The Prost podium conundrum that Hamilton may face at Monza

The FIA President should brace himself at Monza. Particularly if Lewis Hamilton wins. Mohammed Ben Sulayem (MBS) wouldn’t want a repeat of Alain Prost’s podium antics in 1989 not long after the McLaren driver had announced he would be joining Ferrari for the following season.

Prost was severing a relationship with a team that brought him 29 wins and three world titles. Ron Dennis had shown great faith in Alain by offering a McLaren seat for 1984 a matter of hours after the Renault driver had been blamed (unfairly) for losing the 1983 championship.

Twelve months later, Prost was neck-and-neck with McLaren team-mate Niki Lauda, the Austrian winning the title by half a point. Prost collected it at the end of the next season. And the year after that.

He did it again in 1989. And yet here he was, leaving McLaren for arch-enemy Ferrari. Prost and Dennis remained on reasonable terms – until Monza, when the relationship crashed and burned spectacularly and publicly.

Prost was leaving because he wanted to race Ayrton Senna in a rival team and not as the Brazilian’s crash-mate. That relationship had become toxic, not helped by Senna trying to ease Prost into the Estoril pitwall at 175mph. Alain would then contribute to a collision at Suzuka by clumsily shutting a door Ayrton was coming through whether Prost liked it or not.

By comparison, Hamilton and George Russell may be playground pals, but this could develop an edge. The last thing Hamilton needs is a reminder that the Mercedes W15 has become competitive enough to form the basis of a car that might be capable of winning an eighth world championship had he stayed on board for 2025.

If nothing else, Hamilton’s win at Silverstone unexpectedly exposed a vulnerable vein successfully hidden since Abu Dhabi 2021. Victory for Hamilton at Monza would obviously be very nice – but who knows what effect this might have on an increasingly perplexed psyche? Look what it did to Prost – a calm and rational man not normally given to post-race emotional displays.

Hamilton will want to make an impression on the tifosi before joining Ferrari by winning, ideally with the scarlet cars in close attendance

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Prost had arrived at Monza in September 1989 a few days after revealing he was about to become a ‘Ferrarista’. The news that he was ending a six-year association was not helped by the thought that Prost would be taking McLaren’s secrets to its greatest rival. Then he went and won the race.

OK, Prost may have been helped by Senna’s leading McLaren coming to a smoking halt coated in oil that really ought to have been inside the Honda V10. But that was a minor detail as far as the Tifosi were concerned.

They swamped the track in their customary feverish manner and saw the man on top of the podium as one of theirs. Prost had won the race for them and not for McLaren. They called his name.

It’s quite the conundrum for Hamilton: he wants to win in front of the Tifosi – but needs to see a competitive Ferrari driver (or two) up there with him, just for peace of mind going forward

In a moment of uncharacteristic impulse, Alain leaned over the railing and dropped the trophy into the willing hands of disbelieving fans. Dennis, on the podium to represent McLaren, was incredulous.

It was written into every McLaren driver’s contract that trophies became the property of the team. There were no exceptions. In a fit of pique, Dennis flung the winning constructor’s cup at Prost’s feet and stormed off.

“It was not premediated,” recalled Alain many years later. “I had just signed with Ferrari. I had won the race and thousands of people were in front of me and all around. To be honest,
I don’t know what happened.

“Giving them the cup was like a sort of present. But Ron was so upset… so upset. I could understand this later on. But when you have tough years like this and tough relationships, you sometimes lose your judgement.

“I’m talking about myself, not anybody else. You do things from your heart. You don’t know what you’re doing.

Dennis was disgusted when Prost threw his 1989 Italian GP winner's trophy into the crowd that was chanting his name

Photo by: LAT Photographic

“For Ron, the trophies were very important because they represent the history of the company. So you had this and the fact that we were in Italy, he was losing a driver
to Ferrari and that driver had won the race.
I can understand his upset.

“But I did not do it on purpose. Of course, we could never get the trophy back. Years later, I had a copy made and presented it to Ron at the McLaren factory.”

Should Hamilton finish first at Monza, he is unlikely to indulge in such munificence for the benefit of what will undoubtedly be an adoring crowd. But who knows what he might do with the winner’s medal presented by Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

MBS had been briskly dismissed by Hamilton in the Silverstone parc fermé when proffered cringeworthy congratulations by the same hand that had brushed the Abu Dhabi episode under the Place de le Concorde carpet. Here was further evidence that the 2021 championship wound runs deep and fuels Hamilton’s desire to claim a record-breaking eighth title. But with Ferrari?

The wisdom of the move was questioned during a press conference at Silverstone. Would Hamilton have made the same decision had the Mercedes been as competitive at the end of 2023 as it is now? An uncharacteristically curt ‘Yes’, followed by a forced smile and obvious disinterest in the remainder of proceedings, suggested the question had already crossed his mind.

It’s quite the conundrum for Hamilton: he wants to win in front of the Tifosi – but needs to see a competitive Ferrari driver (or two) up there with him, just for peace of mind going forward.

Prost had no such worries. There was a Ferrari driver (Gerhard Berger) alongside in 1989. His cup was running over, both metaphorically and physically – to the horror of his boss. The worst that can happen this year is for Hamilton to toss MBS’s gold faux Olympic medal into the crowd – and for someone to throw it back.

How will Hamilton sign off his Mercedes career on Italian soil?

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images