Senna and Prost's Rivalry Ended Nothing Like People Think

Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost spent years trying to take each other out on track, sometimes literally. What most people don't know is how the story actually ended — not with the collisions, but with phone calls.

Two collisions that decided two championships

Senna and Prost were McLaren teammates for two seasons, and the trust between them collapsed fast. The flashpoint most people remember is Imola 1989, where Senna passed Prost early in the race in what Prost considered a breach of a pre-race understanding between them not to challenge into the first corner. From there, the rivalry stopped being just about lap times.

That tension produced two of the most infamous moments in F1 history. At Suzuka in 1989, the two collided at the final chicane; Prost retired on the spot, handing Senna a shot at the title that was later taken away on a technicality, and the championship went to Prost. A year later, at the same circuit, Senna drove into Prost at the first corner — deliberately, by his own later admission — and this time it was Senna who walked away with the title. Two years, two collisions, two championships decided by contact rather than a finish line.

The part of the story that gets left out

Prost retired from F1 at the end of 1993. According to Prost himself, that's when the relationship actually changed. "That's when he started to talk," Prost has said. "We talked about everything. He was calling me once or twice a week." They discussed racing, but also, in Prost's words, "your personal life, your worries and your problems" — the kind of conversation that doesn't happen between people who are still actively trying to beat each other.

Prost is careful not to overstate it: "I never met him very often." The reconciliation happened mostly over the phone, not in person, and it happened late — Senna died at Imola in May 1994, only months into the season after Prost's retirement.

Why the real ending matters more than the rivalry

The Senna-Prost story usually gets told as two collisions and a mutual hatred that never resolved. The actual ending is quieter and, honestly, more interesting: a rivalry intense enough to produce two of F1's most notorious incidents, followed by a real, if incomplete, friendship that only became possible once the stakes were gone. Prost calling Senna a friend, with real hesitation and a real caveat attached, is a more honest ending than the version where they never spoke again.