“I Don’t Speak Armenian, but I’m Armenian”: Alain Prost – Living Legend of Formula One

“My mother is Armenian; we spent all our childhood with my grandfather, who told us various stories about Armenia. When you are only 10 years old – these are just stories. You realize their real meaning a bit later. Today, these stories are an integral part of my life. I do not speak Armenian, but I am Armenian, and this is the most important thing “, – racing driver and a four-time Formula One Drivers’ Champion Alain Prost said.

Alain Prost was born on 24 February 1955, near the town of Saint-Chamond in the family of André Prost and Marie-Rose Karatchian, born in France of Armenian descent. Alain’s younger brother Daniel died of cancer in 1986. Although short, Prost was an active, athletic child, who enthusiastically took part in diverse sports, including wrestling, roller skating and football. Prost did everything in the sake of victory, and in doing so he broke his nose several times. That is how his nose got the form, which in the future became famous to the whole world. Alain considered careers as a gym instructor or a professional footballer before he discovered kart racing at the age of 14 while on a family holiday. The boy once and forever fell in love with the speed and roar of the motors and later from the kart driver became the greatest Formula One champion.

Alain is a four-time World Formula One Drivers’ Champion (1985, 1986, 1989, 1993). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Prost set a number of records and only Michael Schumacher managed to break them a decade later. Alain Prost was awarded the Légion d’Honneur by President François Mitterrand. The most striking period in Alain Prost’s career was during his rivalry with Ayrton Senna, who is the McLaren Formula One team member. But despite the scandals and quarrels caused by this rivalry, by the end of the career, the two champions had completely neutral relations. Senna once said that Alain “… always sought to be at the peak and even higher.”