Personal and early life

Driving career

Pre-Formula One

Formula One

1980: McLaren

1982 Prost won the first two Grands Prix of the 1982 season in South Africa and Brazil. He finished in the points on four other occasions, but didn't win again. Despite retiring from seven races, Prost improved on his drivers' championship position, finishing in fourth, but with nine fewer points than the previous year. His relationship with Arnoux deteriorated further after the French Grand Prix. Prost believes that Arnoux, who won the race, went back on a pre-race agreement to support Prost during the race. His relationship with the French media was also poor. He has since commented that "When I went to Renault the journalists wrote good things about me, but by 1982 I'd become the bad guy. I think, to be honest, I'd made the mistake of winning! The French don't really like winners."

1985 In 1985 Prost became the first French Formula One World Champion. He won five of the sixteen Grands Prix during the season. He had also won the San Marino Grand Prix, but was disqualified after his car was found to be underweight in post-race scrutineering. Prost finished 23 points ahead of his closest rival, Michele Alboreto. Prost's performance in 1985 earned him the Légion d'honneur distinction in France.

1986 Niki Lauda retired in 1986, and was replaced at McLaren by 1982 Champion Keke Rosberg. Prost successfully defended his title, despite his car struggling against the Honda-powered Williams cars driven by Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. Until the latter stages of the final race of the 1986 season, the Australian Grand Prix, Prost appeared set to finish second in the Championship, behind Mansell. Prost had the same amount of wins as Piquet, but he'd four second places to Piquet's three, thus placing him second before the final race. While leading, Mansell suffered a tyre failure at high speed, and crashed out. The Williams team called his teammate Piquet in to change tyres as a safety precaution, handing the race victory — and Championship — to Prost, who had already pitted. Another memorable race that year for Prost was at the San Marino Grand Prix. He was cruising to victory when his car began to run out of fuel three corners from the chequered flag. Frantically weaving the car back and forth to slosh the last drops of fuel into the pickup, he managed to keep it running just long enough to creep over the line and win the race. It happened again at the German Grand Prix: while running in fourth position, Prost's car ran out of fuel on the finishing straight of the last lap. Instead of retiring, Prost got out of his car and tried to push it to the finish, to great applause from the crowd. The finish line was too far, though, and he never reached it. He was classified sixth in the race, as the seventh-placed car was a lap behind.

1987 With Rosberg retiring from Formula One for the 1987 season, Stefan Johansson filled the McLaren seat alongside Prost thanks to his Marlboro connections. Even though Prost was driving a by now outclassed McLaren, he challenged Piquet and Mansell almost until the end, winning three races and breaking Jackie Stewart's record for race victories by winning for the 28th time. Prost considers the Brazilian Grand Prix as his best and most rewarding race ever. The Williams-Hondas had been dominant during qualifying, and Prost started fifth on the grid. He had worked on his race set-up, and with everyone else going for a high-downforce set-up, the Frenchman went the other way. The set-up meant less tyre wear, thanks to slower speeds in the corners while going fast down the straights. Only one stop was necessary, and Prost won the race by 40 seconds.
Prost finished the 1987 season in fourth place, 30 points behind champion Nelson Piquet.

1988 Despite Nelson Piquet winning the Drivers' Championship and Williams winning the Constructors' Championship, Honda decided not to supply Williams with their engines and instead supplied the McLaren team for 1988. Prost had convinced Ron Dennis to sign Senna to a three-year contract, which played a role in luring Honda. However, this began the rivalry that pushed two of the sport's greatest drivers to unprecedented heights of success and controversy. McLaren-Honda dominated the season, winning 15 out of 16 races. Prost won seven and outscored his new teammate Ayrton Senna by 11 points, despite Senna winning one more race than Prost. However, only the 11 best results from the season counted toward the championship total, and this gave Senna the title by three points. Prost went on to be a proponent of essentially the 90's scoring system - all results counting to the final results with the winner scoring 10, not 9, points.

1989 McLaren's domination continued throughout 1989, and the Prost-Senna struggle for supremacy put them on a collision course. Mutual admiration turned to all-out hatred, with the Frenchman accusing his Brazilian teammate of "dangerous driving" and of receiving more than a fair share of attention from both McLaren and Honda. Their embittered season ended as many pundits had feared. In the Japanese Grand Prix at the end of lap 46, Senna made his move at the chicane. Prost turned into his teammate's path. The two interlocked McLarens slid up the chicane escape road. Prost, thinking the World Championship was over, climbed out of his car. To separate the cars, the marshals pushed Senna's McLaren backwards onto the track. This left it in a dangerous position, so they pushed it forwards again. As they did so, Senna bump-started the engine. He drove through the chicane and rejoined. The nose of his car was damaged and he'd to pit, but he rejoined only five seconds behind Alessandro Nannini. On lap 50, Ayrton sliced past Nannini at the chicane to take the lead and won the race. But it was Nannini who appeared on the podium. Race officials had excluded Senna for missing the chicane. McLaren appealed the decision, but the FIA Court of Appeal not only upheld the decision but fined Senna US$100,000 and gave him a suspended six-month ban. So Prost had clinched his third driving title in controversial circumstances, and the Frenchman quickly moved from McLaren to join his new employers: Ferrari. Prost had already announced his signing for Ferrari during the midseason, as he was angered by Senna allegedly being favoured by McLaren.

1990–1991: Ferrari

1990 The Frenchman replaced Gerhard Berger at Ferrari and was partnered with Britain's Nigel Mansell for 1990. As reigning world champion, Prost took over as the team's lead driver and was said to have played on Mansell's inferiority complex. Mansell recalls one incident where at the 1990 British Grand Prix, the car he drove didn't handle the same as in the previous race where had taken pole position, and later found out from team mechanics that Prost saw Mansell as having a superior car and had them swapped without Mansell knowing. Prost won five races for Ferrari that year, in Brazil, Mexico, France, Britain and Spain. Notable among these was the Mexican Grand Prix, where he won after starting in 13th position. In both the Mexican and Spanish races, he led Mansell to Ferrari 1-2 finishes. The championship once again came to the penultimate round of the season in Japan with Prost trailing his McLaren adversary, Ayrton Senna, by nine points. As in 1989, a controversial collision between the two settled the race. At the first corner Senna, as he later admitted, intentionally drove his race car into Prost's, taking them both out of the race and sealing the title in his favour. "What he did was disgusting," Prost said. "He is a man without value." to join his previous employers, Williams. Mansell's replacement was Frenchman Jean Alesi, who had been impressive during the previous two years at Tyrrell. Ferrari had entered a downturn, partially as their famous V12 engine was no longer competitive against the smaller, lighter and more fuel efficient V10s of their competitors. The Ferrari chassis, despite a major revision by the French Grand Prix (f-643) was also not up to the level of the Mclaren and the Williams models.Prost won no races, only getting onto the podium five times. He took it out on the Italian team, publicly criticising them (he famously described his car as "a truck"), and was fired prior to the end of the season, right before the Australian Grand Prix. Prost was replaced by Italian Gianni Morbidelli.

1993: Williams

Rivalry with Ayrton Senna

Comparison with team-mates

Further Information

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