Feature: Prost Joins Others Who Failed as Bosses

It takes more than just a few steps across the pit lane to go from Formula One World Champion to successful team boss.

The odds are stacked against the drivers making the transition and the failure of Alain Prost's team on Monday is further proof of something that men like McLaren team principal Ron Dennis have known all along. The big money world of 'Piranha Club' bosses is an unforgiving place in which the talents that got a driver to the top are not enough.

"Formula One is a tough business and it is difficult to succeed," said Dennis at the launch of the McLaren 2002 car in Barcelona a week ago. "I'm not directing my comments at Alain Prost or Niki Lauda but I do feel there is a trait of naivety when people expect automatic performance from those who have excelled as drivers," he added.

"To run a Grand Prix team well you need an engineering background, and that's just the beginning. They should also know about budgets, motivating people, solving problems and inspiring."

Prost himself recognised that when he was at Ferrari in 1991, before they dispensed with his services: "Ron Dennis is a leader of men, a catalyst of energies, he is completely respected. That's what's missing here," he said.

Lauda

Austrian Niki Lauda is now the only former champion with a hands-on role in the Grand Prix paddock as team principal of Ford-owned Jaguar. That team was originally Stewart Grand Prix, founded by three times champion Jackie Stewart until Ford took over and renamed it in 2000.

Stewart at least saw his team win a race, more than Prost did or Lauda has done yet, with Johnny Herbert steaming through the rain to triumph at the Nurburgring in 1999. Australian Jack Brabham stands out as the first driver to win both a race and a Championship in a car bearing his own name.

Graham Hill died in 1975 after starting up his Embassy Racing Team. Briton John Surtees, a motorcycle and Formula One World Champion, had his own team from 1970 to 1978 but never won a race as a constructor.

"He thought he knew everything there was to know about racing," his former driver and future champion Alan Jones commented years later. "Former drivers always think they know best. Their driver is just a surrogate for themselves."

The more successful team owners, in much the same way that many of the world's top soccer managers made little impact as professional players, do not rank among any list of Formula One's top drivers. Frank Williams and the ever entrepreneurial Eddie Jordan tried and then turned to management, Renault's Flavio Briatore was a manager for Benetton before he entered motor sport and Paul Stoddart made his money in aviation.

Three of the current bosses started their motorsport careers in rallying - Ferrari's Jean Todt and BAR's David Richards as co-drivers - and Toyota's Ove Andersson as a driver.