Rushing to La Source

Ayrton Senna, the pole man in his McLaren MP4/5B-Honda, is ahead of team mate Gerhard Berger, Alain Prost’s Ferrari 641 and Thierry Boutsen’s Williams FW13-Renault at the La Source hairpin, just after the start of the 1990 Belgian Grand Prix held at Spa-Francorchamps (picture-above).

Brazilian driver claimed his fifth race victory of the season, taking a four-second win over the reigning world champion, Alain Prost. Local hero Thierry Boutsen, so competitive on home soil, was forced to retire on lap 21, with a broken transmission.

The 1990 championship featured a dramatic battle between Senna and former teammate Alain Prost, who had made the switch to Ferrari. Prost mounted Ferrari’s first title challenge for several years, and led the championship after three consecutive mid-season wins.

Senna fought back strongly and went into the penultimate round at Suzuka in Japan with a nine-point lead over Prost. There, the Brazilian driver drove intentionally into the Frenchman at the first corner, putting both out and thus settling the championship in his favour.