Ayrton Senna
1988: first world championship

In 1988, due to the relationship he had built up with Honda throughout the 1987 season with Lotus, and with the approval of McLaren's number-one driver and then-double world champion, Alain Prost, Senna joined the McLaren team. The foundation for a fierce competition between Senna and Prost was laid, culminating in a number of dramatic race incidents between the two over the next five years. The experienced pair also quickly realized, despite their personal rivalry, they had to work together, especially in testing, to keep ahead of their main opposition from Ferrari, Williams, Benetton, and Lotus. One notable incident of the year was at the Monaco Grand Prix, where Senna out-qualified Prost by 1.4 seconds and led for most of the race before crashing on lap 67.

Instead of returning to the pit lane, Senna was so distressed by his mistake that he went back to his apartment and did not contact the team until he walked into the pit garage as they were packing up later that night. After team manager Jo Ramirez called him through his Monaco apartment's cleaner hours after he had crashed, Senna was still devastated by his own mistake. As the television cameras had not captured his crash, team boss Ron Dennis did not know what had caused his DNF until then, although Prost speculated that judging from the tyre marks, it appeared as though Senna had clipped the inside barrier at Portier, which pitched him into the outside guard rail. At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Prost made a slightly faster start than Senna who, as he would a number of times, dived into the fast first corner ahead. Prost responded and went to pass Senna at the end of the first lap. Senna swerved to block Prost, forcing the Frenchman to nearly run into the pit wall at 290 km/h (180 mph). Prost kept his foot down and soon edged Senna into the first corner and started pulling away. Prost, normally a calm individual, was angered by Senna's manoeuvre, and the Brazilian got away with a warning from the FIA. At the post-race team debrief, Prost voiced his anger at the move which prompted Senna to apologize to Prost for the incident. Ultimately, the pair won 15 of 16 races in the dominant McLaren MP4/4 in 1988 with Senna coming out on top, winning his first Formula One world championship title by taking eight wins to Prost's seven. Although Prost scored more points over the season, three of his second places were dropped, as only the eleven-best scores counted, meaning that Senna bested Prost by three points.

The biggest incident of the year happened at the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. With two laps remaining, Senna held a five-second lead over the Ferraris of Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto, who were closing in on the McLaren MP4/4 (Prost had earlier retired with a badly misfiring engine). Going into the Rettifilo chicane, Senna closed on the Williams FW12 of Jean-Louis Schlesser (standing in for the unwell Nigel Mansell). Schlesser steered wide, attempting to give Senna room to lap him, losing then regaining control to avoid going into the sand trap, and the two collided; Senna's car was beached on top of a curb and had stalled. Ferrari went on to finish 1–2, the first in an Italian Grand Prix since the death of the team's founder Enzo Ferrari. This proved to be the only race McLaren did not win in 1988. During the season, Senna rewrote the record books. His eight wins beat the old record of seven jointly held by Jim Clark (1963) and Prost (1984). His 13 pole positions also beat the record of nine held by Nelson Piquet (1984).
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