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"A Driven Man", published in The Australian Way (Sydney), issue 92, February 2001.
Perhaps the last truly happy moment in Alain Prost�s life came late in 1999, on stage at the Vienna Opera House. Dressed in a tuxedo, surrounded by 10 of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen -- Muhammad Ali, Dawn Fraser, Carl Lewis, Nadia Comaneci, Michael Jordan, Pele, Steffi Graf , that level of elite company -- the diminutive Frenchman known as The Professor accepted the World Sports Awards trophy for racing driver of the century. Now, a little over a year on, sitting back behind his desk at the headquarters of Prost Grand Prix in Guyancourt, just outside Paris, Alain Prost __ the chairman of the board here, the man who stills holds the record for the most Grand Prix wins (51 races) __ allows himself the luxury of a light moment over the memory of that glittering gala. �In a way I think I deserved it,� he offers with a soft, cheeky chuckle. But Prost immediately adds, quite earnestly, that a handful of other drivers could also have argued they merited the title: 1950s� legend Juan Manuel Fangio, for instance, and certainly Prost�s own old nemesis, Ayrton Senna. �When you receive a prize like this, it can always be a bit controversial. All the drivers think they are the best. But obviously I was very proud of it. I�m quite happy it was me.� But since that night in Vienna, well, perhaps his family life aside (Alain has been happily married to Ann-Marie for 20 years and they have two teenaged sons), happiness isn�t something the 45-year-old Prost has felt a lot of lately. Unequivocally, 2000 was the worst, the most stressful year in The Professor�s life. His multi-million Franc company, the Formula 1 racing team that bears his name, failed to score a solitary point in last year�s world championship. Of the 11 teams competing in the world�s most expensive sport, Prost Grand Prix finished equal last, its two cars only ever managing to get to the finish line five times each over the course of 17 races. Prost, the four-year-old team at least, appeared to be falling apart. A perfectionist by nature, it must have been heartbreaking for its boss to watch on as everything he tried went wrong. Over the course of a few months, he lost his engine supplier (Peugeot), his technical director and prime sponsor. At the French Grand Prix, Prost�s home race, his engine mechanics even went on strike __ albeit for only five minutes. �Very often when you have a bad season, you always have a good race or a good result or a positive sign,� Prost says dryly. �Last year, the worst thing was we never had any positive things. Even when we had a good chance to have a good result __ like in Brazil, at Monaco or Spa (in Belgium) __ we did not finish the race and we could not get the points or the results. So it was always a big frustration.� And Prost�s troubles on and off the track weren�t being helped by the constant badgering he was copping from the eternally temperamental French press. You would have thought that a national hero like Alain Prost, the first Frenchman to bring the world�s driver championship home to the country that basically invented the sport, could ever be the target of slur campaign. Surely Prost should have God-like status in French society, at least in its media? �I think it�s the opposite,� the legend himself assures us. �They were very strong, very bad, often not very honest.� He lets out another of his little chuckles. �But, you know, that�s the situation and we only have to make better results. We cannot fight every day against that. It�s already difficult to fight against the ten other teams in Formula 1.� Chuckle. �But it�s very frustrating, obviously, very frustrating. The positive thing is that it makes me even more angry to be successful.� To his credit, and as a reflection of the dogged conviction he displayed so many times when he was fighting out on the race track himself, Prost kept his chin up through it all, worked tirelessly over the European winter to completely rebuild his shattered Formula 1 team. And he appears to have pulled it off. The new cars Prost brings to Melbourne in March for the first race of the 2001 world drivers championship will feature Ferrari engines, will carry new sponsorship (the logos of the South American sports network PSN), and cradle Prost�s own hopes that the worst is well and truly behind him now. �What we�re doing this year is building the new fundamentals for this team,� Prost says with a more characteristic tone of optimism. �We�re sure we�re going to show something completely different to last year. So that�s going to be very, very positive for us, for the image of the team. It�s very important. �But we need to be realistic: We�re not going to compete to be world champions, there�s absolutely no way. So we need to show something very different. I�m sure we�re going to have a good package. If we have the reliability, maybe we can get better results than we think.� Prost says that, as always, he�s looking forward to returning to Australia for the start of the new season. He calls it one of his favourite places on earth. Indeed, during the old racing years, he enjoyed some of the most fulfilling days of his career in Australia: 26 October 1986 and 7 November 1993, to name a couple. �When people ask me the question which Grand Prix do I think about as a best memory, it�s always, always this one,� the 199-race veteran says of the 1986 Australia Grand Prix, staged on the street circuit through Adelaide. �Because it was a great race, it was a great year and a great weekend. Not only the result but the way we achieved this result. Because a lot of people could think it was luck, but it was not luck at all. I think it was a very well prepared race.� Prost, who was the reining world champion at the time, went into that last race of the 1986 season as firm underdog. Yet, thanks in part to an exploding tire which took out title favourite, Briton Nigel Mansell, The Professor miraculously prevailed. Prost won again in Adelaide in 1988, but then the next two visits to the city weren�t as much fun. In 1989, Prost arrived at the season closer already crowned world champion for a third time, his arch enemy Ayrton Senna claiming his opponent had deliberately run him off the road at the previous race in Japan a fortnight earlier. �Obviously I was world champion but through this weekend my feelings were not very good,� recalls Prost. The controversy was further inflamed when Prost pulled out of the race after the first lap because of torrential conditions. The following year, it was flash-point again in Adelaide between the bitter rivals, only this time the roles were reversed: Senna was champion, Prost claiming he�d been run off the road in Japan. �I was really depressed to have lost this championship the way it happened in Suzuka,� he says of that trip. In 1993, Alain Prost ended his racing days on those same streets of Adelaide. Again, he was world champion. And, again, Senna played spoiler to his rival�s party, winning their final battle against each other, forcing Prost into second place on the track. �There was nothing to do,� Prost says of that last race. �He was just a bit quicker. That was the end but that was a good end. I never had any problem to be beaten somebody quicker, with a better car or a better drive. �I was quite happy at the end. That we were both together on the podium, that was obviously the best end that you could think about.� That day under the Australian sun, standing on the podium, Prost and Senna turned to each other and hugged. Their war was over. And each knew they�d helped push the other to greatness. Within a few months of Prost�s retirement, Senna was dead, killed during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, ending a golden era in the history of Formula One racing. Prost says that in all the years since that day in Adelaide, he has never regretted quitting when he did, going out as world champion. So he is entertained by the notion that, all these years on, he finds himself entwined in one last Formula 1 dual, this time with current world champion, Germany�s Michael Schumacher. See, Schumacher only needs another seven Grand Prix wins to equal Prost�s record. The German won nine races in 2000 alone. How does all this make The Professor feel? �I would not like him to beat my record, that�s for sure,� says Prost, this time with a big chuckle. �But if he does it, I would like him to do it as late as possible. �To be very honest, he deserves to beat this record. I think it would have been Ayrton if he was there, and if it�s not Ayrton, it should be him. I think he can do it, obviously. �It�s a shame but it�s much better to be beaten by one of the greatest, you know? He will deserve to do that. It�s not a problem. It�s not going to change my life. Don�t worry.�
