3 replies to this topic

[John5]

Regarding today's article about 1990 Ferrari and the first sentence: "During McLaren-Honda's dominant seasons from 1988-1991, no car pushed it harder than the Ferrari 641". I would say McLaren had same hard moments with 1991 Williams.

[F1matt]

Mansell possibly out scored Senna in the second half of the season on his return to Williams in 1991 but they didn't start the season well, Prost and Ferrari were really strong mid season in 1990 but I will always remember that year for Senna doing his best to kill Prost in Japan.
In terms of domination it was nothing compared to Ferraris domination of the early noughties or the current domination by Mercedes.

[Henri Greuter]

Mansell possibly out scored Senna in the second half of the season on his return to Williams in 1991 but they didn't start the season well, Prost and Ferrari were really strong mid season in 1990 but I will always remember that year for Senna doing his best to kill Prost in Japan.
In terms of domination it was nothing compared to Ferraris domination of the early noughties or the current domination by Mercedes.

 

About the closest that McLaren came to matching and maybe even surpassing the Ferrari & Mercedes dominance must be the 1988 and 1989 seasons, '88 in particular. But then, that season had only 16 races compared with the up to 20 that Ferrari and Mercedes dominated.

Now somehow I don't expect that McLaren would have droppped off dominating like they did in the first 16 races had there been some more races to contest.

1990 was indeed less of domination thanks to, as is pointed out the Ferrari of Prost (Mansell was less effective with it) but I also have te feeling it had something to do with Honda dividing its research and efforts by working on the new for `91 V12 instead of focussing on the current V10.

And indeed, had Williams had a better first quarter of the season (4 races all won by Senna) then it might have been even closer than it eventuallly became in '91.

 

What I still think to be so painful about what you describe as the murder attempt by Senna on Prost, he did so using a car numbered 27....

 

Now I know that the magic on #27 as being the number that is mostly associated with Gilles Villeneuve is somewhat exaggerated. Alan Jones used 27 more often than Gilles while Gilles did most of  his races in #12.

But still, since #27 is often considered Gilles' number, and remembering how many drivers described Gilles in battle as hard but always fair and never risking the driver he was in combat with, it saddens me that the day that sportsmanship in racing died was because of an act by someone driving a car numbered 27.

 

 

Henri

Edited by Henri Greuter, 30 December 2017 - 14:05.

[PayasYouRace]

Both Prost in 1990 and Mansell in 1991 took the championship fight to Suzuka, the penultimate race.

But while the 641 was a close match for the MP4/5B throughout 1990, the FW14 started off slow and ended up faster than the MP4/6 by season end.

So I guess you could argue the toss either way.