On December 18-19, 1993, the first Grand Prix of the Elf Masters took place at the Palais des Bercy in Paris, the famous annual karting races of motorsport stars. This race was the last, in which two legendary champions of F1 - Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost came together in a duel.
The race, which was hosted by French driver Philippe Streif, was supposed to put an end to years of bitter confrontation between Senna and Prost, as the latter, who just became a four-time F1 champion, announced his retirement.
And both legends took this challenge seriously: Prost did some real training sessions, and Senna spun circles on the map in Brazil.
The two-day event brought together more than 60 drivers, many of whom were Formula 1 races - in addition to Prost and Senna, Damon Hill, Johnny Herbert, Olivier Panis, Andrea de Cesaris, Pierluigi Martini, Yannick Dalmas, Bertrand Gashot, Philippe Alllo, took part in the races. Eric Bernard, Paul Belmondo and Olivier Gruillard.
On the first day, Prost and Senna dropped out of the race due to technical problems, and in the final they met in a beautiful battle for victory.
Leadership was captured by Cesaris, and both champions for a long time were fighting behind the Italian. Alain tried to find a weak spot in Ayrton's defense, but he never gave his opponent such an opportunity. After several laps of intense struggle, Prost gape and, having gone too wide into the turn, missed Panis ahead.
This allowed the Brazilian to concentrate on pursuing the leader. Senna quickly caught up with where Cesaris was, and began to attack him when the technique suddenly failed - and raising his hand high, Ayrton slowly drove to the pits.
At that time, Prost dealt with Panis and subsequently also caught up with the leader. It is not known how this struggle would have ended, if there had not been trouble where Cesaris also suffered - the breakdown of the kart forced him to stop the race.
Thus, Alain calmly reached the finish line and won the first kart race in Bercy. A year later, Prost will return to defend the title of the best of the best, but at those competitions there will no longer be his eternal rival …
