Ayrton Senna’s racing exploits and brilliance remain well documented, which makes him one of F1’s most influential drivers even 30 years after his death. However, a very recent revelation in the Brazilian’s personal life shed light on the part of Senna’s journey that no one had ever heard of.
The three women Senna had publicly been in a relationship with were Lillian Souza (whom he was married to for a year), Xuxa Meneghel, and Adriane Galisteu.
But did you know that Senna had another secret girlfriend with whom he stayed in touch until the very end? Well, no one did.
Marie Claude van der Graaff, a Dutch-born girl who moved to Brazil at a young age, began dating Senna in 1982 and remained with the legendary F1 driver until he entered the pinnacle of motorsport in 1984. However, this relationship stayed a secret all these years because of a self-kept promise.
Keith Sutton, Senna’s close friend who documented his journey into F1 through photographs, was the one who made the revelation on his Instagram, with Marie’s consent of course.
“Keeping my promise not to publicly unveil my precious relationship with Ayrton before I was 60,” Marie wrote under Sutton’s post.
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The relationship she shared with Senna was short-lived, much like most of his past romances. Sutton explained, “His love and commitment to racing in Formula 1 and his ambition to be the very best was more than he could ever commit to one woman.”
However, what they had was rather special. Sutton, in the same post, described their time together in detail.
Senna’s special relationship with Marie
The fact that Marie’s relationship with Senna was never documented before—not even in Netflix’s 2024 series Senna—does not make it any less significant.
Sutton described Marie as a “beautiful, dark-haired woman” who stood apart from the other women in the former McLaren driver’s life. She was also very involved in Senna’s racing life, having attended 16 of his races in the 1983 F3 season.
However, she didn’t crave the spotlight. She wanted a quiet life away from the bling, which was difficult to achieve with Senna, a rising star in the world of motorsport, who dreamed of breaking every single record in F1. So, they broke up but remained friends.
They stayed in contact and would have lunch together almost every year when Senna visited Europe—where she was studying—during his F1 commitments. “He was even happy for them to be photographed together as friends for a magazine article in 1990 as he trusted her and her integrity,” Sutton wrote.
Marie had vowed to keep her relationship with Senna a secret, likely to avoid the spotlight. However, 40 years later, just after celebrating her 60th birthday on February 16, she reconnected with Sutton, who brought this special relationship to light.
