Bruno Senna has the same playboy good looks as his late uncle Ayrton and the same instinctive flair behind the wheel of a race car. Now he’s poised to put the name of Senna back on the Formula One starting grid.

The 25-year-old won’t name names but claims to be in discussion with five F1 teams about taking up a seat for the 2010 season. He tried out for Honda before it walked away from the sport, managing to get to within 0.3sec of Jenson Button’s pace in practice.

“I want a team that can access my potential and believes that I am the right driver for the job,” says Senna, relaxing outside a cafe near his Kensington home. “There are a few teams that have expressed this interest, a few other teams that have paid more attention to sponsorship and commercial potential, whereas I want to be driving in a team by merit alone.”

There is no denying the power of the Senna name. Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian three-time F1 world champion, was arguably the best racing driver of all time and still at the top of his game when he died after a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.

His young nephew had already shown signs of the same Senna magic. No interview with Bruno is complete without recalling Ayrton’s statement, made in the year before his death:

“If you think I’m fast, you should see my nephew!”

Bruno was about nine at the time and would race his uncle on his karting track. “I was doing similar lap times to Ayrton, so I guess he saw some potential there,” he says.

The younger Senna had been expecting to follow in his uncle’s footsteps. “Everybody knew I would do this, it’s the only thing I talked about.” Then Ayrton’s death was followed a few months later by the death of Bruno’s father in a motorbike crash. His mother couldn’t bear to risk losing a son after losing a brother and husband in quick succession, so Senna hung up his helmet.

For the next few years he focused on school and began a degree in business. It was only in 2004 that he got in touch with Gerhard Berger, a close family friend and Ayrton’s McLaren team-mate in the 1990-92 F1 season, and set about relaunching his racing career, moving to London the same year.

By now, Senna had turned 20 — ancient to be starting off in this career. “No one who started this late has ever been successful,” he admits. “But I reckon (racing) was something that I was born with.”

By 2005, after just five races in British Formula BMW and Formula Renault, Senna had moved on to the British Formula Three International Series, finishing in third place. He then moved on to GP2, a feeder series for F1, finishing as runner-up in his second season last year. He even had time to compete in the Le Mans 24-hour race last month. Now he looks set to earn an F1 seat for next season.

Despite their earlier reservations, the family are now firmly behind Senna’s racing. Bruno’s mother Viviane and sister Bianca help manage his career, while his grandmother organises his photo archive. They visit him in Britain regularly, which is why his current car is a sturdy BMW 335i estate. “Because I have to take all the bags from my mum, my sister and my grandmother when she comes — still there’s not enough boot space!”

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