Quote:
Originally Posted by Artemis
The 2021 Hamilton-Verstappen rivalry regularly reminded me of the Prost-Senna rivalry. In the late 80s Prost was the established world champion, stoic, "Le Professeur", while Senna was the very talented rascal upsetting the establishment with unorthodox and ruthless racing. Back in their racing days, they despised each other, did not talk to each other. But a change of heart happened after Prost had quit F1: Senna approached Prost, explaining that he truly missed him as challenger and that racing without him was no longer exciting anymore. Prost explained in a recent long interview that they regularly were in touch with each other and actually a bromance blossomed between them. They had left the toxic past behind them and moved on in good terms.
I hope that someday something similar could happen between Hamilton and Verstappen. Different personae, but who knows.
Here's the very interesting interview (by Rosberg) of Prost talking about Senna (see from 31:22 onwards):
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It's easy to compare the Senna/Prost rivalry with the Max/Lewis of '21-22. The difference is that the Max/Lewis rivalry appears to be (sort of) over at this time with Lewis not able to challenge Max so there is no interaction lately on the track.
I believe if the Merc should improve (tho' not very likely) up to the level of the RB then it may resume and we know that kind of rivalry brings in millions of extra viewers.