The day Alain Prost, at the time F1's most successful driver, realised he would never have things all his own way again as Ayrton Senna secured the first of his three world titles in four years, winning the Japanese Grand Prix despite almost stalling on the grid - "proof," wrote Alan Henry, "that really great driving talents can salvage a top-class result from a potentially dangerous situation". Behind Senna and, equally inevitably, team-mate Prost, there was no shortage of drama. Nigel Mansell collided with Derek Warwick and then Nelson Piquet, while Andrea de Cesaris "launched an unprovoked attack on Aguri Suzuki after he found the Japanese rookie interfering in his own private battle against one of the Marchs". After the race, Gerhard Berger, who finished third, revealed he was considering emigrating to Monaco to avoid being called up by the Austrians for national service.
1906
Nino Farina, born on this day in Turin, has gone down in history as the winner of the inaugural FIA World Championship in 1950. He was also a prolific crasher, and prone to tantrums, giving up during races if he felt he could not win even if running in second or third. He was a dominant driver before World War Two, winning the Italian title in 1937, 1938 and 1939, fell out with teams post-war before returning to Alfa Romeo, who he had left in a huff in 1947. In 1950 he won three of the season's six races and with it the drivers' championship. But thereafter he was unable to match the increasingly dominant Juan Manuel Fangio as well as being sidelined by a series of accidents. He returned in 1955 but was in constant pain and retired, returning to race in the 1956 Indianapolis 500 where he again crashed. Perhaps inevitably, he died in a car crash while en route to watch the 1959 French Grand Prix.
