Alain Prost’s 1991 sacking is starting to closely mirror Lewis Hamilton’s first season with Ferrari

Formula 1 champions haven’t always had the easiest time racing for Ferrari, as Alain Prost discovered in the early 1990s.

Alain Prost arrived at Ferrari in 1990 as a three-time Formula 1 world champion.

By the time he left, he still had more than a year left on his contract and thought he was walking away from F1 for good, before returning to Williams to win one last championship in 1993.

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Alain Prost spraying champange on the podium at the 1993 South African Grand Prix — Photo by Paul-Henri Cahier/Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton is hoping to avoid the same fate as Prost, although his first campaign with the Scuderia was far more disastrous than the Frenchman’s.

Prost finished second to Ayrton Senna in 1990, whereas Hamilton had to settle for a podium-less 2025 campaign and P6 in the drivers’ championship.

Hamilton has faced criticism from Ferrari chiefs, alongside Charles Leclerc, and several moments from this season are already starting to sound like what Prost dealt with during his time in Maranello.

Alain Prost joins Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese on the podium at the 1991 Spanish Grand Prix — Photo by ERIC FEFERBERG / AFP via Getty Images

Why Alain Prost got sacked by Ferrari in 1991 after calling their Formula 1 car a ‘truck’

Prost went from winning five races in 1990 to failing to stand on the top step of the podium the following year.

The relationship between Prost and Ferrari started to break down, and a disagreement over strategy at the Spanish Grand Prix saw the Frenchman come out publicly and say, “If I’d had them, I could have won,” when asked about not starting on slick tyres.

At the penultimate race in Japan, Prost’s shock absorbers failed, and he said the car had been “like a horrible truck to drive,” after finishing fourth more than 80 seconds behind race winner Gerhard Berger.

On top of this, Prost suggested that no one was listening to him about the issues he had with the car, and the atmosphere was ‘strictly negative’.

This is despite being in negotiations with Ferrari just weeks before getting sacked about becoming the team’s sporting director in 1992, alongside his position as one of their two drivers.

However, Prost was replaced for the final race in Australia by Minardi driver Gianni Morbidelli, with their relationship coming to an end.

What Alain Prost said in the press that led to his Ferrari sacking

Speaking to Grand Prix in 1991, Prost explained: “Internal crisis is a normal thing at Ferrari. When the team wins, there is a crisis of optimism. When that happens, everything stops. That’s what happened in the off-season.

“The problem is that there are one or two people in the team with little F1 experience.

“Ron Dennis [former McLaren team principal] is a leader of men, a catalyser of energies. He is completely respected, and that’s what we are missing here.”

After the 1990 Portuguese GP, when Mansell beat Prost, he said: “Ferrari does not deserve to be World Champions.

“It is a team without directive and without strategy — against a united and well-structured team like McLaren.”

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Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari walks in parc ferme in Mexico, wearing his helmet — Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images

Prost went on to say that the best way to get something done at Ferrari was to make your dissatisfaction public.

Umberto Agnelli, who was the brother of Fiat president Gianni Agnelli and great-uncle to current president John Elkann, questioned Prost’s motivation during this time.

Prost replied: “I have a contract with Ferrari for next year, but I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to keep me. If Umberto Agnelli, or people like him, don’t want me to stay, I am ready to quit Ferrari.”

The Frenchman ended up criticising the ‘incredible influence’ the Italian media had on Ferrari, and thought many of the team’s problems surfaced from their reports.

He was also quoted at a private test in Imola despite not giving any official interviews, breeding further distrust between all parties.

How Alain Prost’s struggles relate to Lewis Hamilton’s first season at Ferrari

Hamilton will know exactly what Prost is talking about when it comes to the criticism of the Italian media.

While Fred Vasseur and Ferrari’s poor development of the SF-25 have been targeted, Hamilton’s inability to match Leclerc for much of the season has also been a key talking point.

Hamilton has been negative about his own ability rather than criticising Ferrari directly like Prost did, and has left much of the critique of the car to Leclerc, who has more credit with the team and the tifosi.

However, Ferrari fans will begin to lose patience with Hamilton if the 2026 car is competitive, but he’s not able to produce championship-winning results.

Hamilton is quickly learning why Sebastian Vettel and other champions struggled at Ferrari, but he will hope that his time in Maranello ends more positively than Prost’s did.