Alain Prost won four world drivers' championships, a feat only bettered by Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio. He was competing against, and beating, some of the very best including Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell. He made driving look easy, and is second place in career victories.  And yet he is rarely accorded the same status as Jim Clark, Senna or Fangio. Prost is more often placed in the second bests, along with drivers' such as Niki Lauda and Jackie Stewart. The justification for such is difficult to answer, but maybe it has more to do with the onlookers' impression than the results. Prost earned the nick-name the Professor, his style lacked passion or inspiration, he was never the showman, but he was capable of intense concentration for long periods of time. Further, Prost always seemed to be in dispute, rarely endearing him to teams or perhaps the fans. Prost, in retrospect, seemed more often than not to be correct in his dispute with Senna, and yet Senna was loved and Prost blamed. After Senna's death, inevitably Senna would become a more sainted figure, and Prost was cast as the villain.
 

Alain Prost was a very sporting child, short in stature but athletic in nature. Whilst on holiday he discovered Karting at age 14, and in the next eleven years progress though junior motor sport and then progressing to win the French and European Formula Three championships. He joined the McLaren F1team in 1980 aged 25.

Prost had a number of accidents in his year with McLaren; however, he finished in the points in his first race and three others in the season. He finished 15th in the Championship. He left the team with two years remaining on his contract, arguing that the accidents were caused by parts on the car breaking.

In 1981 Prost joined Renault, partnering fellow Frenchman René Arnoux. The two did not get along when Prost was immediately quicker than his more experienced colleague. Fittingly Prost won his first race at the French GP (driving a French car), it changed his mindset, he later said; 'Before, you thought you could do it ... Now you know you can'. Winning two further races he finished the season in fifth place but was just seven points behind champion Nelson Piquet, and way ahead of Arnoux.

Prost's relationship with Arnoux and the French media deteriorated further in 1982, he said; '...I had made the mistake of winning! The French don't really like winners'. Prost retired from seven races during the season but finished the championship in fourth place, again beating his team mate. The relationship with Renault began to deteriorate in 1983, Prost was leading in the championship until the last few races, when he was overhauled by Nelson Piquet in the Brabham to finish the season in second place. Prost blamed Renault for not developing the car, Renault and the French fans blamed Prost, (the fans had always preferred René Arnoux who had left the team following disputes with Prost). Prost was sacked by Renault two days after the end of the season, and Prost moved home from France to Switzerland.

Prost rejoined McLaren in 1984 and raced alongside the then double world champion Niki Lauda. Prost won seven races in the season and Lauda five, however, Niki Lauda won the championship by just half a point from Prost. (The half point as a result of the Monaco GP been stopped at half distance due to heavy rain).
 
Alain Prost won the championships in 1985, he became the first Frenchman to win the world championship and he was made a Chevalier Légion d'honneur. He won six Grand Prix in the season but was disqualified from his win at San Marino because his car was underweight.

Prost successfully defended his title in 86, despite his car struggling against the Honda-powered Williams cars driven by Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. Mansell  had looked certain to win the championship entering the last race, the Australian GP, ahead of Prost on points. Towards the end of the race Mansell was running third behind Piquet and Prost, enough if they finished in that order to give Mansell the title. Mansell suffered a tyre failure at high speed, and crashed out. The Williams team called his teammate Piquet in to change tyres as a safety precaution, handing the race victory, and Championship, to Prost. In the 87 season the McLaren could not match the speed of the Williams of Mansell and Piquet. Prost was still able to demonstrate his great ability to strategise a race; at the Brazilian GP, accepting his car was slower and qualifying in fifth, Prost worked on his race set-up. Everyone else set-up with a high-down-force, but the Frenchman went the other way. The set-up meant less tyre wear, because of the slower speeds in the corners, while going fast down the straights. Only one stop was necessary, and Prost won the race by 40 seconds. Prost finished the 1987 season in fourth place.

Despite Nelson Piquet winning the drivers' championship and Williams winning the constructors' championship, Honda decided not to supply Williams with their engines for 1988, and instead supplied the McLaren team. Prost had convinced Ron Dennis to sign Ayrton Senna to a three-year contract, which played a role in luring Honda. However, this began the rivalry that pushed two of the sport's greatest drivers to unprecedented heights of success and controversy. McLaren-Honda dominated the season, winning 15 out of 16 races. Prost won seven and outscored his new teammate Ayrton Senna by 11 points, despite Senna winning one more race than Prost. However, only the 11 best results from the season counted toward the championship total, and this gave Senna the title by three points. (Prost went on to be a proponent of essentially the 90's scoring system - all results counting to the final results with the winner scoring 10, not 9, points).

McLaren's domination continued throughout 1989, and the Prost-Senna struggle for supremacy put them on a collision course. Mutual admiration turned loathing, with the Frenchman accusing his Brazilian teammate of 'dangerous driving' and of receiving more than a fair share of attention from both McLaren and Honda. Prost was accused of being in the pocket of FISA's French president Jean-Marie Balestre. Their embittered season ended in controversy: In the Japanese GP at the end of lap 46, Senna made his move at the chicane. Prost turned into his teammate's path. The two interlocked McLarens slid up the chicane escape road. Prost, thinking the World Championship was over, climbed out of his car. To separate the cars, the marshals pushed Senna's McLaren backwards onto the track. This left it in a dangerous position, so they pushed it forwards again. As they did so, Senna bump-started the engine and rejoined the race. The nose of his car was damaged and he had to pit. On lap 50, Ayrton Senna took the lead and won the race, however, race officials disqualified Senna for missing the chicane. Thus Prost clinched his third driving title.

Prost believed that Honda and Ron Dennis (McLaren CEO) viewed Senna as the future of the team; he claimed that he had one car with maybe four or five mechanics, while his teammate had two cars and 20 people around him. Prost resigned from the team and joined Ferrari for the 1990 season.
 
Prost's team mate at Ferrari was Nigel Mansell, Prost as (at that time) reigning and triple world champion ensured he was given preference in the team. Mansell has said that at the 1990 British GP the car he drove didn't handle the same as in the previous race where had taken pole position, and later found out from team mechanics that Prost saw Mansell as having a superior car and had them swapped without Mansell knowing. The championship once again came to the penultimate round of the season in Japan with Prost trailing Ayrton Senna, by nine points. As in 1989, a controversial collision between the two settled the race. At the first corner Senna, as he later admitted, intentionally drove his race car into Prost's, taking them both out of the race and sealing the title in his favour. Prost said at the time, 'What he did was disgusting, he is a man without value'. Prost finished the season in second.

1991 was a difficult year for Ferrari and Prost. Mansell had departed because in part his poor relationship with Prost, the V12 engine was no longer competitive against the smaller, lighter and more fuel efficient V10s of their competitors and the chassis not up to the level of the McLaren and the Williams. Prost did not win any races and had only five podium finishes. Prost publically criticised the team describing the car handling as worse than a 'truck'. He was fired prior to the end of the season, and took a sabbatical in 1992, returning to F1 in 1993 to race with Williams.
 
Mansell had won the title with Williams in 92 and upon hearing of Prost joining the team Mansell left to drive in the US CART series. The Frenchman had a clause in his contract which prevented rival Ayrton Senna from joining the team that year.

Prost won his fourth, and final, title, but throughout the season he was regularly challenged by teammate Damon Hill, and Ayrton Senna driving an inferior McLaren. Shortly before the end of the season Prost announced he would not defend his world title, as the clause in the Frenchman's contract did not extend to 1994 and Senna would be able to join Williams for the upcoming season. He retired as the most successful driver in the sport's history, in terms of races won, a record which stood for almost a decade. (Michael Schumacher is now the most winning Grand Prix winner).

On the podium in Adelaide in 1993, Prost's last race, he and Senna embraced, and it was as if, now that Prost was no longer a rival, Senna saw no reason for any more hostility.
 
It is interesting to compare Alain Prost's results with his team-mates. During the course of his career, season-by-season Prost beat nearly all his 'partners' on total points, including five World Champions. The only exceptions were in 1984 when Niki Lauda won by half a point, and in Prost's first F1 season, when he was beaten by John Watson. In 1988, although Prost scored more points in total than his team-mate Ayrton Senna, only the best eleven of sixteen results counted towards the championship, which Senna won.
 

In 1997 Prost purchased the Ligier F1 team and renamed the team, Prost Grand Prix. Beset by political and financial problems the team performed poorly and withdraw from F1 in 2001.
 
Alain Prost had more disagreements with teams, other drivers and the press for it all to be others at fault. Despite such, his performance on the track was fantastic, not always the fastest but much more often than not beating all by driving with great knowledge and a style that would preserve the tyres and car.

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