Alain Prost was born in 1955 in the Loire and found racing through karting on a family holiday. He came into Formula One with McLaren in 1980, went to Renault, where he lost the 1983 title to Nelson Piquet by two points, and returned to McLaren in 1984. He lost the championship that year by half a point to his teammate Niki Lauda, then won it in 1985 and 1986.
He was called the Professor because of the way he raced: smooth, economical, thinking about the whole race rather than the next corner, saving his tyres and his car for the end. It looked slow and was not. He won fifty-one Grands Prix, a record that stood for years.
In 1988 Ayrton Senna joined him at McLaren, and their cars won fifteen of the sixteen races. The rivalry that followed was the most bitter in the sport’s history. In 1989 they collided at Suzuka and the title went to Prost; a year later, at the same corner, Senna drove into him on the first lap and took it back. Senna admitted later that he had done it deliberately.
Prost moved to Ferrari in 1990, where he came close to the title, then was sacked before the end of 1991 for describing his car as a truck. He took a year off, returned with Williams in 1993, won his fourth championship and retired.
At his last race, in Adelaide, Senna brought him up onto the top step of the podium beside him. Six months later Senna was dead, and Prost was a pallbearer at his funeral. He later ran his own team, and remains closely involved with Renault and its successors.
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