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How Prost could have been BMW's first champion

Nelson Piquet won the 1983 F1 crown in a Brabham-BMW, but things could have been very different had a deal with Talbot and Alain Prost come together. GARY WATKINS uncovers the remarkable story

Alain Prost could have won the 1983 Formula 1 World Championship. Everyone knows that.

Few know that had things worked out differently three years before he could have done it not with Renault, but aboard a car powered by a BMW-built turbo engine, designed by Gordon Murray and run out of Chessington.

It wouldn't have been a Brabham, rather a Talbot courtesy of ambitious plans put together by former BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch in early 1980.

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.