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Some Prost related stories...The warm-up to the 1990 Mexican Grand Prix in Mexico City hat to be stopped because of a big black dog on the track. Alain Prost said about it: "The dog was behaving better than many drivers when being overtaken. Besides that, it was very fast!"
After the heavy accident of Oliver Panis, Alain Prost answered the question if he thought about replacing Panis himself: "I could explain it to you for hours, but to reduce it to a common denominator - no."
In a chat after the first practice session for the Belgium Grand Prix 2000, Alain Prost was asked the following question: "Do you think F1 should be a mixed sport; men and women?" - Alain answered: "Yes, men during the day and women in the evening!"
In an interview with former Team Prost driver Olivier Panis, the interviewers and Olivier took a taxi cab in London. Olivier said: "I love these taxis". The interviewer: "But they're even slower than a '98 Prost". Olivier answered laughing: "Yes, but not much slower, and they are better in traffic!"
During the Andros Trophy ice race (2004) in Serre Chevalier (which was won by Alain), Alain did not succeed to avoid hitting another race car, which was standing in the middle of a turn. After the incident, Alain's race car looked like a pick-up truck, as he lost the back part of the car! Being asked about it in an interview with French TV-channel TF1, Alain said: "It's a typical beginner's mistake, but I'm still young and learning!"
Once, when the younger Alain drove the Prost family car, his mom asked him to change places. She said: "How bad you drive!"
Alain Prost once asked the journalists: "Do you know, why I really love my helmet that much? Because it makes me 15 centimetres taller!"
Due to Nigel Roebuck, Alain once said: "Does it scare me, driving into nothing at 300kph? - Of course it does - I'm not an idiot..."
Again a quote that comes from Nigel Roebuck: When Alain was asked, if boxing did account for his crooked nose, Alain answered: "Ah, non! It has been broken four times, you know. First time in a car accident on the road, second time showing the police how the accident happened... no, no, second time on roller skates, third time falling down stairs, fourth time falling off someone's shoulders..."
In 1986, after a flight in a Mirage of the French Air Force, I set off home, only to be caught in a radar trap, doing well in excess of my speed limit. The police man looked me up and down disdainfully before asking: "Who do you think you are - Alain Prost?"
During a press conference after the Canadian Grand Prix, I was demonstrating how I had outbraked someone or other when my chair skidded. I did a backward roll and disappeared from view under the dais, to the amusement and sympathetic applause of the assembled US and Canadian press.
In Detroit, I hit the wall slap bang in front of the pits. I was disgusted at having dropped a clanger like that in full view of the stands and I scuttled off as soon as I decently could to hide my shame... When I got back to my car the following day, there was a little scrap of paper scotchtaped to the windscreen. This is standard procedure, and normally serves to remind the driver that new brake discs have been mouted or that a fresh gearbox has to be nursed. In this way, the head mechanic can alert the driver to important details he should look out for during practice. The scrap of paper had the following message: "Differential, brakes, wishbone upper left, wishbone upper right, steering, suspension, gearbox, engine, heat exchanger, underbody, wings - all new. Three hours sleep." - That was the damage I'd done the day before...
In his book "Life in the Fast Lane", Alain wrote about how hard it is to go outside in peace: "Not so very long ago, I was skiing in Meribel. I had found a huge balaclava helmet and I was wearing outsize ski goggles. Just as I was about to launch myself downhill, a perfect stranger standing next to me tapped me on the shoulder. 'Ça va, Alain?'"
Alain Prost tells the story himself: "After the last training session for the day I went back to the hotel at 5 p.m., Willi Dungl gave me a massage and I ate something before setting the alarm clock for 7:45 am and turning in at 7 p.m. for my eleven hours of needed sleep. Suddenly, I heared the alarm clock ringing, I got up, shaved myself, and put on my driving suit. Then I took the elevator downstairs and noticed it was 20:15... So, I only slept about 45 minutes!! Fortunately, nobody has seen me - or else they would have thought: Now Prost gone mad!"
Alain was astonishingly easy on equipment, and I doubt that any other great driver ever made so few mistakes. At a Donington test years ago I remember chatting with Eddie Cheever, who was looking out over the track. "I don't believe it!" Eddie said. "Prost just spun!" He was silent for a few seconds. "Oh, what the hell, he'll probably do it again in another three or four years..."
Heinz Prüller wrote in his book "Grand Prix Story 86" about Alain Prost: "I usually meet him at oversea-flights. He always wears golf- or Mickey Mouse t-shirts and is the last one who comes into the plane, with sleeping-pills in his suitcase. Nobody sleeps as good and fast during oversea-flights as Alain does. Once, as an airplane had to return from the runway before the take-off, Alain already was fast asleep - they had to carry him out of the airplane."