Alain Prost – Ayrton Senna
Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, Formula 1 saw Alain Prost crowned world champion on four occasions with two different teams. It was a magical period for him and especially for McLaren, where the historic battles between the Frenchman and his late teammate Ayrton Senna took place. These duels continued relentlessly even after the ‘Professor’ moved to Ferrari and then to Williams.
These thrilling rivalries only came to an end in 1993 when Alain Prost retired as world champion, celebrating his title on the top step of the podium alongside Senna, thus marking a memorable and symbolic sporting and personal reconciliation between the two. However, from that moment on, the Frenchman’s image has always remained linked to that of the Brazilian, even more so since ‘Magic’ tragically lost his life at Imola in 1994. Ayrton Senna became a legend, appearing again in recent years on the big screen with the documentary *Senna* and more recently in the Netflix TV series, which Prost did not appreciate at all.
The shame of social media
Senna-Prost, Prost-Senna. A pairing that almost overshadows the Frenchman’s achievements, as the 70-year-old reiterated in an interview with *Motorsport Total*, where he also mentioned his possible departure from social media: “I cannot think about Ayrton, for better or worse, if you will – he commented – for example, I am thinking of shutting down my Instagram because I receive messages every day, without exception. From time to time, there is one with insults, yes, it can happen. My largest fan base on social media comes from Brazil, so I am forced to think about him. Indirectly, I have lived with this story for 30 years, and it will probably be this way for the rest of my life.”
A comment that almost sounds like resignation from the Frenchman regarding his image in F1 being exclusively tied to his battles with Ayrton Senna: “Life is made up of many aspects: entering the world of motorsport, my career, and the present. I have achieved a lot, but it is rarely talked about, and it feels as if my life has been only about the Prost-Senna rivalry. I had five world champions as teammates, and there are extremely important people who have meant a lot to me. The part of my life that I am most proud of is the one before Formula 1. The period that shaped me mentally and morally, that allowed me to do what I did, to face challenges, even though at the beginning, I did not have the tools to do so.”
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