It’s been nearly 16 years since someone called Senna started a Formula 1 race.

However that will all change when Bruno, nephew of the great Ayrton, lines up in Bahrain for newcomers Hispania, formerly Campos.

It has been a long wait for the Brazilian who first tested a Honda (remember them?!) in December 2008 in a shootout to be Jenson Button’s teammate for the 2009 season.

Left without both a drive in either F1 or GP2, where he took an emotional victory in Monaco, Senna has spent the past year in the Le Mans series to keep fit and race sharp before getting a seat at Hispania.

Despite attempts to shrug off the pressure that his surname carries, critics are always likely to unfairly compare him to his legendary uncle.

Going into the season Senna finds himself playing catch up with all of the other teams due to Hispania being the only not to test this winter.

It’s the sort of situation though which the Brazilian has found himself in before.

After Ayrton’s death at Imola in 1994, the Senna family banned Bruno, then 10 years old, from motorsports.

This ban lasted until 2004 when Bruno returned to racing and despite having to play catch up with all his competitors, shot up through the formulae, going from Formula BMW to GP2 in a little over two years.

After missing out on the 2009 F1 season and pre season testing, Senna is again catching up with the rest of the grid, having not driven an F1 car in over 12 months.

He is in a way the unknown package of 2010.

Nobody is too sure how good he will be in an F1 car. Nobody knows how fast Hispania racing will be. Nobody knows how reliable his car will be.

Senna has won in both Formula 3 and GP2 during his short career. Although Hispania are unlikely to give him a race winning F1 car, a good year could quite easily see him propelled higher up the grid for 2011.

Upon leaving McLaren for Williams at the end of 1993, Ayrton Senna said:

“If you think I’m fast, just wait until you see my nephew Bruno.”

Ayrton’s death may mean that we will never know how accurate this statement actually was. However he a man who was very rarely wrong so there must be something good in there somewhere.

It may have been a stop start career but finally this year, we’ll have an idea of just how good Bruno Senna can be.

Join me and Victoria on Formula1FanCast.com’s Fantasy League Formula 1 2010. Our league is called Formula1Fancast.com and the league pin is 722. Try and beat us if you can, but be warned we’re good!

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