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Ayrton Senna: How Alain Prost Bonded With Senna’s Father After His Death

Published 04/30/2020, 12:31 AM EDT

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Over the years F1 has seen many intimidating rivalries. Regardless of partners or drivers from other teams, Formula 1 delivers a pressure between contenders like barely any different sport can. To name a few, we have witnessed Ayrton Senna with Prost or James Hunt vs Niki Lauda.

With such a great amount of pressure and so much on the line, be it a world championship or fighting for the last points place in a race, numerous drivers have turned to grimy strategies and brain games so as to one-up their competitors.

Over the decades in the game’s 70-year history, a few drivers have constrained groups to draw fight lines, while others have seen connections totally crumble in the savage quest for wonder.

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On this week’s episode of F1 podcast Beyond The Grid, Julian Jakobi, the former manager of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost gives us an inside look of what it takes to manage some of the big names of F1.

How Prost restored the relations with the Family of Ayrton Senna

The rivalry of Ayrton senna and Prost characterizes the game. They were the two of its most noteworthy heroes. This is one of the best driver pairing ever. They share seven titles and 92 race wins. The numbers also show that. However, no driver pairing is progressively competitive when it comes to the title. In 1989, at San Marino, Senna overlooked a pre-race deal not to pass after the first corner when Prost had taken the lead.

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In Japan, the relationship reached a pounding conclusion when Senna, who was behind Prost in the title battle, went for the overtake. They hit, Prost was out on the spot, and Senna proceeded. However, the Brazilian was disqualified. Prost took the title. In 1990, with the title battle to be decided once more, they collided again in Japan. This time, the title went to Senna, yet the harm between the team was unsalvageable.

The anchor asked: “When Prost came to you and said I want to do Prost GP. What did you say?”

Jakobi says: “After Ayrton Senna died, Alain had an extremely good relationship with Senna’s father. They got along very well.”

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Jakobi went on to say that Senna’s father is an amazing man. He further tells how Senna’s father was involved in the making of the Prost GP.

“He had huge respect for Alain and vice-versa. After Ayrton died, Alain went out of his to be with his father, Talk to his father. That relationship carried on. When Alain started Prost GP, Ayrton’s father was very happy. He was kind of a little bit involved behind the scenes.”

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Written by:

Abhay Aggarwal

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Abhay Aggarwal is sports analyst at EssentiallySports. Having joined ES in early 2020, he has over 300 NASCAR, Formula 1, and Tennis articles to his name. Abhay has been an avid motorsports fan for over a decade, and he even attended the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011.
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