Celebrating Alain Prost's 65th birthday: What happened in F1 in 1955?
F1 News
Alain Prost is celebrating a big milestone today: his 65th birthday (Monday, February 24). The four-time F1 world champion is one of the most popular stars to have ever graced the track. Prost can still be found in the paddock today, performing his role inside the Renault F1 team.
Prost won world championships in 1985, 1986, 1989 and 1993. He currently sits fourth in the number of wins, behind Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel. A career that is one of the most highly regarded.
Prost thus became world champion four times and won a total of 51 Grand Prix victories. Only in 2001 was that number surpassed by Michael Schumacher. What made the career that 'le Professeur' special was the different teams with which he was successful. For every team he competed for, he managed to win.
To help us celebrate his birthday, we thought we'd take a flashback to the year in which Prost was born.
What happened in F1 in 1955?
Formula 1 entered its fifth season. Across the year, there were just seven Grands Prix. The season started in Argentina in January before a four-month break ended with the Monaco Grand Prix. Indianapolis, Belgium, Netherlands, Britain and Italy rounded off the season.
Juan Manuel Fangio had a near-perfect season, winning four races and one-second place. He recorded two fastest lap times in Argentina and Belgium while racing his Mercedes car.
Fangio won the champion the previous season, and then went on to win the next two titles.
Other notable drivers in the 1955 season were Sir Sterling Moss who won his home race and finished second in the world championship for the first time. The first-ever world champion, Giuseppe Farina finished 5th.