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formulinos · 4 years

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Hyperfixation Corner | Rush 2 - Senna x Prost Jean-Marie Balestre

"We had, in my opinion, two very bad [championships] in 1989 and 1990. They were a consequence of unbelievable politics." This week, we're going to take a peep at the beef that any other racing duo ever wished they had, and how a third party took it way too far.

prologue: guess who? part 1: [hayley williams voice] how did we get here? part 2: xv fuji television japanese grand prix part 3: high above orders part 4: déjà vu, or xvi fuji television japanese grand prix epilogue: if you no longer go for a gap that exists

Let's go on this deep dive again, shall we?

Prologue: Guess Who?

Before I start today’s story, let’s refresh our minds on the key players and where were they at the time, shall we?

Alain Prost: half of McLaren's star duo, Prost had managed to win back to back titles before a shit 4th place in 1987 (for his standards at least). Known as "The Professor" for his technical knowledge and pragmatic racing technique, Alain was the water for the quota of F1 fans who thirsted for Frenchmen and were part of tumblr's teacher crush community.

Ayrton Senna: SENNA 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 had made a name for himself by overdriving his cars in his previous stints in Toleman and Lotus, managing a miraculous 3rd in 87 (ahead of Prost). The yang to Prost's yin, Senna was all about being fast as fuck and the romanticism of pushing to the limit every single time.

Ron Dennis: the glue that held the McLaren drivers together, except the glue was more like lube. Dennis was team principal and in fact, McLaren's owner since the early-80s, getting their shit back together and cementing it as one of the best teams on the grid. He got the dream team in Senna/Prost and then it turned out the dream was a nightmare induced by superdosing on Ambien.

Jean-Marie Balestre: President of the FISA (Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile), the FIA subsection that was responsible for regulating all competitions since 1978. He was also the FIA president (a bit useless to have one president for both federations then? whatever). He was quite notorious for being authoritarian and not taking criticism, to the point where in the earlier 80s there was a big scrape between his crew and the teams over who got to control F1. This became known as the FISA-FOCA war and it's the reason why we have Concorde Agreements to this day. I think he legit felt he was the Don Corleone of F1, but he was more of a Michael type without being hot as 70s Al Pacino. (He also was part of the French SS during WWII, which means he was a Nazi, but he said he was a hidden agent for the Allies, anyway.)

Part 1: [Hayley Williams voice] HOW DID WE GET HERE?

In order to talk 1989, we need to have lived 1988 first: Senna joined McLaren - supposedly, by Prost's recommendation - and brought with him a very sexy Honda engine. The result of this unholy union was the MP4/4, sponsored probably by Satan himself and winning 15/16 races, 15/16 pole positions and 10/16 fastest laps. So, it's clear that they had the best car, but also with the two best drivers of their time, who managed to get the best out of it?

Senna. It was Senna, who managed to win one (1) more race than his teammate. This is how Prost looked after the guy he personally asked for the team to hire made him and everyone else in the grid look like a bitch:

Needless to say, the Gatorade was BOILING for the 1989 season and these two were about to add the ramen and cook one of the most darksided meals F1 fans would ever have. Prost was getting into his second year dry spell, Senna wanted to defend his title, one was French, the other was Brazilian and their team boss was Ron Dennis. I would like to thank God for her infinite wisdom because you just KNOW she was thinking about that when she asked for the tiktaalik to leave water.

What I like SO much about Senna/Prost is that they were on a mission, they took no time. This isn't a case of a relationship slowly deteriorating over multiple years, they were down for a spectacular crash and burn. Through the whole season shit would happen, one got a podium, the other retired, one talked shit, the other replied, people got dragged in the middle, etc. If I do a race-per-race recap, we'll be here until the next pandemic starts, so I'll just highlight 4 key moments of the whole lead-up to the title decision: San Marino, Monaco, Mexico and Italy.

San Marino: McLaren got a 1-2 in qualis and the lads shook hands over the agreement that whoever got the better start would get their lead respected at the first corner and they wouldn't be challenged later on. Race starts, Ayrton gets ahead and Alain in second etc, but 3 laps later Gerhard Berger goes into flames on Tamburello (yep, that one), red flagging the session. Berger, if you're reading this by the way, thank you for your cooperation through 1989, wouldn't have been the same without you. They restart the session and this time, Prost gets the lead. This turns into the Ross/Rachel "We were on a break" of F1, because in Senna's POV he should be entitled to the lead since he had the better start on that first lap before the accident, while Prost believed that his was the lead because he got the best restart. Either way, the sirens were off and the McLaren employees got the presidential alert: THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING message on their screens.

The clowns obviously fought into Tosa (turn 3), Senna took the lead (AGAIN) and won the race. Prost got second and of course the mood was just very friendly and chill on the podium

Monaco: Prost went on the news to spill the Imola tea, adding that he and Senna weren't on speaking terms. John Hogan, the lad responsible for Marlboro's F1 presence as we know it, actually confirmed that they had a deal made. Senna replied with his side of things and even added "well, anyway, we fought on turn 3, not on turn 1" AS IF THAT WOULD MAKE IT ANY BETTER LMAO. Actually, I have to stan Alain because that whole season Alain would basically leave the car straight into the journalists and just let it all out like this

The race itself started with another McLaren 1-2, Senna got the lead again and Prost was left in second to deal through the race with other men having their personal side quests: Piquet and de Cesaris had a lil clash after they got each other and that caused some traffic that affected Prost more than Senna. Not only that, but Prost's former teammate Arnaux decided that was the perfect moment to get some lil revenge, a lil vendetta, and refused to let him past even though there were blue flags everywhere (he later claimed there was some car issues and James Hunt called bullshit on live television lol). The race ended w Senna 1-2 Prost and the lead that had been built by the Brazil fiasco was done

Mexico: This was just RACE 4 OF THE YEAR and we already had Civil War in McLaren. Both of the drivers had even more to fight for - Senna wanted to keep his pole-win streak and Prost wanted to break it - and Alain was openly dissatisfied. They had the 1-2 again with Senna ahead and it was up to them to battle for the win. Prost had the pace to catch up to Senna and they were in the same car, but by the end, Senna had to allow Prost to unlap himself. Why was that so weird? Well, I'd like to give you a lil word on air.

TECHNICAL BREAK - AIR

As much as I would love to, we don't live in a world of nothing. We can't see it, but air *is* there and in the world of Formula 1, there are two challenges: how to get over it and how to use it to your advantage. This is where Aerodynamics kick in with the concepts of drag, downforce and slipstream.

Before I talk about anything, yep, I know. My Photoshop stills are unrivalled. Back to the subject, this is a lovely picture of Stoffel Vandoorne driving the MP4/5 in Japan that I chose to show you the different axis that drag and downforce act. These are both caused by air resistance, that is, air pushing you back somehow because it feels that you're being too cocky. While downforce (orange) acts pushing you back to the ground, drag (blue) tries to send you backwards, and these two inevitably come together due to the nature of the wings, the flaps and the inclination that allows the passage of air through it.

Wings aren't just the thing they keep talking about at Red Bull. Their task is to optimize downforce since the whole pushing you to the ground thing is actually pretty nice and helpful when you get to turns, because the more grip you have the less sbinallas you do. Grip does make you slower on straights though, which is why we hear so much about some cars having a better set up for tracks that have a lot of consecutive turns while others do better on tracks with huge straights. Drag is an inevitable consequence of this search for downforce because since the wings need to be inclined to optimise it, they create air "tunnels" through which it flows under the body of the car, giving it more surface to try to push it back.

We have these two settled, but no man is an island and F1 isn't just about one car doing 50+ laps by himself - even though Mercedes tries to do that every time. When you consider air, you also need to consider how one car behaves behind another. This is where slipstream (and dirty air while we're at it) get in the equation

Slipstreams and dirty air fall on the same principle: one car suffers the impacts of air changes when they're right behind another. For slipstreams, this happens on straights, when the car in front ends up working as a "shield". Roughly, its body works like a deflector sending the disturbed air - aka the air that's all hot and messy and bothered - resulting in a pocket of clean air for the one behind. This grants the car behind less drag and more stability to attack, making it faster than the car in front usually.

While the context is similar in dirty air situations, no it isn't. Dirty air is more pronounced in turns, where the same deflection principle that benefitted the car behind in slipstreams actually hurts it. Now, a greater chunk of the disrupted air goes straight to it and the inverse happens, impacting both drag and downforce properties of the car since as much as you fine tune your car, it can't predict how fucked up the air will be in these moments.

UPDATE [02/03/2021]: my Fluids Mechanics teacher just shared a small cool video that shows very well the way air "wraps" itself around the car and how dirty air really disrupts the flow behind it. Here's a link

END OF TECHNICAL BREAK

You might be asking yourself "OK, Ana, but it's just wind and air". No, this isn't WW84. Here's the thing: Prost's data showed that he had greater pace on turns than Senna, even though he was suffering the dirty air effects. However, whenever they got to the straights, EVEN with slipstream, my guy just couldn't overtake his nemesis. Things got even worse when McLaren revealed later on that Prost's setup had less wing than Senna's, which means he was genuinely supposed to be faster on the straights because he had less downforce gripping him.

If that was the only fuck up then they would have had a 1-2 close enough, but Prost did get lapped at some point because the gods of racing though this man deserved to suffer more and thus someone in McLaren fucked up the tyre compounds during his pitstop and he got even more slowed down until they changed it again. Ron Dennis publicly apologised after the race bc it had been such a disaster, but Alain was livid and he said the thing "listen, if I wasn't able to overtake in the slipstream with the same car, it's because it's not the same car. my engine sucks and i'm being sabotaged". Honda man said later on that Senna's weird braking/revving up technique was why he got more out of the engine than Prost's smooth operations but the damage was done, it was civil war and Prost was resolute in leaving McLaren.

Italy: After Mexico, things got a little more settled down as the lads started alternating their streaks. If Prost won, Senna retired, the 1-2s happened but they were more rare and Senna had a bad streak that lasted for 4 races. In Italy this would happen again with Prost winning and Senna dropping out on lap 44 due to engine issues - that actually happened quite frequently with the Honda V10.

It gets funny when Prost, who had announced previously in July he was quitting McLaren, decided to announce just before M O N Z A he would race for Ferrari in 1990. It gets even funnier when you consider that Ferrari were having one of their worst championships ever with Berger not DNF-ing in only 3 races and Mansell not doing that much better (if you thought 2020 was bad, this was worse. WAY worse. Good news though is that when they did manage to make it to the end, they usually ended up on the podium. Usually. There were some DSQs). Plus, Senna was persona non grata in Italy because he apparently had said no to Ferrari so he could join McLaren. So, for the Tifosi, the Prost win was as close as a Ferrari win as it could get. And in return, Alain gave the people what they wanted. Literally. he threw his trophy to the Tifosi who went wild.

Ron Dennis was SHOOKETH. Not only they had the trophy rule - originals stay with the teams, replicas go to the pilots - but this was a brass act of defiance. My guy had no respect for the boss anymore. It was great, honestly. Apparently Won-Won got mad and threw the constructor's trophy on the ground in front of Prost and stormed off. From that point onwards, these two ALSO stopped talking.

Part 2 - XV Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix

Back then, F1 counted the 11 best results. Senna had the most wins, but also the most retirements out of these two. That way, the mathematical standings said that he had to win Suzuka in order to keep the title battle alive up until the last round. If he failed to do so, Prost was champion. Tensions were super duper high, no doubt about it.

At that point they knew that the McLaren was the superior car anyway and that it was going to do super well in Suzuka. Prost - his mind ugh it amazes me! - had a true galaxy brain think. He knew that the trick to win was to get over Senna on the first lap and build a gap, since the rest wouldn't be able to match them throughout the race. So, his side of the garage and he decided to remove his Gurney flap, a little tab that sits on the top of the rear wing and redirects the air flow that's going through the wing surface, usually used for the purposes of downforce. For the MP4/5 setup, the Gurney flap granted more downforce and removing it meant more speed on the straights. You can see in the picture below that there is a very tiny black thing in Senna's rear wing (the car behind) that isn't there in Prost's, and that's the Gurney flap.

I am Brazilian, I stan Senna and have very mixed feeling on Williams solely due to my mom's influence as a Senna stan - she even put a black flag on our balcony in 1994 after that thing happened - but I do have to say Prost was so funny I get why people were mad back then but this is just. They took the Gurney flap out after qualis. This is so funny. The profile that that has!!!!The plan worked, and sincerely, even better than expected because the Prost crew were working on the low during Friday and Saturday, which meant Senna got the pole position without even knowing what was coming to him.

Prost just FLEW in right at the start, he just flew. Prior to the pit stops, the gap was over 5 seconds and it seemed easy peasy. A few things happened though: McLaren did good when Senna pitted and the car got more stable; Prost also started slowing down both because of traffic and also because he wanted to bridge the gap to push Ayrton to use up his tyres. All of this meant that Prost managed to open up on straights, but Senna was faster in the corners and therefore, if he wanted to win he'd have to attack on those.

Lap 46 came and with it, the decisive moment. Senna saw a gap open up in the corner right around the chicane and just lunged. Prost, did he do it, didn't he do it? To say he threw his car might be a reach - I'm just not going to affirm I think he did because of the legal implications but I will pepper in the fact I am Brazilian again - but he did act as he told the team he would and defended instead of just letting him past. F1 history was made as the two best drivers of all time back then and teammates managed to hit each other in a fucking chicane.

Prost was DONE. There was no way he could go back to the race. Senna, however by a miracle (or a jest of the Gods) actually still had an engine - fucking Honda - and his damaged front wing wasn't looking that bad. He had track marshals put him back in the race and BOI. They got him on the weaving track right by the chicane. Since the other cars were shit even with all that mess he wasn't that far behind the race leader - not that hard given that 15/26 cars on track had DNF'd at that moment. So, in a brilliant display of talent and bravado, Senna won the race and took the title dispute to Adelaide.

SIKE

Part 3: High Above Orders

I would like to make it clear at this point that even though these guys have displayed legendary messy behaviour, I don't think anyone was a villain here and this was, although petty from both sides - Senna did say at the end of the Mexican Grand Prix that he won because he was "ready for two restarts, if it was necessary". shady. - just competitiveness and a lil bit of homoeroticism. The write-up so far was just to give you some context of how tense the whole season had been so far and why the next actions were REALLY shitty.

The second Senna was back on track, Prost went straight to the stewards as in his POV the move was illegal. As the race went on, they were still discussing the legality of the move, with McLaren representatives and Senna himself later on being summoned and, even more interestingly, before the podium. Yes, that meant that for 20 minutes or so people were completely in the dark, watching the incident being replayed over and over while the stewards mulled over who would take the race victory: Senna or Nanini (runner-up).

Jean-Marie Balestre finally comes in (both metaphorically in this text and in reality as he was in the stewards briefings with McLaren and the two drivers). The decision taken by FISA was to disqualify Senna based on Article 56 of their regulations that stated that this was a fit penalty for the driver who cut through a chicane and was felt to have gained advantage of it. McLaren immediately announced their appeal. Besides the loss of prize money and bonuses for wins from sponsors, they believed that Senna had gained no advantage from cutting the chicane as he had literally lost places from crashing into another dude AND that his release had been a compromise for safety measures. They even had a plethora of instances from the past two seasons where drivers had also gone through a chicane for safety issues and still given the chance to be a part of the podium:

I think their reasons to argue for Senna were valid! It's just funny that Prost was in a corner holding a trophy like "guys, I won the championship" and no one cared lol. You have to feel for the guy, of course McLaren saw it as a Constructors and Drivers Championship but they probably would rather the guy who is staying to win. Honda most likely wanted the guy who wasn't dissing their engine to win. The most annoying nation in the world wanted their guy to win. All you had by your side was a Nazi bitch.

The FISA hearing was held by Balestre himself, who not only maintained the disqualification but also added a 100000 dollar fine and a six-month racing ban on Senna, on the grounds of a "history of dangerous driving," and he pulled the receipts ON EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT SENNA HAD IN HIS CAREER. HE EVEN SAID THAT SHOULD BE A WARNING TO ALL DRIVERS LMAO. PROST WAS JUST VIBING THERE???.

By the time they got to the last round, the appeal was still ongoing and Senna still had a small margin of hope, granted he needed the rulings to be annulled AND the race win. Instead, he voiced publicly that he believed that his DSQ had been a shame to the sport and that Balestre was very clearly favouring his countryman and he was the scapegoat. He also managed to hit Martin Brundle and DNF'd on the last race of the season (don't worry, Prost did too!).

part 4: Déjà Vu, or the XVI Fuji Television Japanese Grand Prix

Well, after a long off-season with McLaren fighting FISA, Balestre threatening not to renew Senna's super license and Ayrton himself considering retirement, somehow they all got their shit together for 1990 and to be fair, Prost and Senna were competing, but they did so while sitting there and eating their food without any issues. Unfortunately for them, the Ferrari was competitive again and about everyone including themselves were interested in settling the score, and in another practical joke of fate, the championship decision was left for Suzuka again.

The banter was on because the scenario was reversed in relation to the year before. Senna had the advantage here, 9 points in the lead, while Prost needed to win it to keep his hopes alive for Australia. Quali comes and Senna bags pole again! The only issue was that pole position in Suzuka was on the dirty side of the track… the same as it ever was back then…. and Ayrton decided that was a good moment to complain about it.

Why was my guy so mad about this? Well, because Prost was right by his side in P2, on the clean side. Although pole position sounds nice, the clean side is the one with the racing line preferred by the drivers, which means that there is where all the rubber dropped by the tyres sits all weekend - unless it gets washed away by the rain, of course - and that grants extra grip in comparison to the side that has nothing (ironic how the dirty side is the one that actually is… clean). It wasn't a matter of P2 having the grip, it was a matter of Prost having the grip and the better line to start, and he went to the stewards over it.

At first FISA actually conceded, but Balestre came in again and blocked the move, adding that the drivers wouldn't be able to go through the pit exit line to set themselves up for attacking on the first corner. To make matters better, at the drivers briefing Piquet brought up chicanes and what should be the standard procedure for missing it. Everyone agreed that the driver who did that should be stopped and let go when safe to do so, going through the escape route if necessary. SENNA WAS PISSED! LIVID! No one had taken him seriously a year ago and now he had to witness everyone coming to terms with that? Screw you guys, he's going home leaving the briefing.

It was clear to the homeboy that he was on his own and the plot was plotted. Race day came, Prost got the better start but that was a ruse, a ploy, as a few meters later Senna would just kamikaze both of them out of the race.

Honestly, everyone knew it was revengé, especially with how both cars were ruined just enough so that none of them could get back on track. Ron Dennis knew, Prost knew, Balestre knew, my mom knew, my unborn self knew but Senna kept his cool like "oh what a shame the championship had to end this way XD". To be fair, he did feel guilty later on but he couldn't help being an aries! Prost rant to the press about how it was a disgrace and Senna lost his humanity, but sincerely, what could Balestre do if not allow it to pass as [Charles Leclerc voice] just an inchident? Nothing that would have to force him to admit his wrongdoings in 1989 - which he later came to do in 1996 before leaving his role as president of both FIA and FISA. Congrats Senna, you won the championship again.

Epilogue: If You No Longer Go For A Gap That Exists

Ayrton still had to take the flack for his actions through the rest of his career - not unlike Prost whose own prowess in the sport still gets unfairly shadowed by his ungrateful role as the villain in Senna's main arc - and I feel that a good way to sum things up is with the very infamous interview with Sir Jackie Stewart.

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As much as the "if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver" gets mocked to this day, the key aspect of the whole speech is "because we are competing". Senna makes it clear here that accidents could happen and that he could have lapses of judgment, but the gaps are conditioned to the other people that he's racing with. In subtext - not that subtle considering that this was shot in Adelaide - Senna knew Prost and Prost knew Senna. They both were aware of exactly how far they would be willing to go and that had always been the basis of their contemptuous relationship and it always had to be like that for them because they were competing.

They were rivals, and sure that 89-90 made it very easy for them not to like each other and get lost in the game, but they were never enemies and even though they still had issues - most noticeably, Prost blocked Senna's move to Williams in 93 because he did not wish to be his teammate again. How funny. - by the time that Senna passed away, they had settled their differences and Ayrton actually asked him to come back. The one person who in all of this overstepped the line was Jean-Marie Balestre, who used his influence as the head of a supposedly impartial entity to interfere in a battle that was none of his business.

note: I'm sorry for the delay! I took a bit more of my time writing this than necessary and got lost in a few personal matters as well. I hope you all enjoyed this and I hope to hear your feedback again :D See you next week!

#f1 #ayrton senna #alain prost #ron dennis #jean-marie balestre #mclaren #1989 japanese gp #1990 japanese gp #guys i'm sorry i'm so late i decided to make animations that flopped #ANYWAY A LOT OF WORK I WATCHED LIKE 3 DOCS FOR THIS AND READ HALF THE INTERNET #i tried to come out less shady towards prost but you know.#hyperfixation corner

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