#And he wants Alain:)

[yyenky]

ALAIN PROST | 2014

Alain Prost reflects on Ayrton Senna, 20 years after his passing.

[nikisdaughter]

I'll always find this photo funny, it looks like he's trying really hard to read alain's mind

[dellamortte]

Jason Isaacs as Alain de Keroual de Saint-Yves ALL FOR LOVE (1998)

[liaoakenshield]

[ayrtonsennatea]

F1 sleepover protest lore:

South African Grand Prix - 1982

Involved: all drivers

In 1982 all drivers locked themselves into one shared hotel room and refused to drive at the South African GP as a protest against clauses on their super licence contracts.

Not even their teams managed to get them to leave the room, only one photographer was allowed inside.

There are photos of Alain Prost sharing a mattress with Gilles Villeneuve, and Patrick Tambay saying “If those two have kids after this tonight I might as well retire now.”

Elio de Angelis played the piano.

Niki Lauda was sharing a bed with Patrese

Someone next to Rosberg was snoring until Villeneuve put a blanket over him.

They were just having fun.

In the end Balestre and Exclestone (the people in power) agreed to all the changes they wanted and it was enough for the drivers to head back to the track

[ferrarisbabygirl]

ayrton senna and alain prost during pre-season testings of the MP4/3 in jacarepaguá, rio de janeiro - brazil

[leilakaede]

Viviane, Ayrton and Alain at Monaco 1988

[rockafstw]

and another thing is that a lot of people describe Senna as having a magnetic quality to him and Prost. wasn’t immune to this. I mean it IS difficult to not be drawn to the man who is kind of actively dragging you over at the same time but still. Prost was also Fascinated by Senna. and a little scared of him. because he thought Senna wanted to destroy him. And for a time he did hate him but that was as mutual as the fascination thing.

[zhniven]

I just love how my collection of Alain and Anne-Marie photos widen every month or so!

And yes Anne-Marie looks absolutely stunning especially in the last picture (it's from their marriage day). And then there's this scarecrow.....

[just12daria]

I'm gonna say someone very controversial

Sometimes I wish the Senna family kept Ayrton's life a little more private and respected his private better. Bc for example the Schumacher family is tries their best to keep Michael's health private and I love all of them for that. And I understand that Michael is still alive just in some type of coma while Ayrton is actually dead but still that doesn't excuse. I don't think Ayrton's private life should be so known to the public. I LOVE Alain for respecting Ayrton's privacy and not revealing their private phone calls to ANYONE, (not even his family) even after his death. That's real friendship AND a huge amount of respect.

[gilles-prost]

You can say that Alain is pretty petit

[Yes i know petit means small in french and i find the word very cute]

[yyenky]

[nikisdaughter]

"When I'm in my office and I look to the left there's a photo of the two of us, and when I look to the right there's his helmet. I can't be without it, because it's part of my history in Formula 1. Our rivalry was exceptional, physically speaking, sometimes it was taken to the extreme, as everyone knows. But it was part of the game and that's why together we made history in our sport; a history that people talk about almost every day or every week. It was the battle of two drivers, it was a human battle. We were different people, with different backgrounds and almost from different generations. I can't be dissatisfied, because if you talk about my history in Formula 1, you're talking about Senna and when we talk about Senna, we're talking about Prost. I think that's really fantastic."

- Alain Prost, 2014

[silveryhill]

The spectre of Senna hung over the season. Prost says he knew he would be coming for 1994, even when he did his own deal for'93, and the thought of pairing up with Senna again was intolerable. Not because he was running scared. That's too glib.

"When he impressed me I must say it was in qualifying sometimes, I don't remember when exactly. Never in race conditions. Never. In race conditions, in the warm-up, most of the time I was quicker."

But Senna's imminent arrival did trigger his own retirement, even if it wasn't about fears over getting beaten. Why on earth would he have wanted to put himself through that stress? Last time it had been utterly exhausting. Just imagine doing it again.

"You know how it was. When Ayrton wanted to have something...and Renault wanted him. Ayrton was calling them, calling Patrick [Faure, Renault Sport's president] all the time. He even called one evening when I was with Patrick. He said to him, 'You want to have a reason why you should take me? Because God is behind me.' Patrick Faure was really impressed by that."

There are a multitude of reasons why this rivalry remains the most celebrated-and the most dire. It was primarily from Senna's obsession with Prost. Even before he made it to F1, Ayrton had zeroed in on Alain as the man not only to beat, but to obliterate.

"He told me, many times after when we talked about it. I hadn't realised how much he had focused on me before he made it to F1. His motivation was to be world champion, but his biggest motivation was to beat me."

"There were three Ayrtons for me: the one before F1 when he was looking at my races, at everything I was doing, the way I was doing it; obviously the one when we were together, inside or outside the same team; and then the one when I retired." It was this last version that Prost says he grew to like adding he wouldn't have believed it existed "if I had not known this person myself."

In that short time between Adelaide 1993 and Imola 1994, Prost saw an entirely different side to his old nemesis.

"We were talking very often, every week, twice a week. I knew everything about the Williams, everything about his position in the car, everything about what he was asking, everything about the fact he was not happy in the team, everything about his personal life. Amazing."

— interviewed by Damien Smith, Motorsport. 3. 2024

ps. it also mentioned that Alain is ready to tell his side of the story. He's finishing his own (French) documentary and has plans to write a book.

[em-exceeds-change-zearu]

dw about it. he's just like that.

og images under cut:

[christiangeistdorfer]

PATRICK TAMBAY giving a lift to "winner" ALAIN PROST at the 1985 SAN MARINO GRAND PRIX. Prost was later disqualified due to his car being 2kg underweight.