Vielä Prostin näkökanta kauteen 1989:
"Anyway, before the 1989 season I had dinner at the golf club in Geneva with Honda's then chairman, Mr Kawamoto and four other people. And he admitted that I was right in believing that Honda was more for Ayrton than for me."
"He said, 'You want to know why we push Senna so much? Well, I can't be 100 per cent sure.' But one thing he did let me know was that the new generation of engineers working on the engines were in favour of Ayrton, because he was more the samurai, and I was more the computer."
Whatever, the situation was not to improve. Quite the opposite, in fact. In 1989, the fragile relationship between Prost and Senna broke apart utterly, and that existing between Alain and McLaren was not a lot better.
"Until then, I never had a problem with anyone at McLaren, but '89 was different. My contract was due to expire at the end of the year, but Ayrton's was not. Ron knew the future of his team was with Honda - and therefore with Senna. He tried hard to persuade me to stay, but in reality he couldn't keep both of us, and I told him in July that I would be leaving at the end of the season. In my opinion, he was not fair with me in '89. We're still very good friends, and, despite everything, I still even now think of McLaren as my team. But Ron knows my feelings about that period."
"At the time, I was completely disillusioned. After everything I'd done with the team, and for the team, I didn't think I should have been treated like that. But at the end of the day, you know, Ron was trying to push his company to the front, and of course I can understand that a little."
"By the time we got to Monza, I was ahead of him in the championship, by about 10 points. But that race. was the real low point between McLaren and me. Senna had two cars, with 20 people around him, and I had just one car, with maybe four or five mechanics working for me. I was absolutely alone, in one part of the garage, and that was perhaps the toughest weekend of my racing career. Honda was really hard against me by then, and it was difficult trying to fight for the championship in that situation. In practice, Ayrton was nearly two seconds quicker than me - OK, as I said, he was certainly a better qualifier than I was, but two seconds? That was a joke."