Originally posted by GmanJoe
just like he did to his nemesis...I forgot his name. 
Basically, it was the last race of the season....this guy was in position to score and beat Ayrton.
That would be Alain Prost at the Japanese GP in 1990, but it wasn\'t the last race, it was the penultimate one.
And yes he did do that, but do you know why? Take the following into account, a driver with an abundance of latin spirit & drive, puts in a fantastic lap time to claim pole position from a man who he vowed would NEVER get the better of him. And as by right, the pole position slot on the grid should ALWAYS be on the racing line(ie on the clean side). Now AFTER claiming pole, the grid markings were switched round, meaning that Senna was on the inside row (on the dirty side of the track) which would be to his disadvantage at the start. Now, because of this, he felt that he was unjustly treated. Before the race, he had already (with the full support of the McLaren boss) decided that there was absolutely no way that Prost was going to get into the first corner in front of him. Basically, his method of thinking was this- At the start of the race, he was going to go for that corner full blood, and either Prost would back down, or they would both go out, either way, he had already decided that the Frenchman wasn\'t going to come out of it on top.
That was his style, he was an agressive (on cooaisions a little too much so) driver, who was in the way of thinking "I\'m coming through, it\'s up to you whether you want to finish the race or not, if you get out of the way, you may well do so.... If not.... who knows?"
At the end of the day, if you want to understand why he did what he did in Japan, you have to understand and appreciate his absolute detestation for Alain Prost. In Senna\'s own words "I was designed to win, second doesn\'t interest me... Second is for the guy who wasn\'t good enough"
And for 8 long & depressing years now Schumacher has ruled the roost, so to speak. But finally, there is a new driver around who has already made it clear that he won\'t back down in a confrontation...... And his name is JUAN PABLO MONTOYA!!!!
He is just like Senna was, and he lives by the same line of thought, "never back down at any cost, it\'s better to crash out whilst in the lead, than to drive round and round in second".
