OpinionSame old story, but it's getting better

We head to Spain this weekend for the first European Grand Prix of the season with thoughts of Ayrton Senna still very fresh. It was the 20th anniversary of his death last week, and for motorsport fans it was very much a "John F. Kennedy" moment: you can still remember where you were when you heard about it.

I watched the excellent Senna film again over the weekend. It's a fabulous film that really catches the race world in the '80s and '90s. What struck me was how much had changed, and yet how much has stayed the same in the last two decades.

It was great to see a master at work, not just in good conditions, but in the rain, too. Coming out of corners, spray was thrown up from the fishtailing back end as Senna fought to control a car he had no right to keep on the track at that speed.

It was in the rain at the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix that Senna really announced his arrival. Charging from eighth place, he muscled his way to second in an unfancied Toleman car. Alain Prost was in the lead and was being reeled in when he started waving his arms from the cockpit looking for the race to be stopped.

It duly was, robbing the Brazilian of a maiden GP win. As he says afterwards in footage from the film, "Formula One is political - it is money and when you are still small you have to go through this."

You could be forgiven for thinking how apt this still is in 2014. The smaller teams are still struggling with a lack of power and money. Recently the big five; Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Williams and Ferrari tried to take even more of the pie for themselves. It was proposed that only they would have a seat at the new "Strategy Group", which would make the rules and distribute the spoils.