60 years of Ayrton Senna: his status undimmed

The pair took the MP4/4 to race victory in 15 of the 16 races in 1988, as the Brazilian took his first world championship crown by three points from his team-mate.

His qualifying performances were dominant, and though Prost would focus on the race, it is no doubt due to the sheer speed of his rival on a Saturday, leaving such an insurmountable target to clear ahead of the race.

Prost admitted as much to Motor Sport, the speed of Senna was too much of a deficit to hope to make up and required a different approach altogether: to give up and focus elsewhere.

“That was his strong point. If he had one, that was it. I’ll be honest: several times what he managed in qualifying surprised me. Astonished me, sometimes. In the race, he never impressed me. But in qualifying, yes.”

To compel a driver such as Prost to simply give up and to admit (privately) that Senna was just quicker, speaks to just how perfect a driver needed to be to have any hope of competing.

This was never as clear as in Monte-Carlo. A circuit that demanded the utmost respect from a driver, Senna gave it every ounce and made it look like his playground anyway.

His qualifying lap at Monaco in ’88 is still heralded as one of the finest laps ever driven around the streets, and the man himself explained to Jenks in August of 1990 that he didn’t fully understand the level he reached that day.

“I felt that the circuit was no longer really a circuit, just a tunnel of Armco. But in such a way that suddenly I realised that I was over the level that I considered… reasonable.

“There was no margin whatsoever, in anything.

“When I was doing it, it was a wonderful feeling, because I had experienced something I had never experienced before. The desire to go further was so big.

“When I had that feeling, I immediately lifted. I said to myself, ‘Today, that is special. Don’t go out any more. You are vulnerable. For whatever reason, you are putting yourself in a situation where you are almost doing it more in a subconscious way.

“I didn’t fully understand that level – and I still don’t.”

Every deft flick and correction as if he and his car were meant to occupy that piece of road at that exact moment, harmony that the majority of drivers can only hope to dream of let alone get close to touching.

Senna blitzed that season, taking 13 pole positions to Prost’s two, and won eight times versus seven. It ignited palpable tensions that would grow into F1’s defining rivalry.

Then-McLaren team manager Jo Ramirez recalled to Motor Sport that had Prost been victorious in that first season, their rivalry may never have reached such great heights (or depths).

“Often I’d say to him, ‘You’re the new guy, the young guy, you’re going to race longer than Alain, you’ve got time…’ If Alain had been champion in ’88, it would’ve been better for their relationship – I don’t think it would have been destroyed so soon. In ’89, of course, it became civil war…”

The feud eventually subsided. The four-time champion said as much in an interview with Motor Sport in 1998. “When he died, I said that I felt a part of me had died also, because our careers had been so bound together. And I really meant it,” he stated.

Their battles on-track were fought under testing circumstances as Prost has opened up about in subsequent years, and the relationship between drivers would fracture and fray.

Suzuka played host to iconic moments in ’89 and ’90, both deciding the world title one apiece in unforgettable fashion on both occasions.

A third title would come in ’91 and two further years at McLaren followed before a departure to Williams, replacing his great rival Prost.

His opening foray around Donington had made his competitors look flat-footed, unsure and just downright slow. Senna’s ’93 win at the European Grand Prix is regarded as one of his finest ever. The “Lap of the Gods” was another display of mastery and, as was frequently the case with Senna, he won by over a minute.