1989 F1 Season

This is the most uncomfortable season of all the ones here, because the man who lost the title was clearly the faster of the two and both things can be shown from the same table. Senna and Prost shared a garage and shared a car: the McLaren that won the constructors' championship with 141 points, nearly double the 77 of the Williams that came second.

With identical machinery, Senna took thirteen poles out of sixteen and six wins. Prost took two poles and four wins. And the championship ended 76 to 60 in Prost's favour.

The explanation for those sixteen points is not pace, it is finishing: Prost saw the flag far more often. And it ended at Suzuka, the second to last round, where our data holds Prost as a retirement by collision and Senna as disqualified in the same race. Prost left there twenty one points clear with a single round remaining, which is to say with the title done.

It is the perfect example of why this site exists: if you only look at who was quicker, you pick the wrong champion.

And the simulation block below says so without being asked. Running the year a hundred times with those two drivers and that car, the one who comes out champion most often is Senna, not Prost. The model looks at pace and consistency, and on that Senna wins. What the model does not reproduce is the particular season that was actually run, with its retirements and its Suzuka, and that is why the 1989 champion is called Alain Prost.