Alain Prost's reaction to Netflix Senna series: "Complete bullshit"

Netflix released the six-episode series Senna at the end of 2024. 30 years after the Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna's tragic death, the series covers his racing career as well as his rivalry with French driver Alain Prost. However, this is something the four-time F1 champion has taken issue with.

Prost has criticised the series for not portraying his relationship with Senna correctly. He claimed:

"Bullshit, bullshit, complete bullshit. Almost everything has been completely fictionalised.

"I've only seen a few pictures and heard quite a lot of feedback. As with the film Senna, the first one, which I probably spent even more time on than my own documentary, and this biopic, it's obvious that I won't be satisfied, of course," said Prost.

"Because there is always a good guy and a bad guy. I know a little bit about the story that is being told and yes, it is a biopic, it is fictionalised. But unfortunately, a few repetitive stories are inserted that are totally made up, just totally wrong."

Senna and Prost were team-mates at McLaren in 1988 and 1989. This came at a time when Honda ended its partnership with Williams and joined McLaren. The Frenchman was already well-situated within the team after joining in 1984, but Honda was keen to bring in a Brazilian driver - either Senna or Nelson Piquet - due to its strong market in South America. 

The partnership between McLaren and Honda resulted in an extremely dominant car and a fierce rivalry between the two drivers.

Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Photo by: Ercole Colombo

Despite the rivalry, Prost and Senna became friends. Prost reflected on his relationship with Senna during an interview with Autosport last year:

"I don't keep the bad moments or any bad souvenirs in my mind about him. I keep the last six months [of his life] in mind. That's when I knew Ayrton much more than ever before. He was a completely different person, I understood who he was and why he was acting sometimes."

He added:

"Near the end, when we were close, it was very strange because we would talk about the bad safety and this kind of thing," said Prost. "He would ask me many times to take the lead of the GPDA, and I said no. We had some very private discussions together around this time. It was very strange.

"I keep this souvenir [of him] from then right until his last day, because I met him two or three times, and just before [the race at Imola] - and of course he was already this different person to me. That is why I prefer to think about that alone."