Brazilian GP in Prost's History - The Most Emotional Victory of Prost

Prost has won six Brazilian GP, 5 times in Rio de Janeiro. But the most
emotional victory was the 6th one in Interlagos, 1990.

Prost brought the #1 tag to Ferrari. His seat in McLaren was taken by
Gerhard Berger, who had problem fitting into the new car since McLaren was
used to build small cockpits for Prost and Senna. Yet, the McLaren cars
were clearly superior. Senna won the United States GP in which both
Ferraris broke down. The second race was in Brazil. The starting grid 
saw Senna and Berger of McLaren in the front row, Boutsen and Patrese
of Williams in the second, and Mansell and Prost of Ferrari in the third.

Green. Patrese had a slow start. Mansell passed him and moved over to the
left. Prost smartly flicked to the right emerging from behind. It was now 
a fair gear-shifting battle between the Ferraris. Prost beat Mansell
to enter the first left in 4th place behind Senna, Berger and Boutsen.
What a brilliant start!

Boutsen passed Berger on lap 8 and Prost did the same at the same place on
lap 17. Boutsen pitted for tyres but his brakes failed. He almost ran into
a mechanic who, in running away for his life, dropped the tyre damaging
the Williams' nose-cone. It took them ages to replace it. You just
can't imagine how many screws the Williams used to fix the nose-cone!
McLaren did this for Senna at least 20 times faster in Suzuka'89... and
they would do this again SOON just as fast...

Senna was more than 10 seconds ahead of Prost when he came to lap Satoru
Nakajima. But he hit Nakajima and damaged the front wing. Senna, being
Senna, of course blamed Nakajima for the incident.

"I followed him through three corners and then he seemed to open the door
as if to let me through. As I went inside him he came across me and my
nose was lost against his rear wheel."

Nakajima explained: "I saw the blue flag indicating a car wanted to lap
me and moved over, but I ran onto a dirty patch and started to slide. I
couldn't hold the car and I slid back just as Senna was starting to go
inside."

Senna had no one to blame but himself. He made a wrong judgement. It was a
particularly sharp corner. He simply passed at the wrong place. It was
always wrong to assume the guy in front could "let" you pass. It was
always wrong to allow others to control your own fate.

Prost was now in the lead and was running faster than everybody, Senna
with a new nose included. Patrese's engine blew. And Berger was thus 2nd.
Senna finished 3rd. He hadn't yet won a Brazilian GP when Prost went on to
take his sixth.

Prost threw his fists up after winning his first GP in Dijon'81. Prost
jumped up and down in delights for winning the 86 World Championship.
Never had he shed a tear. But now Prost burst into tears when he took off
his helmet. He had worked for McLaren for six years in a row and yet he
was betrayed. The win told him that his move to Ferrari was a right
decision.

Argentinian GP in Prost's History - A New Star Was Born

Prost has only competed in one Argentinian GP. But this is a very
important race. Important to Prost and, important to F1. It was Prost's
first race. F1 was not quite the same since then. A star was born. He
was destined to conquer the sport.

Buenos Aires, January 13, 1980.

Prost took Tambay's seat in McLaren and immediately he showed that he was
quicker than his "senior" John Watson. In Friday's qualifying he was 8th.
Watson was 15th. After Saturday qualifying he was 12th on the grid.

I did not witness how Prost drove his first GP. I'll thus tell you the
story in the Professor's own words (taken from the English version of his 
autobiography, Life in the Fast Lane).

"It was high summer in the southern hemisphere and the cockpit
temperatures were unbearable. Worse still, you could actually see the
asphalt starting to melt. The circuit had been patched and repatched
- all to no avail. After practice, the foundation blocks of the circuit
were showing through, particularly in the corners, where wear-and-tear
was at its most pronounced.

"... Driving on a circuit that is breaking up is like driving on packed
ice. The tyres don't grip, they slip and slide. As a result, the
Argentinian Grand Prix was pure Russian roulette. As I said earlier, I
knew that I had to take every opportunity to make my presence felt in my
first season. This was just such an opportunity. I couldn't compete on
equal footing with crack teams like Williams, Ligier, Renault, Ferrari and
Brabham; and I realised that their drivers were much more experienced than
myself. But I also knew that, on a surface like this, the race would be
long and full of incident. My race plan was simple: drive as prudently as
possible.

"That's exactly what I did. I admit that I went into a double spin at one
point during the race, but I doubt very much if anyone remembers it,
especially when you take into account how many other incidents there were
and how many drivers retired. I came sixth out of seven finishers and
notched up my first point in a Formula One world championship."


Christopher Hilton added the following in his book "Alain Prost".

"No driver had finished in the points on his debut for seven years
(Georges Follmer, South Africa, 1973) and none would again for nine years
(Johnny Herbert, Brazil; Jean Alesi, Ricard, both 1989).

"'Prost just kept persevering and persevering,' (Tony) Jardine (Assistant
Manager, McLaren) says. 'He'd already blown Wattie off, he came through
sixth, a championship point - fantastic. He did it with ease, you could
see it never looked to be a majoy effort, the car looked like it was on
rails. Everybody had problems with massive understeer and the heat and the
biggest key to it all is that he got out of the car fresh. Others like
Pironi were covered in sweat.'"


The most important thing is that Prost already demonstrated Prostism. He
understood his car and the track, and he did just what he was
employed to do - to bring the car home sound and safe and reached the
highest possible position. And don't forget, it was only his debut...
F1 was full of hope.

San Marino GP in Prost's History - Prost the Calculator

Prost has won 3 San Marino Grands Prix. If not for 1700g underweight
(1985), he would have won it 4 times. The 1986 victory remains a classic
example of Prost's ability to control the race and his car. The GP itself
was eventful with lots of good overtakings. Clean overtakings are rarely
seen nowadays. The "success" of some individuals has led to those
win-or-die overtakings being accepted in today's F1. This has to be
stopped.

Ayrton Senna in a Lotus was on pole and alongside him was the Brazilian
gentleman, Nelson Piquet of Williams. Nigel Mansell in the other Williams
was third in qualifying followed by Prost, Michele Alboreto of Ferrari and
Keke Rosberg, Prost's teammate at McLaren.

Piquet took the lead from Senna while the McLarens stormed past Mansell
for 3rd and 4th place. Prost challenged Senna for 2nd place and with
outstanding control of his car he passed Senna on the right round a left
chicane. He did it so smoothly that he instantly pulled away from Senna.
As if being shocked for being overtaken, Senna left enough room for
Rosberg who also went past smoothly for 3rd place.

Rosberg now chased Prost for 2nd place. He dived down the inside and was
through. Prost made stunning effort to retake his teammate but Keke moved
left and right to shut him off.

Meanwhile Alboreto was catching Senna fast and overtook him. Senna's
engine smoked and was out of contention. Mansell suffered the same fate.

Alain gave up the battle with Keke and chose to beat him with pitstop
strategy. Prost was the first to pit among the top three and after
Piquet and Rosberg pitted Alain was already in front. He made fast laps
with fresh rubber in order to stay in front while at the same time
keeping his eye on the fuel gauge.

Rosberg's McLaren ran out of fuel two laps from the line. What happened to
Prost's McLaren then? Let me quote Alain's own words in his autobiography,
Life in the Fast Lane.

"My own engine started to cough on the last lap, but I shook the car
around to extract the last drop of fuel. I came to a standstill just
beyond the line."

Of course he must possess excellent skill and a large enough lead over
Piquet to cross the line first. But what actually gave Alain the victory
was his own right decision.

"Coming into the race, I tried out two turbo permutations - large turbos,
synonymous with power but heavy on fuel, and smaller turbos, which are
more versatile and, above all, relatively fuel-efficient. I took the
precaution of driving two test laps with two different cars, but I didn't
come down on one side or the other until a few minutes before the race.
Large or small? I finally opted for the smaller turbos; Rosberg went the
other way."

Prost was afterall against fuel restriction. "All the time I thought about
minimum boost, saving fuel. No, this was not racing but you still have to
find a way to win, a way to do it better than the others."

It seems to be the perfect way to end the story but, no. As I watched my
F1 tapes to recollect my memories of Prost history on the Imola track, I
saw too many accidents. Piquet had a bad crash in 1987. Gerhard Berger's
Ferrari burst into flames in 1989 and it was too terrible an accident
to remember. Senna spun twice in '93 Friday qualifying and needed medical
inspection. He arrived at the track only just in time after an overnight
flight from Brazil! Michael Andretti almost copied Senna's spin. I can't
believe we need Roland Ratzenberger's and Senna's death in '94 to remind
us that motorsport can be dangerous. I can't believe that they let the
race restart in '94. God almost gave us a yet bigger warning with a flying
tyre from Alboreto's car. Good heavens that it didn't kill anybody.
Michael Schumacher's self-destructing spin a year or two later then came
to mind.

I never like the Imola track!

Spanish GP in Prost's History - When there is no pitlane speeding

Prost has won 3 Spanish GPs, twice in Jerez ('88,'90) and once in
Barcelona ('93). The 1990 victory was remembered by many Ferrari fans.
Why? Because it was Ferrari's second one-two finish in 1990 and, more
importantly, it had been Ferrari's last win until Jean Alesi took his
maiden victory in Canada'95.

Prost did not go to Jerez in good mood. In the Portuguese GP one week
before, he started in the front row alongside his teammate Nigel Mansell.
No one could believe that Mansell actually squeezed him aside and let the
McLarens of Senna and Berger pass easily. Mansell luckily won the race
which was halted because of Alex Caffi's very bad crash. Senna was 2nd and
Prost struggled to finish third. Senna thus was able to extend his lead to
18 points over Prost with three races left. This was what gave Senna the
"option" to run into Prost in order to win the Drivers' Championship.
Luckily for Prost, Senna did not find the chance in Spain.

Jerez, September 30, 1990.

Senna led from pole position but Prost was giving him immense pressure.
Prost soon realised that his Ferrari didn't have the decisive speed to
overtake and he decided to beat Senna with his trademark pitstop strategy.
That means you make very fast laps on fresh rubber when your competitor
is still struggling with worn tyres. It only works if you choose the right
moment to pit in so you will have a clear track in front of you after
changing tyres. And it only works if you are very fast on fresh rubber!

Senna pitted one lap after Prost, which means Prost only had one lap to
beat the gap. McLaren's pit crew did their usual quick job and Senna
started rushing down the pitlane as Mansell and Prost (now flying) were
also coming down the pitlane exit. Mansell waved Prost through (oh, thank
you, as if no one knew you're running out of grip...) and put himself just
in front of Senna as Senna laterally cut into the track from the pitlane
exit. Yet Senna overtook Mansell instantly. Mansell was losing grip,
remember.

Prost was now 2nd behind Nelson Piquet of Benetton. Piquet had chosen hard
tyres to avoid a pitstop and was thus leading. However, when Prost's
Ferrari appeared in the Benetton's mirror, Piquet could no longer hold on
with the little grip and he spun out.

Meanwhile Senna pitted the second time; he thought he had problems with
his tyres. In fact it was water leakage from the radiator. His car smoked
and was out of the race. Mansell thus inherited 2nd place and that was
Ferrari's another one-two finish in 1990 after Mexican GP.

Prost won his 44th Grand Prix and reduced the gap to 9 championship
points. Yet Senna executed his "option" in Japan. He ran into Prost and
claimed the 1990 World Drivers' Championship. Thank God that Prost
survived the crash.

Monaco GP in Prost's History - The Hattrick, a combination of speed and patience

For a whole decade from 1984 to 1993, only two drivers had won the Monaco
GP: Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. Prost made a hattrick from 1984 to 1986,
failed to add a fourth in 1987 with a blown engine, but finally got it in
1988 when Senna, 43 seconds ahead, collided head-on with the barriers. In
1989 Prost was held up by backmarker Arnoux, Prost's former teammate, and
then lost half a minute as Piquet and De Cesaris collided and blocked the
road. Prost's Ferrari gave up in 1990. The 1991 race was a Senna's solo. 
1992 was a comedy featuring Mansell's countless vain attempts to get past
Senna. In 1993 Prost made a jump start, got a 10-second stop-go penalty,
stalled his engine in his tyre stop, but could still came back for a 4th
place.

But how did Prost make the hattrick from 1984 to 1986?


In 1984 the Grand Prix was cut short due to a thunderstorm. It was Senna's
first season in F1. He drove his Toleman as if the track was dry and he
was
catching Prost fast. People said if the race was not stopped, Senna would
have won. Funny that they already assume that Senna could pass Prost.
Funny that they don't see that Stefan Bellof in a Tyrrell was catching
Senna fast. Funny that someone can enjoy a race with zero visibility.
Funny
that someone wants drivers to gamble with their lives!! SHAME!

Having won a shortened race, Prost was only awarded half of the winning
points, which is 4.5. At the end of the season he lost the world title to
teammate Niki Lauda by 0.5 point. Prost never complains. He knows what
safety
is all about.

In 1985 Prost started from 5th on the grid, got to 4th at the start,
passed
Mansell and got 2nd place when Senna's engine blew. Alboreto in a very
fast Ferrari was in front, but he spun on the oil left from the crash
between Piquet and Patrese and Prost took the lead. Alboreto came back but
found a puncture in his left rear tyre. He pitted and Prost was through
for his 2nd Monaco victory.

1986, Prost was on pole, led the race until his tyre stop, and then caught
Senna who had not yet pitted. Senna resisted Prost's overtaking. Prost
knew
it was Senna who was in front, he knew Senna could do anything to block
an overtaking, he knew Senna would have to pit soon, and thus he refused
to take risk and stayed behind. When Senna did pit, Prost had preserved
his car so well that he went faster and faster. His teammate Rosberg
tried to launch a challenge but never could he match Alain's pace. Prost
made
some amazingly fast laps and beat Rosberg by 25 seconds.

Rosberg: "Alain was simply too strong for any of us."

Prost's tactical mind combines raw speed with patience. He knows how to
win races safely and fairly. He makes F1 an art of motorsport. He is not
just the fastest driver, he is the best driver.