MOTOR SPORT FLASHBACK
THE BEST-LOOKING GRAND PRIX CAR OF ALL TIME ...
There had never been a season like it in Formula 1 (F1), and there’s never been one since — and there probably never will be again. F1 had had ‘super teams’ before — in the early 1950s, Alfa Romeo paired Nino Farina with JuanManuel Fangio and they took the first two World Championships. Arguably, Fangio and Stirling Moss would have evolved into a super team, but they only spent 1955 together before Mercedes-benz pulled the plug. Jim Clark and Graham Hill were both world champions when they drove together for Lotus in 1967, as indeed were Denny Hulme and Emerson Fittipaldi when they were teammates at Mclaren in 1974, and then there was Alain Prost with Keke Rosberg — also at Mclaren — in 1986. However, none of these combinations quite came close to the partnership Mclaren put together for 1988 and 1989 — Prost and Ayrton Senna. It was to combine promise; domination; inter-team rivalry never before seen at this level; a feud for the ages; and ultimately, deep respect.
Alain Prost had come into F1 in 1980 with Mclaren as France’s great hope to be that nation’s first world champion. Up until then, world champions had hailed from Italy, Argentina, England, Australia, the US, Scotland, New Zealand, Austria, Brazil, and South Africa, but the country that gave us the term ‘Grand Prix’ (GP) waited — worthy Frenchmen, Jean-pierre Wimille and François Cevert, had been killed when on the cusp of greatness, while Jean Behra is still, nearly 60 years after his death, sometimes considered the second-best driver of all time to have never won a championship race. Others had shown flashes of genius from time to time, but, with Prost, a jockey-sized 25-year-old with a mop of curls, there was a feeling — Mclaren looked even worse in 1980 than it does in 2018, and when Renault made an offer for the following year, Prost switched. He won his first GP for them in 1981 and, if not for some reliability issues, should have walked the World Championship in 1982. In 1983, Prost was the leading contender in a three-way scrap for the world title, but, when the music stopped, Nelson Piquet was champion and Prost was shown the door by Renault.
The French manufacturer’s greatest asset was willingly taken back by Mclaren to join Niki Lauda for 1984. The Austrian ace had returned to F1 in 1982 after a two-year lay-off and was instantly back on the pace, but in ’83, without a turbo, Lauda — and Mclaren — struggled. Help, however, was just around the corner, and, at the end of 1983, Mclaren had debuted the new 1.5-litre turbocharged Porsche V6 financed by sponsor TAG. The German power plant had shown promise but gave no hint, off the blocks, as to the level of performance it was capable of — this would emerge during the course of 1984. Mclaren won 12 of the 16 rounds that year, with Prost taking seven wins to Lauda’s five, but the canny Austrian took the title by half a point. Prost survived the early season challenge from Ferrari, and a late surge from Williams–honda, to take the 1985 World Championship. France at last had a world champion and Prost, now 30, looked like he had plenty more in him.
He took the title again in 1986, but the
Low-slung and handsome, it was not only a purposeful looking bit of kit, but it was also to become, statistically, the most successful car over a season in F1’s history
writing was on the wall for the brilliant TAG turbo — it had been usurped by Honda’s 1.5 V6, and so Mclaren’s supremo Ron Dennis offered the Japanese a salivating offer — Prost and Senna. The intense young Brazilian had, under the highly capable wing of Dunedin-born Dick Bennetts, won the 1983 British Formula 3 Championship with such style that he was immediately thrust straight into F1 in 1984. He joined Lotus in 1985 and won on his second outing — it was probably the most outstanding debut victory in the history of F1, where he led every lap from pole and set fastest lap. The only way of topping that would have been to lap the entire field — which he did with the exception of second-placing Michele Alboreto. And, just to make it even more special, the conditions were appalling. There was no doubt that Senna would be world champion — it was merely a matter of when. Lotus had Honda engines in 1987, and so the Japanese giant was well aware of what he was capable of when Dennis made his pitch.
Mclaren completed the perfect package with the most exquisite looking car — the MP4/4. It was all new, and, contrary to what you might read elsewhere, it was designed by American Steve Nicholls. Low-slung and handsome, it was not only a purposeful looking bit of kit, but it was also to become, statistically, the most successful car over a season in F1’s history. My good mate Bob Mcmurray, a long-time Mclaren man, recalls, “Senna came at Prost’s suggestion because he believed that the team needed an equal driver — to start with, they were exceptionally competitive but not antagonistic.”
I asked Bob if, going into 1988, there was any indication of how dominant the overall combination would be. He told me that, “after the pre-season testing, there was certainly a feeling that ‘this thing’s pretty quick’ and that with those drivers we could win races on three wheels”. And so, the winning started until …
The Italian GP
Enzo Ferrari was born in 1898 and the first Italian GP was in 1922 — he’d been alive for every one of them, and, prior to cars carrying his own name winning, he’d presided over the Alfa Romeo team. He died on 14 August 1988 aged 90. By that time, the Mclaren Hondas had won all 10 of 1988’s GPS run thus far with one-twos on seven occasions. Il Commendatore would have found no consolation in the fact that the Ferraris were almost always the best of the rest — but it really was like that — Mclaren, and then the rest. Round 11 was at Spa, and it was no surprise that it was another Mclaren one-two. The first Italian GP following the passing of Ferrari was on 11 September. Another walkover was expected, with the only two questions being whether it would be Prost or Senna, and who would be third. By that stage of the season, the score was Prost 4 and Senna 7, but the Frenchman had finished second six times compared with only two to the younger man — so, forgetting dropped scores, it was Prost on 72 points, but Senna on 75.
The ever-optimistic Ferrari fans watched their men — Gerhard Berger and the local boy, Alboreto — run third and fourth, but they positively erupted when Prost dropped out just past two-thirds distance in a rare retirement. Prost had realized early on that his engine probably wasn’t going to last the distance, so he gave his engine full boost to really push Senna. This essentially forced Senna to use too much fuel in his need to stay ahead, but he then had to back off to ensure that he’d finish the race.
The Ferraris had a whiff and closed in — from half a minute behind when Prost retired to a mere five seconds adrift of Senna with two laps to go. It was while all of this was going on that the Brazilian came up to lap Jean-louis Schlesser at the Rettifilo chicane and, rather than wait to pass on the Curva Grande, went for it to ‘gap’ the two Ferraris. Schlesser moved to let Senna through, but got loose on the muck that congregates on the edge of a track deep into a race. They collided and Senna was out, his Mclaren beached on a curb. The tifosi were euphoric, as Berger beat Alboreto home by half a second. Not only did this mean that Mclaren couldn’t complete a clean sweep of the season, but it was also the team’s only double retirement. Bob recalls “a feeling in the garage of extreme disappointment: we all knew Jean-louis well, and he came down to Mclaren to apologize, even though it wasn’t his fault.”
Alain Prost had come into F1 in 1980 with Mclaren as France’s great hope to be that nation’s first world champion
Prost versus Senna
There were four races to go after Italy, and things really got exciting when Prost won next time out in Portugal. The first ‘official’ clash between the pair was still to come, infamously at Imola in April 1989, but, arguably, the genesis of the feud was in Portugal, with Prost unimpressed by a move from his teammate shortly after the start. Prost won again in Spain, meaning that, with only Japan and Australia left, and before points were deducted, it was now Prost 90 and Senna 79. But the Frenchman would be penalized for his superior finishing record — a daft system that has since been done away with. In fact, the title was determined at Suzuka in Senna’s favour, meaning that even if he won around the streets of Adelaide, which he did, Prost would not be champion. In total, he scored 105 to Senna’s 94, but the way that it worked was that Prost had to drop 18 points: the equivalent of two wins.
Other teams would have dominant seasons in the years to come — Williams-renault through much of the ’90s; Ferrari through much of the Michael Schumacher period; Sebastian Vettel with Red Bull; Mercedes in recent times; and, indeed, the combination of Mclaren and Honda in 1989 and ’90, but the deeds of the team started by ‘our Bruce’ in 1988 have never been surpassed — and probably never will be, all with the MP4/4 that Bob rates as the best-looking GP car of all time: “It just looked right — almost perfect, really.”
Back in ’38 …
Half a century before, at Monza, Mercedes-benz was looking at completing a clean sweep of the four races counting towards the 1938 European Championship. Manfred von Brauchitsch had won the French round at Reims in early July, while, later that month, Englishman Richard Seaman prevailed around the daunting Nürburgring. And then the very German (despite the Italian surname) Rudolf Caracciola had won the Swiss GP in August, the penultimate round. In northern Italy, 80 Septembers ago, it was yet another Mercedes driver who sat on pole — Hermann Lang, the former motorcycle racer and mechanic, who was looked down on by many in the team, but most so by the arrogant von Brauchitsch, who qualified second. Then came Caracciola ahead of a pair of Auto Unions — former German sidecar champion Hermann Paul Müller, and then another champion of two wheels, Tazio Nuvolari. Seaman was next, followed by a third Auto Union, before the first red car: an Alfa Romeo Tipo 316, a three-litre supercharged V16. However, the dominance of the silver cars was such that even the most optimistic locals knew there was next to no chance of a ‘home victory’. Indeed, their only hope was to cheer for Nuvolari.
The little Italian hero had suffered burns when his Ferrari-run Alfa caught fire earlier in the year and vowed never to drive for the team again. He was snapped up by Auto Union, who had lost their lead driver, Bernd Rosemeyer, in January 1938, when his car crashed during a fatal land-speed record attempt on a German autobahn. Nuvolari struggled initially to adapt to the big rear-engined V12, but, in no time, he became the only man — other than Hans Stuck and the great Rosemeyer — to truly master the unpredictable Auto Unions. Despite being 46, Nuvolari was on top of his game, and, in winning his home GP, he not only denied Mercedes-benz a grand slam, but he also further endeared himself to his adoring fans. Nino Farina, who, 12 years later, would be crowned the first world champion, was second for Alfa Romeo, albeit a lap down, while the best of the Mercs was third, three laps in arrears. However, that was enough to give Caracciola the title — his third. Sixty laps of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza had taken just over two hours and 40 minutes, compared with the German GP that had been eight-anda-bit minutes shy of four hours!
Bob Mcmurray, a long-time Mclaren man, recalls, “Senna came at Prost’s suggestion because he believed that the team needed an equal driver — to start with, they were exceptionally competitive but not antagonistic”