When F1's fiercest rivalry first overspilled

As the end of the 1989 Formula 1 season approached, the intra-team situation between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren was clearly beyond redemption, but there had not yet been an outright on-track clash. Just high tension, accusations of favouritism and discord over allegedly broken team orders agreements - enough to make Prost commit to Ferrari for '90 already.

There was one last in-house title battle to settle first, and Suzuka was a chance for Prost to put it beyond Senna's reach.

The gap between them was 16 points with just 18 available, but an added complication in the era's dropped scores rule - only the best 11 results could be counted.

No problem for Senna, whose string of retirements meant he'd only scored in seven races anyway (winning six of them), but Prost had only failed to score once so was already dropping his fifth place from Mexico and fourth from Hungary. His consistency was so good that it would be his third place from three weeks earlier in Spain going in the bin next if he had a good Japanese Grand Prix result.

Even so, Prost had the title in his grasp unless he had disasters in both Japan and Australia, and Senna won both races.

The scene was set for a championship showdown that would become infamous as the day F1's fiercest title rivalry began to go too far.

Here's how Nigel Roebuck described it all in his original Autosport magazine report:

Still no rain. All the gloomy predictions of wet days at Suzuka were dismissed finally on race morning. There was not the heat of Friday, nor the blue skies, but the day was warm enough, dry. Perfect for a day of reckoning, with no wildcard in the elements.

He may have been unable to cope with Senna on a qualifying lap, but Prost comfortably topped the times in the morning warm-up, with Nigel Mansell second and Senna - eight-tenths away - in third. Derek Warwick's Arrows, 25th on the grid, was fourth fastest, prompting the doubtless uncharitable thought it may not have been carrying a full fuel load. In fact, Del-Boy was trying a different low-downforce set-up for the race, and this he decided to use: "The car had been so hopeless in qualifying, I thought I'd at least be as quick on the straights..."

After the warm-up, Prost was calm and confident, quite satisfied with his race set-up. Not so Senna, though, who had tried both his cars, and didn't much like the balance of either. They went different ways on set-up, Alain running less downforce than his team-mate.

It was to be another tyre stop race, with all the Goodyear runners, save Mauricio Gugelmin (Bs), going for Cs. And it wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility, therefore, that the world championship could hang on a mechanic's deftness of hand as readily as a driver's inspiration for 53 laps.

So round they came, then, on the final parade lap for the 1pm start, with everyone in position, save Jonathan Palmer, who would leave from pitlane in the spare Tyrrell, his own suffering from an oil leak. Before long, he would retire for the same reason.

Prost made a peach of a start. There was a very short interval between red light and green, and Alain was perhaps a little more alert than anyone else. Senna's own getaway was good, but his team-mate led into the first turn. Gerhard Berger ran third, and Alessandro Nannini fourth, the Italian getting the drop on Mansell.

It was an unhappy opening lap for the Minardi team, in that neither of its cars actually made it round, Pierluigi Martini-sub Paolo Barilla pulling off with broken transmission, Luis Perez Sala doing the same after an altercation with Satoru Nakajima, who was able to continue.

"All I can do today," Prost said in the late morning, "is attack, attack, attack. There's nothing else for it: Senna has to win to keep a chance of the championship, and the best way to stop him is to beat him. Second place won't help either of us.

"In the past, you know, I've left the door open for him sometimes - otherwise we would have crashed; I won't be doing that today..."

Alain drove a magnificent opening lap, in the style we have come to expect from Ayrton. It was almost a second and a half faster than the Brazilian's, and for 14 laps the gap between them was even wider, at that point reaching five clear seconds.

Senna, usually peerless in the art of blistering away from cold, must have felt somewhat bemused, maybe even a little panicky. This wasn't in the script at all.

Inside three or four laps it was obvious that this was to be a McLaren race, period. All Mansell's optimism about the Ferrari's superiority on full tanks was washed away by Honda horsepower. Berger, in third place, looked lame as the red-and-white cars sped away, but Mansell was in worse shape still. Hampered, as at Monza, by what the Ferrari drivers refer to as a 'lazy' gearchange, he was having some difficulty keeping pace with Nannini's Benetton.

Sandro found that his car was working well, even though running with a regular Ford V8, rather than the more accelerative revised motor he had used in Friday qualifying. The team had decided its reliability might be suspect, and had given it instead to Emanuele Pirro - who was himself making fine progress through the field from his poor starting position.

Everyone's eyes, though, were on Prost and Senna, the two men fighting for the title, as well as the race. And at the 15-lap mark Ayrton began to whittle down his five-second deficit. It was the old story; on a clear track, Prost pulled away a little; in traffic Senna reeled him back. But Alain was showing an assertiveness we haven't seen in quite a while, and he didn't lose much as they started working through the backmarkers.

Mansell was the first of the frontrunners to come in for tyres, on lap 18, temporarily dropping from fifth to seventh in the process. Two laps later Nannini was in, and on lap 21 the world held its breath as Prost peeled off into the slip road for the pitlane. It was a good stop (7.8 seconds), but Senna inevitably took the lead, which he lost again when he pitted, at the end of the 23rd lap.

Again, a tyre change competently done, albeit a second and a bit longer than Prost's. Out Ayrton blasted once more, and at the end of his next lap he trailed Prost by 4.6 seconds.

The Williams pair, who had circulated virtually in tandem since the beginning of the race had also been in for tyres by this time, so that the revised order now was Prost, Senna, Berger, Nannini, Mansell, Nelson Piquet (yet to come in), Riccardo Patrese, Thierry Boutsen, Pirro and Philippe Alliot.

For a while, Senna trimmed away at Prost's lead, but as soon as any real threat materialised, the Frenchman was able to respond. At lap 30 he led by little over a second, but by the 35th the gap was out to 3.4 seconds.

What made the contest yet more fascinating was that the McLarens' different set-ups gave their drivers clearly defined strengths and weaknesses, Alain definitely quicker in a straight line, Ayrton visibly superior under braking, and into corners. This showed every sign of going to the flag.

"I felt very comfortable," Prost said later. "In control of the race. I knew that to have any real chance of winning I had to lead from the start, which I managed to do. Once I was in front, I felt calm. The car was fantastic - I had an occasional problem with the engine cutting out, but it wasn't bad enough to be a big worry."

If Senna were going to get by, therefore, it would have to be by acrobatics, capitalising on the major advantage of his high-downforce set-up; into corners. And it wouldn't be easy, for Prost's straightline advantage would make it difficult to be close enough for a tidy attempt. Ayrton pondered his problem.

Others had more immediate difficulties, however. Berger's lonely run in third place ended after 34 laps when he pulled in, fourth gear missing. That elevated Nannini to third place, Mansell to fifth, Patrese into the final points-scoring position.

Alliot, after another good run in the Lola-Lamborghini, retired with engine failure on lap 37, and clearly Mansell's Ferrari wouldn't be long in meeting the same fate. A wisp of smoke from the back of the car became a trail, and finally the odd flame spat out. On lap 44 Nigel pulled off, leaving behind him a line of oil through flat-in-sixth uphill left-hander midway round the lap... Fortunately it wasn't enough to bring anyone to grief.

By this time Prost and Senna were running close together, the gap never more than a second, usually rather less. Nannini, left breathless by the McLarens and going on half a minute clear of Patrese, decided to back off, lapping as much as 5 seconds slower than he had been. It was a prudent course to take, but we were all, Sandro included, to wish he had kept up the pace; it would have prevented a great deal of controversy. Stay tuned...

So mesmerised was the huge crowd by the intensity of the lead battle that even the retirement of Nakajima went virtually unnoticed. This was a day when a single lapse in concentration, missed opportunity in traffic, muffed gearchange, could settle the outcome of the World Championship; a day when driving for points meant driving for nine points or nothing.

At the end of lap 46, with seven to go, Prost led by half a second; if Senna were going to make a move - and we assuredly knew, if nothing else, that Senna would make a move - it had to be soon. Ayrton chose the entry to the chicane.

It was a ludicrous chicane, this one, totally out of place at this magnificent race track. Necessarily taken in first gear, it has quite high kerbs, and is calculated to make the most svelte and nimble of F1 cars look clumsy and awkward.

But coming as it does, at the end of a straight, it is the primary overtaking spot on the circuit; what you need to do is take a gulp of air, flick right, leave your braking to the very latest. Then you go down the inside, relying on the other driver to back off, give you a clear run, for there simply isn't room for two. You'll go in on the wrong line, probably get crossed up, let your revs drop away, and it will all be very messy, losing time for both of you. But usually you'll be through.

A year ago, Prost might have spared the blushes of McLaren, Honda, Marlboro et al, given way to Senna rather than walk back to the pits with him, there to explain to Ron Dennis how there were two damaged McLarens up the road, out of the race.

But Alain has learned a thing or two, and one of them is that you don't beat Ayrton with kid gloves. He had said in the morning, had he not, that no doors would be left open today? And this one was unequivocally closed.

Senna, already well over the pitlane slip road line in his passing manoeuvre, found himself with nowhere to go. They hit, slid straight on across the road, came to halt, wheels interlocked. And engines dead, Alain turned his head briefly towards Ayrton.

Marshals sprang into action to push them from the track, for the McLarens indubitably were dangerously parked. Prost popped his belts, and climbed from the cockpit even before his car was shoved into the escape road.

But Senna stayed aboard, and once into the escape road began gesticulating furiously for another push, which he got. Down the hill the engine caught, and he threaded his way back to the track - now, for the first time, in the lead of the Japanese GP! Prost looked on, shrugged.

As Senna rushed round, his damaged nosecone breaking up, then dropping off, Prost ran across the road, and set off for the pits. He wasn't angry, just disappointed - albeit fairly sure he was the new world champion.

"He had a push, yes?" Yes. "And he rejoined the race from the escape road?" Undoubtedly. "Well, then..." and he relaxed.

"I felt sure to win, you know, once I got in the lead. And somehow I always thought the race would be decided one of two ways; either he would lead from the start, or it would finish like this.

"I looked in my mirrors, saw where he was, and thought he was too far back to try anything - he had been closer than that before, and stayed behind. Then he came down the inside.

"You know Ayrton's problem? He can't accept not winning, and because of that he can't accept someone resisting his overtaking manoeuvres - too many times he tries to intimidate people out of his way."

As he spoke, Senna flashed by, now with a new nosecone, in pursuit of the new leader, Nannini. Alain grimaced; he was sure to be disqualified, wasn't he?

Ayrton's spirit was undimmed, his car now perfect again. And though Sandro gamely fought him for a lap and more, there was no way to resist the McLaren driver. Into the chicane Senna made the same move as he had on Prost, but this time he was closer - and this time the man being overtaken made no issue of it.

That left him with another couple of laps to the flag, and these passed without incident. On the road, anyway, Ayrton had won the Japanese GP and all round his slowing down lap he seemed to be wiping tears from his eyes. An emotional race was over. No one took much notice as Nannini, Patrese, Boutsen, Piquet and Martin Brundle came in for the rest of the points.

When the drivers mounted the podium, though, of Senna there was no sign. It was Nannini who mounted the top step, opened the champagne first; and with him were the two Williams drivers.

Senna - as expected - had been disqualified, specifically for not completing a full lap when he took a short cut down the escape road after the incident. He didn't take the news well.

When Prost tried to shake his hand, say he was sorry it had all ended this way, Senna declined the offer, said he didn't want to see him. Alain fought off his disappointment.

Then McLaren appealed the Stewards' decision, claimed there was a lack of consistency in officialdom here; there had been other occasions this year when a driver had missed a chicane, not suffered consequent disqualification.

Inevitably, this prompted cynics to point out another example of recent inconsistency in application of the rules - the one which had Mansell banned for a race for ignoring black flags in Estoril, but let Senna off with a fine for doing the same in Jerez.

And they remembered, too, Ron Dennis's words about Mansell's reversing in the pits; how it was up to the drivers to know the regulations, how Nigel should have known he'd be disqualified as soon as he selected reverse.

And they thought that Senna, too, should have reached the same conclusion when he implored the marshals to push him, then rejoined via the escape road, rather than drive back to the point at which he'd left the circuit. But perhaps this line of thinking was naive.

Whatever, the thing is now in the hand of bureaucrats and lawyers, a messy and unsatisfactory state of affairs. McLaren director Creighton Brown stressed there was no attempt in their appeal to favour one driver against another; simply, McLaren were in business to win races, and this one had been taken from them.

On Sunday evening about the only happy face was that of Warwick, who benefitted from Senna's disqualification, to the tune of a point. But will he get to keep it? Alain Prost really hopes so.

What happened next

The McLaren appeal didn't just fail to get Senna reinstated as the winner - he was also hit with a $100,000 fine and a suspended six-month ban. That took his animosity towards governing body FISA to new heights, and set the scene for the Suzuka 1990 collision that decided the following year's title.

The season finale in Adelaide didn't provide any cheer for either title protagonist. In torrential rain, Prost withdrew at the end of the first lap. Senna dominated until hitting the back of Brundle's Brabham in the spray, leaving Boutsen to win for Williams - a feelgood result to finish a fractious season, before things erupted to an even greater extent in 1990.