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The Prost–Senna rivalry, or Senna–Prost rivalry, was a Formula One rivalry between French racing driver Alain Prost and Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna.Widely regarded as one of the fiercest rivalries in Formula One history, [a] Prost and Senna together won seven of nine Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles between 1985 and 1993, including two whilst teammates at McLaren ...
At the start, Prost took the lead but Senna attempted to take the inside line into the first corner. The two drivers made contact, sending both off the track and into instant retirement. The crash meant that Senna had clinched the Drivers' Championship for a second time, as with one race left in the season, Prost could not overtake his points ...
Polesitter Alain Prost has stated that Ayrton Senna forced him off the track on the first lap, taking a lead he would not relinquish. Meanwhile, Prost had a run-in with Elio de Angelis , causing de Angelis to lose two laps in the pits repairing his car and relegating Prost to fifteenth by the end of the race.
Prost was passed on lap nine by Nigel Mansell, to lead a Grand Prix for the first time, when Prost's TAG engine was misfiring and he was delayed by both Corrado Fabi's stalled Brabham and Michele Alboreto's about-to-be-lapped Ferrari just before the tunnel (Prost actually hit a marshal who was pushing Fabi's car away but with no serious injury).
As in 1988, the McLaren team had been dominant throughout 1989.Going into this race, Prost had a 16-point lead in the Drivers' Championship over Senna, 76 to 60. The Brazilian had won six races to the Frenchman's four, including the previous race in Spain, but had only finished in the points on one other occasion, while Prost had only finished out of the points once all season.
Senna initially threatened to boycott the event and leave Formula One altogether. However, after lengthy talks with his family and McLaren boss Ron Dennis, he reluctantly showed up at Adelaide and immediately set the pace on Friday. Prost was determined to go out on a high note in his last Grand Prix for McLaren before joining Ferrari.
Both Berger and Prost pitted at the end of lap 1 with Berger in for a long stop for repairs and Prost for a new nose cone, his rear suspension survived intact despite its unscheduled first corner flight. Mansell disposed of Senna on lap 2, but spun on lap 5, [4] falling back to 4th place. Piquet led until suffering turbo failure on lap 16 ...
Senna moved violently over on Prost and forced him towards the pit wall at over 280 km/h (174 mph). The Frenchman nonetheless maintained his will to pass the Brazilian, not lifting off the throttle, and passed Senna into the first corner. Prost was not impressed with Senna's tactics and the pair exchanged words in the McLaren camp after the race.