Uncle Sam

Yes, Prost benefited from his relationship with Balestre. But Senna benefited a lot from his relationship with Dennis, while Prost suffered.. What I want to say is that it is important to take into account the full picture. Otherwise your conclusions are bias..

Regarding Vettel I totally agree with Izybluffen and Dan.
He needs to prove himself as an F1 great by showing how he can consistently outdrive his inferior car for title fight. One race in 2008 is not enough. Many also point out that Vettel is better than Webber and that's why he is great Well, is Webber such a great driver that outperforming him is a big deal? Moreover, Webber quite often outperforms Vettel until the team starts to put different parts on their cars and Webber's car starts to brake.. So, there are many questions with this case.

@Yernar
I am sorry, but the President of the FIA has much more power to influence a race, and or Championship, beyond that of a team principle. The President has the ability to interpret the rules how they like and influence the stewards over a wide range of areas. A team principle has the sole ability to favor one driver over his team mate. For you to insinuate that McLaren withheld parts from Prost, I would say that you would be making a highly speculative and unsubstantiated remark.

Richard- You dont necessarily have to switch teams, your car can become uncompetitive but the result is the same, you still have to win with a dog car. Clark still won races when the Lotus was a dog and the majority overrides you again as majority of the world call Senna the greatest. I just have massive respect for Clark.

UncleSam - I believe epic drives are still to be had. If Button can win from last to first for whatever reasons then surely Seb can aswell ?? Even starting down the field and winning. In the rain, just one of those days etc as a "great" driver will still defy the odds and produce excellent drives. Button isn't great but that was a great drive and forced Seb into a mistake to boot ! Always remember the words of Murray Walker: "Anything can happen in F1, and it probably will" !!!

@ izybluffen

Clark didn't win the 1967 Italian Grand Prix. He did unlap himself and get into the lead but ran out of fuel before the finish line. It was almost a dead heat between Surtees and Brabham with Surtess taking the win by the slimmest of margins. It was still an epic drive by Clark though and I regard him as one of the greatest ever.

matt. no point in debating with you as you say one thing and then alter it to suit your argument.
and i am delighted that you are the arbiter on senna, assuring us all that the "majority of the world" consider senna the greatest. WOW! prove that.

i think that you will find that more people consider fangio the greatest. but greatness is all relative, and who can say what constitutes "the greatest"?

Uncle Sam

I don't think so. FIA President doesn't have a lot of power to interpret rules the way he likes because he doesn't make decisions alone. He has to persuade a lot of people in order for decision to be taken. Moreover, all eyes are on him and everything he does is widely discussed by the motorsport community worldwide. Team principal, on contrary, may decide which direction to develop a car, who is #1 driver, who gets upgrades etc. In Prost/Senna case Dennis even provided Senna with an army of mechanics while Prost had only his race engineer. And finally, team principal decides which driver to hire and which to fire.

Alan Prost and Ayreton Senna are both (I believe) considered greats of F1, former McLaren man Jo Ramirez commented that 'when the car was perfect', even the great Senna could not get the better of Prost, bearing in mind how often 'any' driver has a perfect car, Prost could still beat plenty on the grid, on plenty of occasions Senna though would be a bridge too far in those less than perfect conditions. i could conclude that in the races Vettel has failed to win, he encountered a less than perfect car, this season in particular though, under those conditions, he remained in the hunt, as Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen (in my view the four standout performers) managed, they overcame misshaps, poor strategy etc to elevate themselves above their respective team mates, perhaps if Vettel could achieve his results against a stronger team mate Sir Jackie would reconsider. Earlier in the season I looked at what kind of points these guys were scoring when not winning races, needless to say Vette

cont . . . vettel, alonso and raikkonen (in that order) topped that list too.

Sam, So you're happy to make the claim that Prost...

"was assisted by the FIA on far too many occasions to state unequivocally that all of his titles were earned on track and deserved"

But when I ask you to list the occasions you suddenly don't want to debate it. The problem that I have with comments like that is that the uneducated will believe you that's why I asked you to back up your claim, and unsurprisingly you can't.

If Balestre was biased towards Prost why was no action taken against Senna for his premeditated attack on Prost at Suzuka 1990? I would have thought that was a perfect opportunity to ban Senna meaning Prost would have won the championship.

I'm guessing you won't want to debate that either as it clearly doesn't fit with your illusions of favouritisim.