F1 Blog

A dirty move Coming to the 15th round of the 1989 Formula One World championship in Suzuka, Japan. Alain Prost was leading the driver’s championship with 72 points. His teammate and title rival Ayrton Senna was 2nd in the rankings with 60 points. With a victory in Japan and in the last round of the season in Adelaide, Australia, Ayrton Senna could secure himself his second championship in Formula One.

In any other case the championship was going to Alain Prost, so obviously the Frenchman was having the less difficult job, which nevertheless shouldn’t have decreased his motivation to take the title by winning the Japanese Grand prix. But all his motivation must have suffered a deep brake down on Saturday when his rival Ayrton Senna put his McLaren-Honda on pole position. Despite being “still” second on the grid and despite achieving yet another 1-2 pole for McLaren, this qualifying result was devastating for Prost.

While he managed a qualifying lap of 1′39,771, his teammate did a stunning 1′38,041 lap. A gap of 1,730 seconds was really too much for teammates, especially for Suzuka which is known as a track where driving skills play a big role.

Senna once more played his psychological war and once more he won it. But claiming pole position was only one small step; a much bigger step was required to win the race. As the starting light switched from red to green on race day however, Alain Prost showed he did not lose a single bit of his motivation, outrunning Senna on the first meters of the starting grid and getting into the lead immediately. Senna was in second position after the start but could do nothing to stop his teammate pulling away from him and opening a gap of about 5 or 6 seconds between them both.

Senna’s next hope to close up to his rival must have been the lapping maneuvers, but unlike many other races this time Prost did not lose any time with the back markers. He kept his lead and he maintained the gap. Then the time for pit stops arrived and yet Ayrton Senna was not the lucky one. He lost even more time on Alain Prost due to two seconds his pit stop lasted longer than the one of Prost.
At this stage it seemed the Frenchman had won his third Formula one title. But after the pit stop Ayrton Senna started to continuously reduce the gap to Prost. And with a couple of laps to go he was close behind the Frenchman.

Finally both contenders for the 1989 driver’s title were in striking distance and fighting with each other. But again the situation turned out to be better for Prost than for Senna. The Frenchman had the better setup, being a bit slower in the corners but having more top speed at the straights. Senna had it the opposite way, he was faster in the corners but had less top speed and could only follow his team mate, but could not outrun him. However things looked different on lap 47. We don’t know whether Prost made a mistake in Spoon corner or Senna just had a better run though it. All we know is that on the long back straight leading to the 130R corner Senna was closing on Prost in the Frenchman’s slipstream, and approaching the braking zone for the “Casino triangle” called chicane, the Brazilian pulled out to the right to outbreak his team mate and take the lead from him.

But that was not on the schedule of Alain Prost. With Senna getting alongside him he just turned to the right, pushing Senna onto the grass. The car’s wheels locked into each other and with locked wheels they both slid straight onto the escape road of the chicane. Finally both cars stopped, both engines stalled and both drivers gesturing with their hands. Prost left his car.

But leaving the car was not on Senna’s schedule. He asked the marshals to give him a push start. Back in 1989 push starts were legal and marshals were allowed to give push starts to cars stalling in dangerous places, such as escape roads of chicanes. The marshals did what Senna asked for. He separated both cars from each other and pushed Senna’s McLaren down the escape road of the chicane. The Brazilian was able to start his engine. He drove slowly through the tire chicane on the escape road, which was placed there to slow down driver’s missing the chicane and assure they don’t have an advantage from missing it, and then he rejoined the track with a front wing, which suffered damage during the collision with Prost. As the whole accident happened behind the pit entry Senna had to drive a complete lap with the damaged front wing before he could go into the pit to replace it. With four laps to go he rejoined the race in second position behind Alessandro Nannini, who was the new leader. He repeated the move he tried on Prost with Nannini, the Italian however was fair enough and did not try to push him off the track. Senna took the lead and won the race. A great victory. The championship decision was up to the last race in two weeks. But now this situation was not on the schedule of yet another man, who had the name ‘Jean-Marie Balestre’ and occasionally happened to be FIA president. While the Japanese crowed was awaiting Senna to go to the podium and take the victory trophy it was Nannini who took it. Right after the race Balestre declared Senna disqualified. The reason for this disqualification was leaving out the chicane on lap 47. Nannini celebrated his victory and Alain Prost celebrated his third championship title. Senna was disqualified for something others were not. Jean-Marie Balestre has directly interfered into the driver’s championship. In the McLaren Appeal in Paris few days later he and other leading members of the FIA confirmed the disqualification and additionally imposed a six month suspended ban and a 100.000$ fine on Senna. Furthermore they made him totally responsible for the accident in Japan and also pointed out that they were not content with his overaggressive driving, blaming him for very much of the collisions he was involved in the last years. However the replay from the Helicopter and Prost’s onboard camera shows, that in Suzuka the Frenchman had turned in much too early. Although Prost insisted after the accident that he sticked to the ideal driving line for the chicanes, it does not require any racing experience to see from his onboard camera that he would totally cut the chicane if he did not collide with Senna, who was on the inside line. For the first time in Formula One a driver has deliberately used his car to push his rival off. The 1989 championship was concluded with a dirty move on the track, and dirty policy by the officials.

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