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Alain Prost (extreme right) celebrates with Damon Hill (extreme left) and Michael Schumacher (center) on the podium of the 1993 Portuguese GP after winning his fourth Drivers' World Championship title. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

F1 legend Alain Prost opens up on why his last championship season was 'the worst'

Former F1 world champion Alain Prost has admitted that his final title-winning campaign was in fact 'the worst' season of his glittering career in the sport.

Prost raced in F1 from 1980 to 1993 and claimed 106 podiums, 51 wins, and four world titles in that time. From that list, 12 podiums and seven wins came in his final season, his solitary outing with Williams which yielded his final F1 world title.

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However, the Frenchman does not have fond memories of his swansong campaign as he confessed in the latest episode of F1's Beyond The Grid podcast.

When asked to reflect on his title win from three decades ago by presenter Will Buxton, Alain Prost said:

"Excuse me to be a little bit brutal but that is maybe the worst, I am going to be very direct because of the way I have been treated sometimes in my career. '93 was a very strange season. I signed my contract with Frank (Williams) very soon, at the beginning of 92, when I had my sabbatical year and we started to have the argument with Ayrton (Senna) wanting to join."
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Prost and Ayrton Senna had a rivalry for the ages that won McLaren multiple world titles. However, the pair ended up at each other's throats after the 1989 season when Prost left to join Ferrari.

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The 68-year-old explained how his rivalry with the Brazilian F1 legend followed him years later at Williams. He went on to add:

"The only thing I asked to Frank when we met for the first time talking about the contract, that was in Paris, I said 'Give me the money you want. I don't want to be number one in the team but the only thing I ask you is that I cannot be a teammate again with Ayrton' and he said 'For sure. I understand' and put a clause. It started like this."

Alain Prost confirms pressure from Renault to sign Ayrton Senna forced him into F1 retirement

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Alain Prost confirmed that Williams were under pressure from their engine supplier Renault to sign Ayrton Senna, which forced him to consider retiring from F1.

Despite winning seven out of 16 races with the FW15C, Prost was not a fan of the narrative around being a driver for an all-conquering Williams team at the time. In the aforementioned podcast episode interview, he said:

"The whole season was really difficult. I don't want to go through all the episodes of the season but I never felt good. Obviously, when you win a race with Williams at the time, it's normal. When you lose a race, you are stupid. It's not exactly what a racing driver needs. You need to have some sort of objective situation and that was not a very nice season."
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Prost was in the first year of a three-year deal with Williams when news emerged of Senna being a possible replacement for the then reigning world champion Nigel Mansell in the second Williams seat. He went on to add:

"And when we started to have problems, when Frank came to me and said 'I have a pressure from Renault, because they want me to take Ayrton but I know that we have a contract' and I said 'S***.' That's not the best way to end a three-year contract."

Despite their differences, Prost and Senna would share the podium in the final race of the season in Australia and even celebrate together. Senna would go on to join Williams, but his time with the team would be prematurely cut short on May 1, 1994, at Imola.

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Edited by
Rachel Syiemlieh
 
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