“I was World Champion because of my relationship with him”- Alain Prost hails Nico Rosberg’s dad Keke as the reason behind his 1986 F1 Title triumph

Alain Prost won the 1986 World Championship after a thrilling three-way battle during the final Grand Prix in Adelaide. 

Prost is one of the greatest and most successful F1 drivers of all time. He has 51 race wins and four World Championships to his name, in a career that spanned from 1980-1993.

In 1986, Prost was driving for McLaren and it wasn’t a time when things were tense between the two parties. Prost’s teammate was Keke Rosberg, father of 2016 World Champion Nico.

During a podcast with his former teammate’s son, Prost opened up about his relationship with Keke. He said that things didn’t go off to the best of starts initially, as they were very different. Rosberg also arrived in the team with the motivation to defeat Prost.

“Keke had a very different style than mine,” says Prost. “He (said) was going to beat me, going t destroy me, whatever you know you could. The most important was the relation between the two because of different character and nationality.”

However, the Frenchman confidently admits that 1986 was one of his best ever seasons in Formula 1.

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Ambience at McLaren in 1986 was amazing, says Alain Prost

Prost went on to say that 1986 was his best year in F1 with a teammate. In spite of them being different, Prost and Rosberg shared a very good relationship, which showed on the grid.

It was a year when Prost was in the Title fight alongside Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet. Both of them were in the Williams-Honda, a team that was much faster than McLaren. In spite of that, Prost was able to keep himself in the Title fight, which went on to the very last race.

“At the end, it was one of my best years with a teammate,” the 67-year old continued. “Going at the end of ’86, I was World Champion because of our relations. The first reason is that the ambience in the team was the best. We really worked well together.”

“Our car was much less good than Williams-Honda, but we kept going and tried to get the best until the last race,” he added. The four-time Champion then went on to talk about the 1986 season finale.

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Keke Rosberg’s sacrifice which helped Prost win the World Title

The 1986 season finale was in Adelaide and Prost entered the round six points behind leader Mansell. Just one point behind him was the other Williams driver Piquet.

Prost revealed that the team had adopted a different strategy for that race, and it was Rosberg’s ‘game’ that allowed him to win the World Title.

Rosberg spent most of the race trying to push down Mansell and Piquet. He went past the latter and built a strong lead, helping his teammate (who was behind him) as a result. The Finn suffered a tyre failure on the 63rd lap, but by then he had stretched both Williams cars to the limits. It allowed Prost to charge from behind and win the race, and the Championship.

“At the last race, we decided to have a different strategy,” Prost recalls. “Keke had some problems with the tyres, but mainly with the brakes. To make the story short, Keke played the game. I only became World Champion because of that.”