When a local journalist asked Alain Prost to respond to a question in French the other day, the French-born, three-time world driving champion smiled and said, “For me that is easy.”
But when Prost, for the first time in his career, won the Canadian Grand Prix here Sunday in the heart of French-speaking Canada, he said it wasn’t so easy. Funny, it sure looked easy. Prost, taking the lead from Williams-Renault teammate Damon Hill on the sixth lap, finished nearly 15 seconds ahead of runner-up Michael Schumacher as only three cars finished on the lead lap in the 69-lap race around the 2.75-mile Circuit Gilles-Villenueve.
“I was in control,” Prost said, “but it wasn’t as easy as you might think. It was very tiring. This is a difficult track. After a while you don’t feel your right foot very well. You have no feeling for the brake pedals.”
The victory, the 48th of his career, vaulted Prost back into first place in the driver standings, five points ahead of archrival Ayrton Senna, who was running in second place when his McLaren-Ford suddenly quit on him. Had Senna held off Schumacher-an issue that was very much in doubt-for second place, he would have maintained the lead.
If it was a nightmare finish for Senna, there was another nightmare start for American standard-bearer Michael Andretti. This time, however, it was in no way Andretti’s fault. His problems started in the morning warmup, when he lost hydraulic pressure after only two slow laps and missed the entire session.
Then, at the start of the race, his engine failed to fire and he had to be pushed behind the pit wall while the field left without him. By the time the engine fired up and he joined the race, he was already 2 1/2 laps behind. He ended up 14th, three laps behind the winner, but he undoubtedly would have finished in the points without the disastrous start.
“What a shame,” said Andretti, as he was cheered by the crowd of nearly 100,000 for a gallant effort against overwhelming odds. “We could have done very well here. The car ran great.”
The problem was diagnosed as a faulty jump battery, which drained all the juice from the car’s electrical system. Senna went out with a failed alternator and came very close to taking Schumacher out with him.
“The car suddenly started cutting out,” said Senna, “and I was so concerned about it that I didn’t see Schumacher coming on the outside.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” said Schumacher, “but when he pulled off the course he was pulling a bit to the wrong side, and I believe I was lucky to go through. There wasn’t much space between him and me and the wall.”
Senna, in fact, thought the cars touched as Schumacher squeezed by, but the 24-year-old German driver said he didn’t think so. Schumacher, who also came in second here a year ago, was delighted with the result, “especially after the mistake I made at the start.”
Schumacher, who went into the race feeling his Benetton-Ford had a good chance to surprise the seemingly invincible Williams team, discarded that notion immediately when he fell from third all the way back to 11th. “I nearly stalled the engine twice,” Schumacher said, “and I was lucky to start the race. To come back from there was something of a victory.”
Hill, starting second, got the jump on his teammate at the start, but when Prost went to pass him in a hairpin turn six laps later, Hill gave him room. “I could see Alain coming on the inside,” said Hill, “and rather than make it difficult, I made sure both cars got around the corner.”
Hill still was running second when he made a disastrous pit stop. “The stop itself wasn’t bad,” he said, “but as I came in I could see people running around looking for tires.” By the time they found them and clapped them on his car, more than 16 seconds had gone by and he re-entered in fourth place.
Running second by now was Senna, who apparently had corrected the handling problems that had been plaguing him all weekend. For a while, he even ate a little into Prost’s lead, but eventually the superior power of the Williams-Renault made it a battle for second place.
And quite a battle it was. Senna never could get more than four seconds ahead, and by the time he went out, the lead over Schumacher was less than a second. “There was a period when I took care of my tires,” said Schumacher, “because I knew once I got close to Ayrton, it would not be easy to pass him. Then, about 15 laps from the end, I pushed harder. That was the period when I did my fastest laps.”
In fact, he turned the fastest lap of the race on Lap 57 and, with the exuberance of youth, sounded this warning to Prost: “Alain said it wasn’t so easy today. I hope we can make it even harder.”
