Cold conflict on the only F1 podium Prost, Senna & Schumacher shared
F1
Three of Formula 1's greatest-ever drivers shared a podium only once — at the 1993 Spanish Grand Prix. In the middle of a season of varying fortunes, there was little camaraderie between Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, writes Damien Smith
Three 'F1 Galacticos', celebrating individually on the Barcelona podium
There are moments when the stars align in Formula 1, but they don’t come often. Just over a month ago, at the Australian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso stood together on an F1 podium, the three best drivers of the past 20 years coming together to share the same space as an illustrious top three. You don’t see that every day. Although for this trio it wasn’t the first time. They’d shared the steps once before, at the Qatar GP in 2021, when Alonso made the podium for the first time in seven years. There’s every chance, of course, that this trio might stand together again before the year is out.
Scroll back 30 years, to the Spanish Grand Prix of 1993, and a previous generation of F1 ‘Galacticos’ also came together – but in this example for the one and only time. Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher, today with a shared tally of 14 world titles between them, found themselves side by side – although of course the trio could have no way of knowing how unique that podium ceremony would be. Such warmth only comes with hindsight. Look back at the photos and TV footage and you won’t be surprised to see there wasn’t exactly a touch-feely sense of mutual respect and harmony between the threesome!
It’s another reminder of how little time Schumacher had to race against the two big beasts of the 1980s and early ’90s. He’d scored his first podium in the second race of 1992 in Mexico, in a season when Prost had been forced to the sidelines following his fall-out with Ferrari. Now Alain was back, having levered himself into the dominant Williams-Renault FW15C, for one final fling and what some considered to be a sewn-on fourth world title. Indeed, it was all tied up at Estoril in September with two races to spare, by which time Prost had announced his retirement as Senna lined up his drive. At the Australian GP, the old enemies were brought together for one final time on an F1 podium (with Damon Hill in third), the big freeze suddenly thawing now the Frenchman was no longer a threat – the reality dawning on Senna of what he was about to be missing. But months earlier in Barcelona they had still been in the thick of it. It was not the time or place for sentiment.
The Spanish GP that brought Prost, Senna and Schumacher together wasn’t in itself all that memorable. Williams had put the humiliation of Donington Park behind it as just one of those days, Prost winning at Imola. Here in Spain, Hill (not for the first time, not for the last) provided a threat no one had really expected and led the opening laps. Prost soon hit the front, but hampered by a severe vibration was vulnerable to attack from his team-mate – until Hill’s Renault V10 let go. Senna and Schumacher both made late pitstops for fresh tyres Prost didn’t need, the yellow Benetton closing on the McLaren until an error at the final turn blunted the younger man’s challenge. Thus Prost scored his third win of the season by more than 16 seconds to rise back to the head of the points table – as Senna simmered. The entitled Brazilian, who’d pulled his ‘freelancer’ card ahead of Imola and threatened a no-show, was still refusing to accept what he saw as an unequal fight of racing with paid-for Cosworth V8s, not only against the superior Renault V10, but also Benetton’s works Fords.
Hill takes the lead in Barcelona at the start of ’93 GP
Grand Prix Photo
On the podium, Prost looked happy but neither he nor Senna acknowledged the other – and neither did Schumacher, who even by this stage had the confidence of knowing he fully belonged in this exalted company. As was his way, Michael fully enjoyed the spraying of champagne – but down on his team below rather than at his rivals beside him. Having scored his third podium in five races and still at this time only a one-time grand prix winner, Schumacher had every reason to be delighted. Why would he look awkward?
For all of Senna’s rage, the reality might have been his disadvantage in the excellent McLaren MP4/8 wasn’t as great as he made out. OK, the Williams was head and shoulders better – but Benetton’s edge as Ford’s official works team was something of a red herring. At least, that’s the view of those inside the team that had only recently moved from an industrial estate in Witney to its shiny white HQ, built on the site of an old quarry near Enstone. In fact, if anything, they reckon McLaren had the advantage despite its customer status, all because of one key performance indicator: traction control.
Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill were Britain's best drivers of the early 1990s, and proved over two testing seasons: when Mansell won the IndyCar title in his debut year, and when Hill took the lead at Williams after the death of Ayrton Senna
By
Matt Bishop
“The Benetton B193 was fairly quick but it wasn’t reliable enough and we had a lot to do on it,” says Frank Dernie, who had joined the team from Lotus at the end of 1992. “This is sort of controversial and the irony always makes me smile. Because we had the works engine, Ford paid for it and Cosworth ran it. Because McLaren had to buy their engines, they were customer engines and so they ran them. Now, Cosworth had told Ford that any sort of traction control involving ignition timing was risky in the reliability of the engine, so Benetton wasn’t allowed such a system. The Cosworth traction control system involved an actuator that actually physically closed the throttle barrels, it wasn’t electronic. It was slow and it never worked very well. Whereas McLaren, because they effectively owned their engines, used their own TAG electronics systems and they had a very sophisticated traction control system using retardation and spark cut, which worked really well.
“They were always telling everybody we had the better engine but they actually had a more raceable engine. Rory Byrne [Benetton’s inspirational designer] used to refer to Cosworth as the Northampton Conservative Party – they were very conservative and no risks were taken with the engine.”
“McLaren had customer engines, so if Cosworth said ‘don’t do’ it they ignored them”
Pat Symonds recalls the political spat between Benetton, McLaren and Cosworth that year as an “annoyance” and echoes Dernie’s point. “The way the Renault [worked on traction control] was by cutting sparks: the wheels start to spin, you cut the sparks and instantly you lose power. Cosworth were adamant you couldn’t do that because you’d break the engine and they wouldn’t let us do it, so ours worked on a bit of ignition timing, a bit of throttle control. It wasn’t very good at all. McLaren had customer engines, so if Cosworth said ‘don’t do it’ they ignored them. They also had a very good electronics division, so they had massively better traction control than we did. Things like that were very frustrating.
“It was annoying at the start of the year that, as we were the works team, we would have the latest engine and McLaren would get them after us. Before long they were getting the same engines as us, which in itself I don’t really mind. But it raised questions of supply: were you getting good engines or were they rushing to build new engines because they’d upgraded and now needed to build them for ourselves and McLaren? It wasn’t a big deal. But I do remember Tom [Walkinshaw] saying that McLaren would only ever get the same engines as us over his dead body – but he didn’t die when they did get them.”
Amid such political cut and thrust, three particular drivers standing together on a podium didn’t carry a great deal of meaning in the moment. Why would it? Today, it means so much more. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
