Alain
Prost

Alain Prost was born on 24 February 1955 in Lorette, near Saint-Chamond in the Loire département. He discovered karting at the age of 14 and became French senior karting champion in 1975. In 1976 he moved into single-seaters and won the French Formula Renault title, followed by the European Formula Renault championship in 1977. He won the French Formula 3 title in 1978 and took both the French and the European Formula 3 championships in 1979.

He made his Formula One debut for McLaren at the 1980 Argentine Grand Prix, finishing sixth and scoring a point straight away. From 1981 he drove for Renault and took his first win at his home race in France, adding victories in the Netherlands and Italy. In 1982 he won the opening two races, in South Africa and Brazil, the Brazilian win being awarded to him after Nelson Piquet and Keke Rosberg were disqualified. In 1983 he won four races and finished second in the championship, two points behind Piquet. Renault parted company with him two days after the season finale in South Africa.

He returned to McLaren for 1984 and, despite seven wins, lost the title by half a point to his team-mate Niki Lauda. In 1985 he became the first Frenchman to win the World Championship, and he retained the title in 1986 in the final round in Australia. In 1987 his 28th victory, in Portugal, broke Jackie Stewart's record for wins. Ayrton Senna joined the team in 1988, when McLaren won 15 of the 16 races; Senna took the title by three points, with Prost second. In 1989 Prost secured his third title at Suzuka after a collision with Senna.

He moved to Ferrari in 1990, won five races and finished runner-up, seven points behind Senna, after the two collided again at Suzuka. He won no races in 1991, and Ferrari ended the arrangement before the final round after he had criticised the car in public. He took a year out in 1992. In 1993 he won his fourth title with Williams, clinching it in Portugal with two races to go, and then retired. He finished his last race, in Adelaide, on the podium.

Prost started 199 races, with 51 wins, 106 podiums and 33 pole positions. He held the record for Grand Prix wins when he retired, until Michael Schumacher passed it in 2001. After his driving career he worked as a pundit for TF1 in 1994 and 1995, won the Andros Trophy ice racing title three times and represented France at the 2010 Race of Champions.

Source: Wikipedia, “Alain Prost”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.