Formula One: Is Verstappen v Hamilton another Senna v Prost?

Ayrton Senna was a flawed genius who took risks. Photo / Don Kennedy

Don Kennedy on Formula One

In the aftermath of the collision at Copse corner in the British GP between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, several commentators drew an analogy with the intense and bitter rivalry between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the late 80s.

Last week we looked at the rivalries between Juan Manual Fangio and Stirling Moss, Jim Clark and Graham Hill, and Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The hallmark of all three of those infamous rivalries was that the drivers concerned respected one another. They raced hard, but fairly, and up until the British GP, you could have said the same about Verstappen and Hamilton.

On the other hand, the rivalries between Didier Prironi and Gilles Villeneuve, and Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, were anything but respectful. They were essentially bitter enemies on and off the track. But the rivalry between Senna and Prost possibly overshadowed those that had gone before, and those that were yet to come, including Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill, Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber and Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Prost had enjoyed the partnership with Lauda at McLaren in 1984 and 1985. They had great respect and complimented one another on and off the track. They were known as "The Professor" and "The Rat" and described as a thinking combination.

Lauda won his third drivers' title in 1984, depriving Prost of his first by just half a point. But Prost took the defeat well, learning from it and in the following year easily won the championship, while Lauda was only 10th. He knew it was time for him to retire. Keke Rosberg, the 1982 world champion was hired as Prost's teammate for1986, and helped the Frenchman retain the championship. Rosberg then announced his retirement and Swede Stefan Johansson joined Prost at McLaren in 1987. But that season was to be a battle between Williams' drivers Piquet and Mansell.

The hostility between Pironi and Villeneuve, Ferrari teammates, had come to the fore in 1982 after Pironi ignored team orders not to pass one another in the remaining laps when running 1-2 in Villeneuve's favour at the San Marino GP at Imola. To Villeneuve's disgust, Pironi passed him on the last lap to claim victory. Villeneuve vowed he would never speak to Pironi again, a promise he kept, because in the next race, the Belgian GP at Zolder, he was killed in practice.

Prost, who was driving for Renault at the time, says Villeneuve kept calling him every day after Imola.

"Every day he was talking to me about how angry he was with Pironi and Ferrari. He was so angry against Didier and so disappointed by his situation with Ferrari," Prost recalls.

"He was so close to the team. I don't know if the Old Man [Enzo Ferrari] was aware, but he felt they had betrayed him as well."

The irony is that seven years later Prost would fall out with Senna at the same track for a similar reason, feeling betrayed by his teammate. Prost says Villeneuve was "absolutely out of control" when he got to Zolder and does not doubt that his state of mind was such that he was determined to beat Pironi's time when he fatally collided with Jochen Mass.

"Gilles had killed himself because of his dispute with Pironi. He went too far," Prost says.

For the 1988 season, Prost needed a new teammate and initially it looked like Piquet, by then a three-time champion, could join the team. But he wanted too much money and Prost told McLaren boss Ron Dennis that he "thought Ayrton was a driver for the future and that I thought he would be best for the team".

"I was close with Nelson, but I thought it better for the team to have the younger driver."

The fact that Honda was moving from Williams, the 1987 champions, to McLaren in 1988 was the main factor for Senna to sign with McLaren. "From a personal point of view I am very happy to work with Alain," Senna reportedly said. "Two top drivers working together can only make a team stronger."

How true that statement turned out to be. McLaren won 15 of the 16 races that season, with Senna winning 8 and Prost 7. In those days for inexplicable reasons, drivers could only count 11 out of 16 results.

Prost had two DNFs and in the other races he was either 1st or 2nd, whereas Senna had one DNF, but also a 6th and a 4th. Prost had to drop points for 2nd-place finishes, so Senna took the title by 3 points. Prost knew he had a battle on his hands if he was to beat Senna in 1989.

The San Marino GP at Imola would be the start of their acrimonious relationship, when Senna reneged on an agreement with Prost that neither would try to pass until after the first corner. Senna had pole and beat Prost into the first corner, but then the race was red-flagged as Gerhard Berger in the Ferrari had a huge crash at Tamburello and had to be extracted from the burning wreck.

On the re-start, it was Prost who got the better start.

"For me, the race was going to start after the corner. I preferred to take the average best line through this corner, again because there was no need to take a risk, and then, boom, Senna went inside me. I was furious because of many things."

He thought about Villeneuve's death and said after that he couldn't drive well, and Senna won by 45 seconds.

Sir Frank Williams says after that they watched "McLaren dominate and decimate. Senna and Prost were like two gladiators. I couldn't have handled Senna and Prost fighting each other. Piquet and Mansell did not have any feeling for each other except loathing."

Prost was upset because Senna had broken the agreement. When asked why he had, Senna justified it by claiming it only applied to the first start, not the re-start.

For the rest of the season the two drivers didn't speak to one another, and Prost decided to move to Ferrari for 1990. Prior to the penultimate race in Japan, Prost said he didn't care much for the title, as it would always have a bitter taste, even though he was 16 points ahead of Senna.

But he did tell Dennis that he would not under any circumstances open the door for Senna if it came down to the latter having to overtake him. And it did, as Prost led for much of the race, but Senna made a dive down the inside at the chicane. It was similar to what Hamilton did to Verstappen at Silverstone, except the chicane at Suzuka is taken at 110km/h, not 270km/h as at Copse!

Prost closed the door on Senna and the two collided. Prost got out of his car thinking it was damaged, but Senna got a push from marshals, re-joined the circuit by cutting cross the chicane, and chased down Alessandro Nannini in the Benetton, to win the race. Or so he thought. But the FIA disqualified him for breaking the rules as in where he re-joined the circuit, and also outside assistance from marshals. Prost was the champion, but he was unhappy with the situation.

"I realised in 1989 that Ayrton's motivation was much more than I thought it was," Prost recalled in a 2009 interview. "It was something you could not understand, you could not expect. You have people challenging you, you can have rivals, but you can't have enemies. I felt from 1989 Ayrton made me an enemy. It was not correct. As I said, I was not prepared to lose my life against another driver."

Sadly, for Prost, it seems Senna was. A year later, again at Suzuka, Senna was battling Prost in the Ferrari and the latter needed to win in Japan to keep the championship alive. Senna was on pole but was livid that it was on the dirty side of the track. He tried to get the FIA to change it, but they wouldn't.

At the start, Prost got away first but as he turned into the fast, first corner, Senna kept his foot in it and took both of them out of the race, meaning he was champion for a third time.

In the press conference, he made no bones about what had happened.

"I said to myself, 'okay, you try to work clean, to do your job properly, and you get screwed by stupid people. If at the start, because I am in the wrong place, Prost beats me off the line, at the first corner I'm going for it - and he'd better not turn in ahead of me, because he's not going to make it. And it just happened like this."

Actions speak louder than words, but Senna had planned the move in his head and was prepared to act on it and risk his life, as well as Prost's, to prove a point. But not before he had buried the hatchet with Prost in Adelaide in 1993 after Prost had become world champion for a 4th time, driving a Williams, while Senna won the Australian GP, in what would be his last victory.

The photo of Senna extending his hand in friendship to Prost on that podium is now etched in F1 folklore. And after that, then Senna joined Tina Turner on stage for the post-race concert as she sang" "Simply the best, better than all the rest." To some, he was, but to many others, he was a flawed genius.

His views about his own mortality would come full circle a few months later on that fateful weekend in May in 1994 at Imola, which would have a profound effect on F1 and Prost in particular.