Alain Prost
Alain Marie Pascal Prost, (born February 24, 1955 in Saint-Chamond, Loire, France), simply known as Alain Prost, is a French racing driver. He is best known for his Formula One career, in which he won the World Drivers Championships four times. In 2006 he will race in the inagural season of the Grand Prix Masters formula for retired Formula One drivers.
He is one of the most successful Formula One drivers of all time. During his Formula One career, which lasted from 1980 to 1993, he won 51 Grands Prix (a record until Michael Schumacher overtook this total in 2001) and won four World Drivers Championships (only Michael Schumacher and Juan Manuel Fangio have won more). Prost sports a rather crooked nose, due to it having been broken on several occasions.
The rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna is widely considered one of the most exciting ones between two sportsmen, and both were drivers clearly a class ahead of any other. See the resources for a link to an interview with Prost about Senna, a topic that Prost usually steadfastly refuses to discuss.
Both during and after his racing career Prost received many honours, including: Legion d'Honneur (France, 1985), the Champion of Champions award (Grand Prix Former Drivers' Club, 1988), an OBE (Britain, 1993), and induction into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1999).
Throughout his career Prost also earned a set of nicknames; "The Professor" and "The Calculator" (owing to his smooth driving style - which strongly contrasted with more dramatic drivers such as Senna, and his carefully considered approach to race tactics), "The King of Rio" (Prost won six times in Brazil; five in Rio de Janeiro) and "Fast Son of a Bitch" (Coined by Niki Lauda).
Outside of racing cars, Prost is a road cycling enthusiast, and has helped design bicycle frames for the French framebuilder Cyfac. Prost now lives with his wife, Anne-Marie, and two sons Nicolas and Sacha in Nyon, Switzerland.
Prost was the F1 World Champion in 1985, 1986, 1989, and 1993, and runner-up in 1983, 1984, 1988 and 1990. He competed in 199 Grand Prix, 51 of which he won, and accumulated through his career 798.5 championship points. Prost also completed 41 fastest laps, and a record six home Grand Prix wins.
In 1997 he bought the Ligier F1 team and renamed it Prost Grand Prix. Of course, great drivers don't necessarily make great businessmen and so it proved to be with four times world champion Alain Prost. The tens of millions needed to keep the team afloat just weren't forthcoming once key sponsors dropped out. In the end nothing could save the ailing team and it went into liquidation in early 2002. Recently, Prost has returned to competition as a driver in ice races. He was linked to the new Grand Prix Masters Series, but declined the invitation. Ex-rival Nigel Mansell has laid down the gauntlet by suggesting that Prost should take part.