Norbert Haugt was also part of Hamilton's decision of joining Mercedes, although he had already left by the time Lauda made his call. Haugt, chairman of Mercedes Motorsport, had time to observe Hamilton at McLaren during several years. I don't think Prost "left" Renault; it looked as if he was pushed !
If I recall, Prost was incensed after losing the title to Piquet. The Brabham was strongly suspected of using "exotic" fuel, but Gerard Larousse refused to lodge a complaint. There was a showdown at Renault and Prost is supposed to have said: "It's him or me!"
Yes, I heard about that, but it could be only malicious gossip. Alain Prost is still my favourite driver, and yes, he is French (but of Armenian extraction) !
Ouf we are safe ( because of his Armenian origins) ! Origins doesn’t matter, only your commitment to a nation does (Ernest Renan). By the way Prost was my favorite driver either.
Yes, the rivalry between these 2 was intense, and Ron Dennis let them fight it out without team orders. Probably the best era I watched in F1. Nothing came close since.
Exactly correct, Renault was in the wilderness from 1984 on after Prost was pushed after the loss of the 1983 Championship when Renault did not keep up with the Updates that BMW was doing at the time with Brahbam. Regarding Hamilton, Haug knew Lewis from even before he joined McLaren and was probably instrumental in his hiring back in 2007.
Yes, I heard about that ... It could be part of the culture in France to seduce each other's wife, among "friends". Probably that will bring a strong denial !
No it isn’t part of the culture in France.. Just some people ready to sacrifice strong friendship..( this precise case) Not glorious I would say.
^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^ Lewis's spectacular success would not have happened without the efforts of Anthony Hamilton Ron Dennis Niki Lauda
Prost always earns high respect in my book, and like most champions he was close to even more championships. With Prost it is clear that losing to team mates like Lauda and Senna, much less by half a point for a season or actually scoring more than Senna but only have X number of races count, amazing. Honest, I'm a big Senna fan, but you have admire Prost.
same here. Prost had to deal with the politics of Senna and Dennis and in the end couldn’t leave fast enough. Probably could have won the WDC in 1990 but for Senna’s “gap” stupidity in Japan.
Prost was the McLaren guy, and Senna the Honda guy. Ayrton was closer to Honda engineers than Prost. Prost said in an interview that he recommended Ron Dennis to recruit Ayrton Senna, to clinch the Honda deal. If that's true, Prost was "making a rod for his own back".
Name a driver who's had "spectacular success" who walked into F1 without anyone assisting them or hiring them.
Senna’s obsession with Prost tell us all we have to know about Alain’s skills.. In Ayrton’s mind Prost was THE benchmark to compare with.
Indeed Mclaren first wanted to recruit Piquet, According to Prost he said to Ron Dennis and Mansour Oijeh to chose Senna instead because he was the best driver for the future. Prost own words. To my opinion he was 1/ Really committed with Mclaren interests as a family.. 2/ Confident to beat Senna with a different approach. To be honest he scored more points than Senna the two years they were teammates..
