Alain Marie Pascal Prost, OBE, Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (born 24 February 1955) is a French former racing driver. A four-time Formula One Drivers' Champion, only Lewis Hamilton (four championships), Sebastian Vettel (four championships), Juan Manuel Fangio (five championships), and Michael Schumacher (seven championships) have equalled or surpassed his number of titles. From 1987 until 2001 Prost held the record for most Grand Prix victories and is considered as one of the greatest F1 drivers ever. Schumacher surpassed Prost's total of 51 victories at the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix. In 1999, Prost received the World Sports Awards of the Century in the motor sport category.
Prost discovered karting at the age of 14 during a family holiday. He progressed through motor sport's junior ranks, winning the French and European Formula Three championships, before joining the McLaren Formula One team in 1980 at the age of 24. He finished in the points on his Formula One début at the San Martin Autodrome in Buenos Aires, Argentina (where he took his first podium a year later) and took his first race victory at his home Grand Prix in France a year later, driving for the factory Renault team.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Prost formed a fierce rivalry mainly with Ayrton Senna, but also Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. In 1986, at the last race of the season, he beat Mansell and Piquet of Williams to the title after Mansell retired late on in the race, and Piquet was pulled in for a late precautionary pit stop. Senna joined Prost at McLaren in 1988 and the two had a series of controversial clashes, including a collision at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix that gave Prost his third Drivers' Championship. A year later at the same venue they collided again, but this time Prost, driving for Ferrari, lost out. Before the end of a winless 1991 season Prost was fired by Ferrari for his public criticism of the team. After a sabbatical in 1992, Prost joined the Williams team, prompting reigning Drivers' Champion Mansell to leave for CART. With a competitive car, Prost won the 1993 championship and retired from Formula One driving at the end of the year.
In 1997, Prost took over the French Ligier team, running it as Prost Grand Prix until it went bankrupt in 2002. From 2003 to 2012 he competed in the Andros Trophy, which is an ice racing championship, taking 38 race victories and winning the championship 3 times.
Prost employed a smooth, relaxed style behind the wheel, deliberately modeling himself on personal heroes like Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark. He was nicknamed "The Professor" for his intellectual approach to competition. Though it was not a name he particularly cared for, he would admit later that it was an appropriate summation of his approach to his racing. Skilled at setting up his car for race conditions, Prost would often conserve his brakes and tyres early in a race, leaving them fresher for a challenge at the end.
source: Wikipedia
The weather conditions were wretched as pole-winner Prost slithered through Sainte Devote for the first time. Ferrari’s Rene Arnoux and Derek Warwick tangled behind him, and Warwick’s Renault teammate Patrick Tambay was unable to avoid him – putting both of them out. Not a great start to the day for France…<br><br><br>Alain Prost, McLaren MP4/2, leads the start<br>Photo by: Sutton ...
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Race: 1990 Mexican Grand Prix, Mexico City<br>Car: Ferrari 641<br>There were several races that I could choose from, but if I had to pick one it would be the 1990 Mexican Grand Prix and 1986 Australian. Maybe Mexico was stronger for me.<br>The main thing was that, although the car was OK, I was struggling with the qualifying tyres. I decided to concentrate on the race set-up during qualifying ...
Schumacher is frequently quoted in the same sentence as the likes of Ayrton Senna, Juan Manuel Fangio and Lewis Hamilton as one of the all time greats, while a lot of people overlook Alain Prost, who won more titles than Senna.<br>But how do Prost and Schumacher stack up against each other? Let’s look at the stats...<br>Grands Prix started: Schumacher 306 - Prost ...
Imola was renowned for being tough on fuel consumption, and this was proved a year earlier when Elio de Angelis was one of three cars to run dry, although he still managed to salvage a podium finish. This year, he was determined to play a cannier game.<br>His Lotus-Renault teammate was the great Ayrton Senna, who was fresh off his fantastic first Grand Prix victory, at a rain-soaked Estoril ...
As a number of governments plan to outlaw the sale of petrol/diesel and hybrid cars from 2040 at the latest, Prost has questioned the political motives behind those efforts which he thinks will achieve little in reducing carbon emissions.<br>And with the costs of forcing car manufacturers to go electric putting their finances under pressure – with Honda this week admitting that the price of ...
In recent weeks the focus has shifted from challenging McLaren for fourth place to securing fifth, in the face of a strong challenge from Racing Point and Scuderia Toro Rosso.<br>The team’s hopes took a big hit after Suzuka, when it lost sixth and 10th places after its brake balance system was deemed illegal as a driver aid.<br>In Austin Daniel Ricciardo earned “best of the rest” honours ...
You’ll likely have your own favourite out of Prost and Senna, and that will probably sway your view of what transpired that day at Suzuka.<br>The simple fact of what happened is that Prost was literally not going to let Senna past, and what he did at the chicane was as ruthless a move as Senna himself – or Michael Schumacher in later years – would have made in the same situation.<br>The ...
Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg finished fourth and fifth at Monza, scoring 22 points between them and closing the gap to McLaren in the battle for fourth place in the world championship.<br>The team had scored just 15 points in the six races that followed Montreal, where the yellow cars finished sixth and seventh.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Monza result made F1 feel like "a different sport" ...
In an emotional interview ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix the day after Hubert was killed in an F2 crash, Prost also revealed that the Renault team had only yesterday agreed a 2020 programme for the Renault junior driver.<br>Prost, who as Renault’s non-executive director had overseen Hubert’s recent progress, said that the tragedy was especially difficult for him to deal with because of how ...
Prost was appointed earlier this month as a member of the board of Renault Sport Racing Ltd, as a direct replacement for Renault Group executive Thierry Bollore. The latter has left his role with the F1 team as he has taken on extra responsibilities on the road car side since becoming CEO of the parent company after Carlos Ghosn resigned amid controversy in January.<br>Four-time F1 world champion ...
F1's current rules include V6 turbo-hybrid engines that boast impressive efficiency and electrical power, but have been criticised for the noise compared to previous-generation V8s and V10s.<br>Ahead of this weekend's 1,000th F1 race, several of its leading figures have discussed the history of the world championship and assessed its future for AUTO, the magazine produced by the FIA.<br>Prost ...
Prost, who is a special advisor to the French manufacturer, believes that the former Red Bull Racing driver will bring useful knowledge to the team.<br>The Australian, who will partner Nico Hulkenberg, won seven races with Renault power over the past five seasons.<br>"We are very happy with the drivers we had in 2018, that's the first thing we must say," Prost told Motorsport.com. "We're very ...
Prost says that going ahead of Ferrari rival four-time champion Sebastian Vettel in the record books spurred Hamilton on this year, and that won't apply in the future. Prost still believes that Hamilton can go on to match seven-time title winner Michael Schumacher, but he will have to take it a step at a time. Read Also: Why Hamilton might not trump Schumacher’s F1 ...
Alain Prost, Williams FW15C Photo by: Sutton Images Twenty-five years ago, Alain Prost won his fourth Formula 1 World Championship to the deafening silence of the masses. It seemed no one even cared, far less celebrated. Why such a muted response? Well, looking back now, it seemed the problem was a combination of all these factors: (1) There had been an air of inevitability about ... ...
“I’m not going to celebrate like some people,” says Alain Prost of the anniversary of Ayrton Senna's death at Imola on May 1 1994. “I can answer these questions about him, no problem – he was an exceptional guy – but I just don't see it the same way as the other guys do.”To understand why, you have to appreciate the background of their shared history: Prost and Senna fought out what ...
McLaren will switch to the French power units next year after three disappointing seasons with Honda.Some observers have questioned why Renault would want to supply its power unit to another major team when it already faces competition from Red Bull, but Prost sees only benefits."It will make pressure, for sure," Prost told Motorsport.com. "Because we will have one more competitor in ...
Sainz has been loaned to Renault for the end of this season and 2018, replacing Jolyon Palmer, and he remains under contract to Red Bull until the end of 2020.Prost said Sainz's debut for Renault in last weekend's US Grand Prix, where he finished seventh while teammate Nico Hulkenberg retired, was a perfect example of why the team wanted to make a driver switch mid-season to boost its ...
However, Prost confirmed that he would not have let Buemi out of his Formula E contract to race full-time for Toro Rosso in 2018, and that may have scuppered the Swiss driver’s chances of running in Austin.Ultimately, Red Bull preferred to take Brendon Hartley - a driver who would be available race in 2018, given his current employer Porsche's impending exit from the World Endurance ...
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