A week ago, we were calling on the F1 world and paddock to take a second look at how we view Alain Prost. Let’s face it, we have a 4-time legend who battled the mighty Senna still involved with our sport and yet very little is made of it.
No sooner were we extolling the wonder of having Prost still involved in F1, and complaining that it was largely being overlooked, when it was announced that Alpine were parting ways with the champ. There was one problem, it wasn’t managed by Alpine but leaked and Prost was not happy.
“I am very disappointed how this news has been announced today,” Prost posted.
“It was agreed that we would announce together with Alpine! No respect sorry!
“I have refused the offer made to me in Abu Dhabi for the 2022 season because of a personal relationship and I was right!
“To the Enstone and Viry team, I will miss you.”
There is no doubt that the Renault, now Alpine, team have not achieved what they would have hoped for over the last few years and the most recent leadership team did seem a little top heavy. If things aren’t working, you make changes and they recently released Marcin Budkowski with many suggesting that Otmar Szafnauer could enter the frame.
Regardless of the speculation, this clearly isn’t the way you would have expected the team to part ways with a 4-time champion and in some sense you can understand Alain’s comments. Perhaps we’re missing some glaring issue but from our perspective, we should be celebrating Prost, not firing him.
