“He Wanted to Humiliate Me”: Alain Prost Once Slammed Ayrton Senna Whose ‘God-Tier’ Performance Backfired

Four-time F1 champion, Alain Prost and his former McLaren teammate, Ayrton Senna had one of the most incredible rivalries during the late 1980s. Their rivalry was so intense that beating each other was not enough at times. Prost explained one such instance when Senna, in his words, was determined to “humiliate” him.

“He never wanted to beat me,” said Prost while speaking on the Senna No Fear No Limits No Equal documentary. “He wanted to humiliate me, he wanted to show the people that he was much stronger, much better. And that was his weakness”.

Prost made these remarks about what transpired at the 1988 Monaco GP. Over a minute ahead of Prost, Senna was in a comfortable position to win the race with just two laps remaining.

TARİHİN EN İYİ TURU OLABİLİR

Ayrton Senna, 1988 Monaco GP’deki sıralama turlarında takım arkadaşı Alain Prost’a +1.427s fark atarak pole pozisyonunu alıyor.

“O gün aniden artık bilinçli sürmediğimi fark ettim. Benim için farklı bir boyuttu ve maksimumdaydım.” pic.twitter.com/yzkDYStQFL

— Tutkumuz F1 (@F1tutkumuz) May 1, 2024

However, since Senna was keen to “humiliate” the Frenchman, he continued to push. Ultimately, Senna crashed into the wall and retired from the lead of the Monaco GP.

The loss was painful for Senna, to say the least. Former McLaren CEO, Ron Dennis explained how the legendary Brazilian driver could not cope with it for some time.

Senna too acknowledged that since he felt he was driving at another level that day, he became overconfident. And since his overconfidence proved costly, he learned a valuable lesson.

Senna stated, “I just came so close to perfection that weekend, that I relax. I opened window for mistakes, and I learned that there”. He then added that this blunder resulted in him emerging “much stronger after that incident” and somehow because of it, he got closer to God.