Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.
Comment of the day
The Mexican Grand Prix is heading for a contract extension but @Stefmeister regrets the changes to its track when it returned to the calendar a decade ago:
In 1992 news of the Mexican GP remaining on the calendar would have been something I was thrilled about as that layout of this circuit was one of my favourites.
Now however I just can’t get all that excited about the prospect because I think they completely ruined the circuit with the alterations and took away every single element which once made it such a great one.
And it’s not just the wonderful Peraltada been replaced by the stadium it’s everything else they changed. You go back and watch the old track and every corner has a nice flow to it and the Esses are all long radius where each flows lovely into the next which is faster than the prior and it’s fun to watch and challenging drive.
The modern layout is not necessarily an awful track but it’s just a very uninspiring one which has lost its character and soul and is simply in no way as great as what was butchered to create it.
@Stefmeister
Join in this weekend’s Caption Competition here:
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to El Gordo!
On this day in motorsport
- 82 today: Helmut Marko, who won the 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Porsche shared with Gijs van Lennep and started nine grands prix but retired after being struck in the eye by a stone at Clermont-Ferrand in 1972, and lost the sight in it
- 50 years ago today Jochen Mass won the Spanish Grand Prix which was shortened after a crash killed five spectators. F1 never visited Montjuic Park again. Lella Lombardi became the only woman to score in a grand prix, taking half a point
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Gusm.ai
27th April 2025, 1:17
Sometimes people like to do GOAT list and Prost is not properly ranked.
I came to this realization as one remember that Prost found a way to get 3 WDC (and another later) racing against a murders row: Lauda, Piquet, Senna.
The “weakest” he faced was Mansell.
Maybe I want to see the world burn saying that, but Prost’s 3 championships seemed more meaningful than the almost 20 Schumacher, Vettel, Hamilton got.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
27th April 2025, 2:11
No doubt, prost had great competition in the drivers he faced and he was close to being a 7 times world champion, he’s one of the best; if he doesn’t make the top 5 of all time on average he’s underrated.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 4:45
At risk of playing my broken record, I am unsure of my pick as the greatest F1 driver. It’s either Prost or Schumacher. I think Schumacher combined the aggressive commitment of Senna with the hard work and analytical approach of Prost, finding speed through both risk and intellect.
I just think that, given what Prost had seen in terms of accidents, the level of natural speed he allowed himself to use guaranteed his safety. Beautifully smooth, in control and a fair racer. Wonderful!
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 4:16
One thing Lauda, Piquet and Prost all did was to find a way to beat the young upstart in the same machinery. Lauda beat Prost, Piquet beat Mansell and Prost beat Senna. Of these, the Piquet achievement seems less significant as Prost had no trouble from Mansell as a team mate. Piquet also confounds comprehension due to his profound drop off in form, in spite of Lauda rating him as the most complete driver in the grid at the time of his retirement.
Lauda mentions his physical conditioning when he made his comeback and thought he was in as good a shape as ever when he got going. Prost’s fitness level is shown in his results in l’Étape du Tour de France. They were both able to adjust to different kinds of car. Their approach – being usefully self-critical and identifying what needed changing to improve is something that is essential when there is a crisis like a faster rival or a car you aren’t naturally in tune with. We see this problem time and time again – it troubled Senna; may be troubling Lewis and Lando; I believe Max may face this in the future. You have to be prepared to see your faults to improve sometimes (I am unsure how Max will react if this happens before he retires – he is methodical, but will he be able to step back and cooly analyse the problem when the new guy is just faster?). This is different from Lando just putting himself down.
There’s a funny interview of Prost by Nico Rosberg. He’s clearly a fan and means well. The funny part is, I think, at his expense. Prost mentions some of the ways he would analyse a problem and make some change to help his performance. Rosberg then beams that he had the same approach before mentioning things that might be of dubious use. Not quite at the level of carrying a lucky charm, but not far off it. I probably shouldn’t mention that it’s disappointing when superstition creeps back into minds, taking the place of cold, hard empirical evidence. Since confidence is important in F1, maybe some of these things did help Rosberg. If they came into contact with a physical constraint, like a brick wall, the wall would win, however!
João Macedo
27th April 2025, 7:41
Prost beat Senna? Senna beat Prost, fair and square, in 1988, their first year as teammates. Prost only beat Senna thanks to that little big help from his friend Balestre in Japan, 1989.
Marcel
27th April 2025, 8:43
As I am fan of neither, if you look at it rationally, Senna would never have been WDC in 89. Even if he wasn’t disqualified in Japan and got the 9 points (and Prost 0 point), Senna would still have ended 7 point behind Prost in the championship.
João Macedo
27th April 2025, 10:11
Marcel, Japan was not the last race of the calendar, there was Australia after that. In 1989 only the best 11 results counted so Prost would end with 76 points if he didn’t score in Australia and Senna would have 78 by winning in Japan and Australia. I do agree that it was a long shot but possible nevertheless. Anyway, in the end Prost got the title with 4 wins while Senna won 6 of the 7 races he finished (not counting Japan, of course, thanks to Prost’s pal, Balestre. And yes, Senna was my idol.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 10:29
Senna should have been disqualified for receiving outside assistance. It was incredible that this did not happen and the stewards let it go. His disqualification was the correct decision. The Senna film is not an accurate portrayal of what happened.
Prost outscored Senna in 1988. The rules only allowed a certain number of races to count, which benefited the less consistent Senna. Still, those were the rules.
In 1990 Senna admitted to using his car as a weapon in a move that should have led to a lifetime ban. Prost could have beaten him in lesser machinery that time…
Anyway, he did it once officially. That is enough. Since Senna wanted Prost to stay on past his retirement, I think he felt he had not beaten him to his satisfaction.
When Senna was faced with the younger Schumacher, he didn’t seem to have an answer.
Tommy Scragend
28th April 2025, 11:17
Receiving outside assistance was allowed if the car was in a dangerous position, which it was.
Senna was disqualified for missing the chicane, which as he had been stationary for some time and had therefore gained no advantage from missing the chicane, was utterly contrived.
Senna was not only faced with a younger Schumacher, but a Williams that had issues and a Benetton that had a few bits of kit on it that it shouldn’t have had. And how you can come to the conclusion that Senna “didn’t seem to have an answer” on the back of one race in Brazil I don’t know. Senna was taken out at the first corner at Aida, and then was Imola. Senna had pole in all three races in 1994 until he was killed.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
27th April 2025, 15:42
Came Australia the final results of the Suzuka race weren’t official as the protest McLaren and Senna had launched was not yet officially dismissed. So Senna raced as he still had a chance for the title. He retired and the title was gone before the disqualification was confirmed.
NM
28th April 2025, 6:46
Because of a weird rule, Prost outscored Senna in 1988
some racing fan
28th April 2025, 20:02
Senna also crashed at the last race at Adelaide. So no, he wouldn’t have won the championship in ‘89 even if he hadn’t been DQ’ed at Suzuka.
Senna lost the championship previously when he retired from 4 straight races and crashed into Mansell at Estoril.
anon
27th April 2025, 8:15
An Sionnach, Piquet took part in an interview a number of years ago for Brazilian TV where he talked about, amongst other topics, his time at Williams.
Part of it touched on his drop in performance in later years, which he put down to injuries caused by crashing during qualifying for the 1987 San Marino GP. Whilst he downplayed the concussion injuries he had at the time, he admitted in that interview that he’d had problems with his vision for some time after the accident and had been secretly receiving further medical treatment that season (he’d feared that, if either Frank Williams or Sid Watkins found out, they’d order him to stop racing on medical grounds). He then went on to suggest that he’d never quite fully recovered from those injuries, which was why his performances dropped after that.
That said, Piquet did also discuss another aspect about the 1987 season, which was the question of whether some of the parties involved were biased. Piquet said that he thought Williams were biased in Mansell’s favour, in part because he was leaving at the end of the season and Mansell was staying, but he then confirmed what was strongly suspected at the time, which was Honda were trying to rig the championship in his favour.
According to Piquet, the reason why Honda wanted him to win was because Honda had been expanding their operations in Brazil at the time and they thought that backing him would be great for their marketing material in Brazil (Honda had around 75-80% of the market for motorcycles in Brazil at the time and wanted to maintain that dominant position).
As an aside, he then commented that, after 1987, it was Senna that then became Honda’s favourite and suggested that, whatever Honda might have claimed whilst at McLaren, Honda had also been trying to help Senna beat Prost at McLaren because of the potential marketing benefits for them if Senna won.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 11:17
Yes, this is good information, concisely delivered.
I know about Piquet’s crash and his problem with his depth perception. I think he was clearly a great driver, but am unsure how much the crash affected him and what the injuries were. This is because Piquet has said so many things. I respect him as a driver but take everything he says with a pinch of salt.
In his favour, Lauda said Piquet and Pironi were towers of strength during the drivers’ strike. A lot of the drivers, particularly the younger ones, were scared of the consequences. The Arrows team principle showed up with a local tough and the police. They had to take care to avoid direct physical conflict that would give the police justification to arrest people so they used a piano to stop them from forcing their way in through the door so there was no personal contact.
Piquet’s time at Williams was interesting. He was supposed to have a number one deal as he brought the Honda engine with him and took it away to Lotus when he left. There was a complication as Frank Williams had not been around to enforce the agreement between them due to his accident. It was potentially another example of poor management in the team as Patrick Head was there. Their much later leaving Newey out of decisions was what annoyed him into leaving. One irony of Piquet-Mansell at Williams was that Piquet had done a lot of the testing for the active suspension. Mansell didn’t trust it after his experiences testing it for Lotus. Piquet won a race in 1987 in the active car before the team decided it wasn’t ready and stopped offering it as an option. How much did Mansell owe Piquet for his 1992 win in the active car? I know more work was done in it between 1987 and 1992. It’s more of a question mark.
The favouritism of Senna by Honda and Ron Dennis has had much written about it. It’s interesting to hear Piquet’s view on this. I knew they both came with the engine around then. Dennis confirmed to Lauda when he was directly asked that he was out in the cold against Prost. This was because Lauda had Dennis over a barrel on salary… although he did personally secure sponsor backing for that crazy amount. Dennis seemed to resent this anyway, even though he had courted Lauda for the comeback. When Prost got fired from Renault for criticising the car (like he later did at Ferrari), he had no options so late in the season and Dennis swooped in to get him for very little. Dennis seemed to have been petty and had his favourites. Typically direct, Lauda invited Dennis to join him on his boat and confronted him about the favouritism, which Dennis confirmed. Lauda did not consider Prost to have solicited this favouritism – it was more due to the circumstances of their usefulness versus cost. Prost seemed straight-up and even admitted to having slept poorly suffering from nerves before the 1984 decider at Estoril where Lauda took the championship by a half point with his second place to Prost.
Prost later fell out of favour when Senna arrived. He has said that he lobbied for Senna to be hired as he wanted the best. Later, he would see the infamous message from Honda on Senna’s engines – that they were specially for him. Prost has refused to consider this clear evidence that Senna had different engines, however.
I believe Lewis Hamilton became a favourite of Dennis much later. I may have generated enough clicks for RaceFans without getting into that, though!
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 23:06
Team principal, of course!
F1 frog (@f1frog)
27th April 2025, 11:12
The fact that Prost faced three former world champions, and two future world champions in Niki Lauda, Keke Rosberg Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill, and overall outscored all five of them is quite extraordinary. His 1986 season I think is perhaps the greatest in history bar Jim Clark in 1965. But I only rank him ninth overall because I just don’t think Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Schumacher, Hamilton or Verstappen would have been outpaced by Senna as comfortably as he was. Yes, Prost had excellent mechanical sympathy and was better at getting cars to the end than Senna was but really, Senna was much better than Prost in 1989 and essentially lost that title due to bad luck. It was closer in 1988 but Senna was still the better driver. If we think of a driver’s raw speed as their ‘natural talent’, then Prost got more out of his natural talent than any other driver in history, but he was just lacking in a bit of pace and is the least complete out of the greats of Formula 1, so I wouldn’t say he is underrated.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 11:28
Did you see Prost set the pole lap and charge from a lower position to win the karting race against Senna, Herbert, Panis and others after his retirement in 1993? It was a team race with young drivers and Prost’s team had messed up so they weren’t leading when he got into the kart for the final stint.
Okay, Senna did retire from the race, but perhaps that is also representative of their story?
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 11:37
Also, I believe Senna bought the Mercedes that many of the F1 grid raced each other with in the 1984 race of champions. He practiced extensively in it and took the race seriously, while most of the others didn’t. Prost and Reutemann still qualified ahead of Senna; Prost on pole by half a second. He was forced off by Senna at the start (of course). Lauda didn’t arrive at the event until later so missed practice, only qualified 14th and was catching Senna at the end, finishing just over a second behind him. Niki had never driven the car before. Senna owned one.
F1 frog (@f1frog)
27th April 2025, 12:37
It is unsurprising that Prost did so well in those races because he is one of the greatest drivers there’s ever been, and in 1984 was the clear best driver. I would definitely rate him a step above the likes of Lauda, Alonso or Ascari. But in comparison to Senna, their performances in F1 as teammates with the best car hold a lot more weight than driving karts or saloon cars, and Senna was just a lot faster than Prost, if harder on his cars and more error prone.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 23:04
I appreciate your opinion and acknowledge that James Hunt made similar comments at the time. Thanks!
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 23:17
My feeling (speculation) is that Senna did have a different engine at McLaren. Ties in with Piquet’s comments on Honda and Brazil, plus the fact that Prost should have won the 1990 season in lesser machinery with a fair application of the rules.
On qualifying in F1 there was that time Prost got annoyed with the talk that Senna was faster, went out and set the pole lap, changed into his jeans and said that was as fast as he could go and he wouldn’t do another lap. Senna could not match it. Prost always set himself up for the race rather than qualifying. Before and after the 1989 race at Suzuka he warned Senna that he would no longer be barged out of the way. “Move or we crash” made Senna look better than he was, and it didn’t work out for him when his opponent didn’t sit there and take it. He met his match with Schumacher.
Ferdi
27th April 2025, 11:37
He was a snake and won mostly politically.
An Sionnach
27th April 2025, 23:12
Do you mean Prost or Senna? I don’t think this comment would be fair comment for either of them, even though I think Senna was more politically astute. Senna’s charge that Prost was political is not correct and has been refuted by McLaren team members. Prost was fired from Renault and Ferrari for complaining about the car. He was also edged out of McLaren as Senna embedded himself as team favourite. It was Senna who was more politically astute. Since Prost was in discussions to take on more team responsibilities at Ferrari before his firing, perhaps his directness and lack of political nous was his greatest failing. Schumacher didn’t always speak his mind at Ferrari and sometimes covered for team mistakes. He was better able to bring the team along with him. Prost’s career before Ferrari and his 1990 season should have been impressive enough for him to be able to do something similar, but I don’t think it was in his DNA to not be frank and straightforward. I appreciate this, but perhaps with more diplomacy he might have achieved what Schumacher did at Ferrari… before Schumacher.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
30th April 2025, 18:28
lol. 1 you almost certainly weren’t there then and 2. you definitely got your ‘opinion’ from the Senna drama
BenHur
27th April 2025, 23:13
RRLe Professeur Prost is definitely in my top 3 for GOAT, up these with El Chueco Fangio and Jim Clark, but there is one thing he was not good enough and it was driving in the wet. Ayrton Mother-of-all-Bullies Senna was a disgrace as a driver and never had a clue about what sportsmanship was about, but they were definitely better in the rain. Does not make my top 10 for GOAT though.
BenHur
27th April 2025, 23:15
Le Professeur Prost is definitely in my top 3 for GOAT, up there with El Chueco Fangio and Jim Clark, but there is one thing he was not good enough and it was driving in the wet. Ayrton Mother-of-all-Bull13s Senna was a disgrace as a driver and never had a clue about what sportsmanship was about, but they were definitely better in the rain. Does not make my top 10 for GOAT though.
An Sionnach
28th April 2025, 0:52
Senna put in many incredible wet weather performances, but he did sometimes crash out. Prost had good results in the rain, but he didn’t like it, especially after Pironi hit him from behind during qualifying for the 1982 German GP. Prost was driving slowly back the the pits and Pironi was doing 280kph.
One thing to remember about Senna’s impressive Donnington win in 1993 was that the Williams active suspension didn’t work very well in the wet and that the Benettons (so Schumacher) did not have active suspension at all. The next race, the San Marino GP at Imola was also wet and Prost won that one by a country mile. Hill slid out and Senna retired with suspension failure. By then, Prost had already passed Senna on track twice and built up a huge lead. Of course, the Renault V10 helped here somewhat!
An Sionnach
28th April 2025, 0:53
Prost often lost positions at the start and was not very diplomatic so his mouth got him in trouble with his team sometimes.
Phil Norman (@phil-f1-21)
28th April 2025, 19:12
I recall at the time, as a young man, I always preferred Prost’s style and demeanour to Senna’s. Prost might have overall, been not quite as quick as Senna. Senna was better in the wet as well. But Prost was very consistent and still very quick. Probably more calculating in some ways I think and a driver who was less about raw passion and more about preparation and consistency. I think his reputation compared to Senna’s has suffered in recent years. But he won four championships when it was more difficult to win them and against a raft of top opponents. I think overall I rate him very near the top. Certainly higher than Schumacher because he was not a dirty driver like him. Schumacher was great but devious and would stop at nothing to win. You cannot trust people like that.
Coventry Climax
27th April 2025, 1:35
Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, near Portimão. Now there’s a nice track, and certainly when compared to this new madness in Madrid.
Nice to see they aren’t overly fussy about tracklimits too, in the Euroformula.
mc4ren (@mc4ren)
27th April 2025, 6:38
Really hoping some kind a disaster (or should I say a miracle?) stops the Madrid nonsense. A horrible circuit which sadly shows the direction Madrid and F1 are pointing at.
AlexS
27th April 2025, 10:13
Indeed, another prison race track.
Ferdi
27th April 2025, 11:40
Incredible indeed. They rather want us to watch fences, fences, fences around a soulless track. Anything for money. Who cares about sports or beauty. Let’s bring in some more of those dollars for our invisible shareholders. Liberty represents the US at his finest.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage- Special Unhinged Edition (@davedai)
27th April 2025, 12:00
@gusm, Esploratore, An Sionnach, Marcel, anon, F1 frog,
Nice discussion. Thanks, I enjoyed it immensely.
An Sionnach
28th April 2025, 0:55
I don’t think it’s a resolvable discussion. It would be nice if someone tried to make a more accurate version of Prost’s story. Not one that’s insultingly inaccurate like the Senna stuff. Just any genuine attempt at a fair representation of events.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage- Special Unhinged Edition (@davedai)
28th April 2025, 5:57
Yeah I agree. But I did mean there were different views presented without the negative buzz words. I did enjoy the sensible, restrained differences in the responses.
Mark Z.
27th April 2025, 20:06
Good COTD. The modifications to Mexico City are all the more glaring considering the rise of tracks like Jeddah and Madrid. Since the FIA are apparently satisfied that those tracks are safe, with fast sweeping sections with zero runoff and corners with oval-like banking, there should have been no reason for the esses or the Peraltada to be altered.
Alesici
29th April 2025, 10:25
When will the world realise that Prost was totally overrated? Prost weighed 58kg vs Senna’s 72 and Mansell’s 82kg. Up until roughly 1994, certainly after Prost’s retirement, the minimum allowable weight rules were changed from only the car (500kg) to the car and driver combined (roughly 580kg?). Certainly by the late 80s (if not before), the leading teams were able to get down to the 500kg limit, such that Prost ran with a 24kg advantage over Mansell. That’s equivalent to about 0.7 seconds per lap, particularly if you consider all factors, e.g. reduced tyre wear. No wonder it looked like Prost wasn’t pushing, and rarely made mistakes… It’s a mystery why I seem to be the only person on the internet who’s figured this out.
Nowadays the teams are regularly risking disqualification for skimming the edge of the 798 kg limit including driver. Proportionally accounting for the much heavier cars nowadays. Prost’s % weight unfair advantage over Mansell would be equivalent to 33.5kg today. It’s like each race he had a minute head start over Mansell.