On This Day: The Senna-Prost feud is born

The first seeds of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost's rivalry were sown on this day 29 years ago. Senna won the San Marino Grand Prix ahead of his McLaren team-mate, but the Brazilian's refusal to stick to a pre-race agreement enraged the Frenchman.

With the McLaren MP4/5 in a class of its own, Senna and Prost won 10 of the 16 races in the 1989 season, but none was acrimonious as race two at Imola.

Having finished a lowly 11th in the season-opener in Brazil, Senna spent more than a week testing at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari to find the perfect balance.

It worked a treat as the Brazilian qualified on pole, with Prost joining him on the front row of the grid and the third-quickest Ferrari of Nigel Mansell over a second and a half off the pace.

Senna had the advantage off the line, but the race was red-flagged after just three laps when Gerhard Berger crashed at Tamburello Corner and his Ferrari promptly burst into flames.

The Austrian miraculously escaped with minor burns and rib injuries.

It was the restart that would go down in history, however, as Prost made a better getaway than his team-mate, only for Senna to roar back at him and aggressively overtake before the first lap was through.

Prost was enraged, later claiming that Senna had gone back on his word to keep fighting to an absolute minimum on the first lap.

Senna countered that the pact was null and void - remember it wasn't the first lap of the race!

From this moment, the relationship between the pair soured into a seething dislike. The pair refused to talk to each other, save for critical team meetings, and would go on to quarrel at McLaren for the remainder of the year, Prost taking honours in 1989 before Senna won the title in 1990 and 1991 as the Frenchman struggled to find somewhere to land after leaving McLaren.

#OnThisDay in 1989, Senna took the chequered flag to win a dramatic San Marino Grand Prix, with teammate @Prost_official bringing home a McLaren 1-2. ???????? pic.twitter.com/iWOPY8PEgw — McLaren (@McLarenF1) April 23, 2018