adelaide je napisao/la:Pozdrav!
Gospodine Jergovicu Molim Vas prokomentirajte ovo jer ste Vi bili svjedok ovim dogadjajima - barem putem TVa (ako Vam se da procitati i ako Administrator dopusti ovoliko teksta). Posebno obratite pozornost na zacrvenjeni dio teksta.
Hvala Vam unaprijed!
1988-1989:
Forming an accurate perspective on his re-lationship with Prost has become a fascinating exercise in retrospective analysis. Even by the middle of 1988 it was not difficult to detect trouble coming, although circumstances obliged Prost to take a strategically deferential role towards the end of the summer.
After returning to Europe determined to mount a dramatic counterattack, Prost won the French Grand Prix before being forced to take a back seat to Senna, who went on to win the British, German, Hungarian and Belgian races in quick succession. It seemed as though the Championship was over. After the Belgian race Alain conceded that it would be virtually impossible to catch Senna in the title chase.
At Monza, however, Senna made a crucial mistake when he tripped over a backmarker, handing the Italian Grand Prix win to Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari. Then the pendulum gradually began to swing back in Prost’s favour, and the two team-mates arrived at Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix each still with a shot at the Championship.
Senna qualified commandingly on pole position, then stalled his engine on the grid. But luck was on his side. The downhill gradient allowed him to bump-start his Honda engine into life and enact a mind-numbing comeback from eighth place on the opening lap to win the race and clinch his first World Championship. In doing so Senna broke Jim Clark’s record of seven wins in a single season, a feat that had stood for twenty-five years.
Those last closing races of the year raised the temperature of the relationship between Prost and Senna. At the start of the Portuguese G.P. at Estoril Senna thought that Alain edged him over to the outside of the circuit in an un-necessarily brusque fashion as they went into the first corner.
The event was subsequently stopped due to a multiple collision further back in the pack. This time Senna made the best start, chopping across his rival going into the first turn. At the end of the opening lap, as Prost swooped alongside him to challenge for the lead, Senna squeezed him so tightly against the pit wall that rival teams quickly withdrew their signalling boards for fear they would strike the Frenchman’s McLaren as it shaved by at almost 180 mph. After the race Prost told Senna that he hadn’t realized that Ayrton was prepared to risk a fatal accident, and if he really wanted the World Championship that much he could have it. The cracks in the relationship were subsequently papered over behind closed doors, but cracks they remained. Concealed, not repaired.
In 1989, armed with the new Honda 3.5-litre V1O cylinder engine, McLaren would again be a highly competitive force, but the relationship between Senna and Prost deteriorated dramatically. This feud sparked a bitter personal antipathy between the two men that would last until the close of Prost’s active racing career at the end of 1993. Only on the day before Ayrton died did Alain sense a real possibility of an enduring rapprochement with the erstwhile rival.
The trouble began at the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, where Senna and Prost qualified their McLaren—Honda MP4-5s in first and second places, comfortably ahead of the field. At the first race of the year in Brazil, Senna had been involved in a silly first-corner skirmish with another car, losing his McLaren’s nose-cone.
Now Senna proposed that the two team-mates should have an informal ‘no-passing’ rule at the first corner. Prost agreed that it would be a great idea. No problems arose at the start when Senna made the best getaway, but the race was soon red-flagged to a halt after a fiery crash involving Gerhard Berger’s Ferrari.
At the restart Prost got the jump on Senna, but the Brazilian apparently reneged on the no-passing deal, surging by into the first corner. Alain was infuriated; Ayrton merely shrugged it aside, explaining that he in fact overtook Prost on the straight before the corner rather than at the braking area for the corner itself.
This might have seemed like a fine distinction, but clearly Senna was now giving Prost the tools to psychologically bury himself. You could see Alain’s point of view. He’d been the rock on which McLaren had operated so successfully ever since the start of 1984. Now he could detect the balance of power shifting decisively in Ayrton’s favour. It was, in part, an almost unconscious process. Certainly McLaren team stalwarts, those who worked on the inside preparing the cars, could see the merits and shortcomings of both drivers. Team chief Ron Dennis worked all hours to make the ‘dream—team partnership work, but after the first few races of 1989 it was clear that the deal was becoming unstitched.
Honda’s position as engine supplier has been difficult to judge accurately, but it was certainly a key factor in the equation. Insiders believe that the Japanese engine supplier displayed an inequitable partiality towards Senna. This was perhaps understandable, for he was always perceived as more an ‘engine man,’ keen on maximizing his performance potential in that area. Prost, by contrast, was a ‘chassis man,’ one aspect of his brilliance being the ability to adjust the car’s handling to an absolute optimum pitch.
Senna, we now know, often relied on copying Prost’s chassis set-up — then going faster by using it. Add that to the feeling that he had been betrayed by Senna at Imola, and one can easily understand why Prost announced at the French Grand Prix that he would not be continuing with McLaren in 1990. A couple of months later he announced a deal to join Nigel Mansell at Ferrari.
After Prost won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, round twelve of the sixteen-race title battle, Senna had slipped twenty points adrift due to a handful of disappointing retirements in the middle of the season. Prost now firmly hinted Honda was favouring Senna with better engines. The Japanese company was aghast at this allegation and, together with McLaren and Prost, issued an absurdly self-conscious joint statement at the Portuguese G.P. indicating that Prost ‘deeply regrets the adverse publicity and the resulting embarrassment that have been caused by these actions.’
Nobody was taken in, but Senna now went on the defensive behind closed doors. In the author’s hearing he urged Honda to persuade Ron Dennis that Prost should be dropped from the McLaren line-up even before the end of the season. “We will be haemorrhaging technical information that he can take with him to Ferrari,” said Ayrton angrily.
Needless to say, this was not a realistic option, and the moment passed. The time bomb continued to tick away in terms of the relationship between the two drivers. Finally, at the Japanese Grand Prix, it exploded into shreds, publicly and uncomfortably.
Senna qualified on pole position, but made a last-
minute adjustment to his McLaren’s aerodynamic set-up. It proved the wrong way to go and Prost got the jump on him from second place on the starting grid. From then on the two McLarens circulated in nose-to-tail formation, the crowd on tenterhooks as it waited to see how the confrontation would work out.
Senna tried to work it out. In order to wrest the Championship from Prost’s clutches he had to win not only here at Suzuka but also at the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide a fortnight later. But the laps were rolling by and time was running out. Ayrton knew that his only chance to pass would be under-braking for the very tight chicane just before the pits.
On lap 47, with only six to go, Senna made his move. Coming into the braking area at a seemingly impossible speed, Ayrton put his right-hand wheels across the entrance to the pit lane, then ran along the grass and the inside kerb as he forced his way alongside Alain, the two McLarens snaking and weaving with the sheer ferocity of their braking effort. Many times before Prost had given way to avoid a collision in close battles with Senna. The Brazilian was clearly again relying on such a compliant response. But Alain had come to the end of his patience and turned into the corner, unwilling to concede an inch. The two cars collided and slithered to a halt, absurdly locked together in the middle of the track.
Without a moment’s hesitation Alain unclipped his belts and climbed from the car. Ayrton immediately focussed his mind on how to get going again.
Marshals responded to Senna’s signals to pull his car back, duly push-started it into action, and the Brazilian was able to resume the chase. Unfortunately, instead of steering through the chicane, Ayrton chose to accelerate through the escape road and out the other side in order to regain the cir-cuit. Despite a quick pit stop to replace a damaged nose section, he went like the wind to pass Ales-sandro Nannini’s Benetton, re-take the lead and win the race.
He was then excluded from the results for missing the chicane, thus handing Nannini the win. Senna simply couldn’t believe it. The McLaren team vowed it would fight to the ends of the earth to have Ayrton’s victory reinstated.
It wouldn’t happen. Prost was World Champion, and Senna found himself with a burning sense of injustice. Those flames of personal indignation would continue to be fanned in his heart. That was the only place I could overtake,” he explained, “and somebody who should not have been there just closed the door and that was that. The results as they stand provisionally do not reflect the truth of the race in either the sporting sense or the sense of the regulations. I see this result as temporary.
“Now the matter is out of my hands,” Senna went on. “What I have done is done and is correct. From now on, this matter will be in the hands of the lawyers, people who understand the theoretical side. As for the practical side, it was obvious I won on the track.” It was a telling barometer of the situation that he refused to mention Prost by name.
Alain was more philosophical. “I must admit that Ayrton is an extremely good driver,” he said with masterly understatement. “He is extremely motivated, but in my view he is driving too hard. To be honest, from a personal point of view, it has become absolutely impossible to work with him.”
As they sat in the stewards’ office at Suzuka after the official adjudication, Prost walked forward and proffered his hand, saying that he was sorry that things had ended this way. Ayrton brushed aside the gesture and told the Frenchman he never wanted to see him again.
Ovo su sve, naravno, manje-više poznate stvari (bar meni). Jedino bi bilo zgodno da ste naveli odakle ste točno to prenijeli, jer je prilično očito da je autor teksta puno više Prostov navijač nego Sennin. U slučaju kad idete raspetljavati ovako složenu i važnu situaciju, ključno je da ne budete ničiji navijač. Ovaj tekst, na žalost, ne spada u takvu kategoriju.
Nisam bio u Suzuki 1989., ali sam vrlo pomno puno puta pregledao OBC snimke sudara između Prosta i Senne prije šikane. Najbitnija stvar (koju niste zacrvenili) je da Prost nije skrenuo u zavoj - kako kaže ovaj tekst - nego u Sennu i to u trenutku kad je vidio drugi McLaren desno od sebe. On je skrenuo u desno ranije nego što je to trebalo za zavoj, otprilike slično kao što je M Schumacher skrenuo u desno u Jerezu 1997. To je bila reakcija na pretjecanje, a ne skretanje za zavoj.
Puno kasnije Prost je to i sam priznao, u privatnom razgvooru u Ferrariju.
Druga stvar koja nije osobito precizna (i koju isto niste zacrvenili) je činjenica da Senna nije izabrao da nastavi kroz ˝escape road˝, odnosno da presiječe šikanu, nego je to bilo jedino rješenje budući da se njegov McLaren zaustavio tako da se nije lako i brzo mogao vratiti u rikverc (što bi, uostalom, bilo strogo zabranjeno) i onda odvoziti šikanu kako treba.
FIA, odnosno Jean-Marie Balestre njezin
francuski predsjednik, odlučili su da je Senna učinio prekršaj za diskvalifikaciju i oduzeli mu pobjedu u toj utrci, čime je Prost automatski postao svjetski prvak.
Puno drugih stvari stoji. Senna je bio, kad je bilo potrebno, poprilično prgav i aronagtan čovjek koji je jednostavno smatrao da zaslužuje specijalan tretman u svakoj ekipi, pa tako i McLarenu. Naravno, vrlo je vjerojatno da je, kad se podvuče crta, bio u pravu, ali mnogima neke njegove metode nisu bile osobito probavljive. Ali, radilo se o vozaču nadnaravnih sposobnosti koji je želio pobjeđivati više od bilo čega drugog. Zvuči poznato, zar ne?
I još jedna stvar, prilično sam skeptičan da je autor teksta (kao što veli) bio prisutan kad je Senna nagovorao ljude u Mclarenu da ne rasipaju informacije set-upa odlazećem Prostu. Dugo sam o ovome razgovarao s Gordonom Murrayem, McLarenovim dizajnerom u to vrijeme, i on veli da su te stvari - inače istinite - bile diskutirane iza, ne zatvorenih, nego blindiranih vratiju.
Prost je, u vrijeme kad su obojica bili živi i u punoj snazi, bio za novinare puno umiljatija i puno proračunatija osoba, čovjek koji je brižljivo gradio svoj imidž dopadljivosti, prijateljstva, dobrog momka. Mnogo kasnije, osobito u vrijeme kad je sam postao vlasnik F1 ekipe, postalo je jasnije da on baš i nije bio neki osobiti anđeo. Pitajte ljude kojima je i danas dužan plaće.
Senna se nikada nije nikome dodvoravao, najmanje novinarima, i nikada se nije ponašao drugačije od onoga kako je mislio. Dok je bio živ mnogi su mu to zamjerali. Kad je poginuo, od toga se izgradila legenda.
