, the seemingly indestructible legend that was Ayrton Senna bowed to mortality when he was fatally injured in a crash those of us who were involved in Formula One will never forget.

Not too long beforehand, maybe a week or two, I had a one-to-one with the Brazilian who was then struggling to be as masterful in a Williams, as partner to Damon Hill, as he had been with McLaren as three times the world champ.

My interview with him was memorable for his overwhelming modesty despite his renowned genius and dash and daring behind the wheel of a 200-miles-an-hour missile of a car in a melee of equally committed drivers not prepared, just like him, to surrender one inch of track.

The immeasurable difference between him and the rest is and was impossible to evaluate. His victory in the European Grand Prix at a rainswept, gale-blown and drenched Donington Park in the midlands of England, with overtaking manoeuvres so bold they made me wince, was quite the most astonishing achievement in Formula One I had ever seen. It was a display still talked about in F1 circles and with perhaps the merest handful of exceptions, has rarely been equalled or surpassed.

To have allowed his exploits to be frittered to the memory boxes of those of us fortunate enough to be around at the time or to be merely imagined and falling far short of the reality, would have been a sad case of utter neglect.

That is why a movie, now on general release, about the man — incidentally my neighbour in the UK — and called Senna with straplines like "No Fear","No Limits", "No Equal" is unmissable when it comes to a cinema near you.

Much of the footage, dug out from Lord knows where, has never been seen before. The Senna family, as anxious to preserve and promote the great man's reputation, readily granted the moviemakers, Universal Pictures, permission to go ahead.And F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone readily made available the priceless content of his archives. The result is a masterpiece of a movie.

The usual documentary facet of talking-heads interlaced with footage has been discarded and comments and contributions from the star names, drivers or whatever,are played as audio-only. The power play is the action and Senna's unforgettable attitude. It is, I have to confess, a classic, three-part offering with a continuity of his rise to the top and his ferocious confrontations with Alain Prost, his fight with F1 politics when he was at the top of his game and, alas, his tragic death at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, Italy.

Ted Macauley is a motorsport writer based in England.