Senna and Prost: The Duel on the Track
Two collisions at the same corner of the same Japanese circuit, two years apart, decided two world championships — and defined a rivalry that Formula One has never quite matched since.
Alain Prost was born on 24 February 1955 in Lorette, a small commune near Saint-Chamond in the Loire département of France, the son of André Prost, a furniture-store owner, and Marie-Rose Karatchian, a Frenchwoman of Armenian descent. He was a restless, athletic child who wrestled, roller-skated and played football before discovering karting at fourteen during a family holiday. At sixteen he bought his first kart with money earned working for his father, and by 1975 he was French senior karting champion.
Prost's rise through the junior single-seater ranks was swift and dominant. He won the French Formula Renault title in 1976, the Formula Renault Europe crown in 1977, and French Formula Three titles in both 1978 and 1979, capping his amateur career with the 1979 European Formula Three championship for the Oreca team. Offered a chance to debut early in Formula One that year, he turned it down, reasoning he needed to test the car and know the circuit first — a decision that hinted at the calculating temperament that would later earn him the nickname 'the Professor'.
He signed with McLaren for 1980 and finished sixth on his debut in Argentina, scoring a point — a rare feat achieved by only two other drivers between 1973 and 1993, Johnny Herbert and Jean Alesi. He moved to Renault in 1981, winning his first Grand Prix at Dijon in the French Grand Prix, followed by wins in the Netherlands and Italy. Further victories came in 1982, and in 1983 he finished runner-up to Nelson Piquet after a turbo failure in the title decider — a result followed swiftly by his dismissal from Renault over comments he made afterward.
Back at McLaren in 1984, Prost lost the title to teammate Niki Lauda by half a point, the closest margin in the sport's history. He finally claimed his first championship in 1985, becoming the first French World Drivers' Champion, and defended it in 1986 amid a tight battle with Piquet and Nigel Mansell. In 1987 he broke Jackie Stewart's long-standing record for Grand Prix wins.
In 1988, McLaren paired Prost with a young Brazilian named Ayrton Senna, and together, in the dominant Honda-powered MP4/4, they won every race but one that season. Senna took the title by three points, and the partnership curdled into rivalry. The tension detonated at Suzuka in 1989, where a collision between the two McLarens at the title-deciding race left Prost champion. A year later, with Prost now at Ferrari, the same corner of the same circuit produced the mirror image: Prost drove into Senna at the start, both retired, and Senna's points lead carried him to the championship.
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