FIA issue statement as abused F1 legend considers quitting social media

Alain Prost labels new Netflix show Senna as ‘bulls**t’

The rivalry between Prost and Senna has seen the Frenchman come off as villainous when it comes to contemporary narrative story-telling about the Brazilian’s life, including in the 2010 movie Senna.

A new Netflix-created six-piece series about Senna, also called Senna, has earned Prost’s ire, as he revealed to Germany’s Motorsport-Total.com that it is “Bulls**t, bulls**t, complete bulls**t.”

“Almost everything has been completely fictionalised. I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” he said.

Speaking to Canal+ at the time of the series’ release, Prost said, “I’ve only seen a few pictures and have heard quite a lot of feedback. As with the film Senna, the first one, which I probably spent even more time on than my own documentary, and this biopic, it’s obvious that I won’t be satisfied.

“Because there’s always a good guy and a bad guy. I know a little bit about the story, what’s being told, and yes, it’s a biopic, it’s fictionalised.

“But unfortunately, a few repetitive stories are inserted that are totally made up, just totally false. People act like I’m arrogant, and honestly, if there’s one thing I can really dismiss, it’s that.”

The Prost/Senna rivalry and tenure together as teammates at McLaren is regarded as one of the most passionate in F1’s history, with the intensity of their fight resulting in season-defining collisions at Suzuka in 1989 and ’90.

Tensions had begun to cool between the pair by the end of 1993 as Prost retired from Formula 1 after winning his final title, with Senna taking over as F1’s undisputed talisman against young upstart Michael Schumacher as Prost, Nigel Mansell, and Nelson Piquet all left the sport behind.

But Prost became inextricably linked as being Senna’s all-time nemesis following the Brazilian’s sad passing at Imola just months later.

“I can’t not think about Ayrton, fortunately or unfortunately,” Prost said, revealing that the extent of the hostility he receives on social media has him questioning whether he wishes to continue being publicly accessible.

“For example, I’m considering turning off my Instagram, because I get messages every day, really every day without exception – from time to time there’s a hateful one, that can happen.

“My biggest fan base on social media is from Brazil, of all places, so I’m forced to think of him.

“Indirectly, I’ve been living around this story for 30 years, and it will probably stay that way for the rest of my life.

“Life consists of many parts: the path to motorsport, my career, and now.

“In the 30 years [since the end of my career] I have done a lot, but it is hardly talked about, I get the feeling that my life is just this Prost-Senna duel.”

Prost’s reveal of receiving abusive messages has caught the attention of governing body the FIA, which launched a ‘United Against Online Abuse’ initiative last year aimed at highlighting the pervasive nature of tribalism and hatred between fanbases in the sport in a bid to kerb the unwanted behaviour.

In a statement supplied to PlanetF1.com, a spokesperson for the FIA said of Prost’s reveal that, “As a former world champion in his sport, Alain Prost should not be driven off social media due to online abuse.

“His experience highlights the harsh reality faced by sportsmen and women at all levels—daily abuse, harassment, and even threats.

“Under the FIA’s leadership, UAOA is developing the educational, technological, and regulatory solutions needed to protect competitors, officials, and fans to ensure that sport remains a place of strong but fair and inclusive competition.”

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Alain Prost: Ayrton Senna was completely different in his final months

“When Ayrton died tragically on 1 May 1994, the ‘beauty’ of it, in a way, was that the fans came together,” Prost said of the brief unification of the sport in grief.

“In other words, there was no more hatred among the fans.”

As the leading lights of Formula 1 in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the duo unleashed one of the most dominant seasons in the sport’s history by winning all but one race in 1988 – the year before their relationship began to disintegrate in a more serious fashion.

It was to be several years before the tension thawed, with Prost explaining that Senna had reached a realisation about their relationship in the immediate aftermath of Prost’s retirement.

“When I stopped, on the podium in Adelaide in 1993, another person came out immediately, in a split second. He was just completely different,” he said.

“And in the six months before his death, we spoke regularly on the phone, two to three times a week.

“He was no longer the same, he became a different person when I was no longer there.

“He said to me several times: ‘Come back, I’m not motivated to race against the others. There was a whole personal context that he told me, he wasn’t particularly happy in the team.

“But those six months also made me understand, and in a way forgive, all the things we did in the more difficult years of our relationship, because we also had good years.”

Having kept his competitive edge satiated by attempting to run what would prove to be an ill-fated eponymous team in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Prost said he isn’t sure whether he will permit similar biopics to be made about his own life and career – although a documentary about him was produced by Canal+ at the end of 2024.

“After a documentary like that, I’m more inclined to say that’s it, I’ve left my mark and I’m gone. I don’t want to have anything more to do with it…” Prost said.

“That’s actually more my state of mind today. I have other things to do in life than just talk about what happened to Ayrton.

“He told me things this week in Imola and made me promise and swear that I would never talk about it, and I didn’t even do that to my family. That stays with me. I have secrets, and I have certainty. I know what he was like, I know exactly. That’s it.”