‘If Senna was a flamethrower, Prost was a scalpel. One burned everything. The other made exact clinical incisions.’
Alain was born in Lorette, France, in 1955. He wanted to be a footballer, but thank God he had discovered karting.
Come 1975, he won the French senior karting championship. A sign of things to come. Like a GCSE in driving brilliance.
In 1980, he made an F1 debut with McLaren.
He looked like an accountant and drove like a surgeon with a V6 scalpel.
Read on to meet the Frenchman who beat everyone, mostly by thinking faster than they drove.
Alain Prost won four world titles, 51 grand prix, and possibly more arguments than any driver in history.
He wasn’t loud, didn’t crash often, and made speed look like a spreadsheet.
Senna raged. Alain calculated.
Blindfolded car tests? Check.
He called a Ferrari a ‘truck?’ Also, check.
Between 1985 and 1986, he had back-to-back world titles. Smooth, calm, unspectacular.
A bit like a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
1989, he claimed his third title after that infamous tangle with Senna at Suzuka.
Drama. Headlines. The whole Netflix special, 30 years early.
He joined Ferrari from 1990 to 1991. He got sacked after calling the car ‘a truck, ‘ which, in fairness, it was.
In 1993, he won a final title with Williams. He retired before Senna could return the favour.
As to Style? Think tactical warfare—preferred brake discs to boxing gloves.
‘To finish first, you must first finish,’ he once said, probably over a croissant.
And Now? Alain is an F1 elder statesman, pilot, knight, electric racing pioneer… and still smarter than all of us.
‘Watching Alain win a race was like watching someone disarm a bomb with tweezers and a stopwatch – calm, precise, terrifyingly effective.’
