To narrate what happened at the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix, we have to go back to just one year before, to the 1989 edition. In that race, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost had a historic duel, an accident that initially left both out of the race and gave the French the title.
Senna, with the help of the stewards, managed to continue and win, but was later disqualified for missing a chicane, and Prost added his third crown. The president of the FIA, Jean-Marie Balestre , was French, and that created a tremendous stir that made even the boss of both drivers, Ron Dennis , come to Senna’s defense.
Feeling abandoned in his own team, Prost decided to leave McLaren for Ferrari and in 1990, when fate did its thing again, Suzuka would once again host an event that would always be remembered. On that occasion, also in the penultimate race of the year, Senna was nine points ahead of his great rival, and he had everything in his face. It was enough for him to be sixth or that Prost did not win.
In fact Senna took pole position on Saturday, with Prost second. That year, the poleman at that circuit had to start from the dirty side of the track, and Senna was quick to request a change of position which the FIA first accepted and eventually rejected.
That angered the one from Sao Paulo who warned, and he was not a traitor, that in the first corner he would have no mercy if they took the lead from him on the clean side of the circuit. Prost took advantage of his best starting position and moved into the lead but, coming into the first lap, Senna tried to find a gap that wasn’t there and they collided, leaving both seconds into the race.
(Watch the accident sequence before reading on)
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo by: Jean-Francois Galeron
Photo by: Jean-Francois Galeron
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo By: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Foto de: Sutton Motorsport Images
Photo de: Ercole Colombo
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: Ercole Colombo
Photo by: LAT Images
Foto de: Sutton Motorsport Images
As you can see in the images above, both came out unscathed and left the circuit under their own power. Even close to each other, without even the hint of a fight or argument.
With those abandonments, Senna was proclaimed two-time Formula 1 world champion with one race remaining and thus served, on a cold plate, a huge revenge for what happened to the same driver and on the same circuit a year earlier.
Senna’s face showed no pride, and she suppressed her joy at the media and in public images. He knew that he had done no good that day, but he was also aware that he was owed one that he himself wanted to collect.
And, although on the track they had not even looked at each other, then there was a crossing of statements. For Prost, Senna was an ‘unworthy man’ and a ‘disgusting being’. For those who were proclaimed champions that day, the second was a ‘coward’.
And who won the 1990 Formula 1 Japanese GP race?
Although Prost and Senna took the leading role, Nelson Piquet (Benetton) was the winner, taking advantage of a run off track by the other McLaren ( Gerhard Berger ) and a breakdown of the other Ferrari ( Nigel Mansell ).
Second and next to Nelson Piquet was, on his first and only podium in Formula 1, the Brazilian Roberto Moreno , also a Benetton driver.
But the podium had one more surprise: with the humble Lola, Auguri Suzuki took the first podium of a Japanese in Suzuka, to the delight of the fans.
Photo from: LAT Images
Photo by: Jean-Francois Galeron
Photo by: Jean-Francois Galeron
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: LAT Images
Photo by: Sutton Motorsport Images
Foto de: Ercole Colombo
