F1'S CLOSEST EVER CHAMPIONSHIP! The Story of the 1984 Formula One Season

[@Lukeywoodsey]

The thought of Nigel Mansell threatening Portuguese police to get a football is mad

[@AidanMillward]

He wasn’t yet a special constable on the IOM but he wasn’t far off.

[@ghengilhar]

It was the tache you see. They automatically respected it

[@CyanRooper]

Who would win? Thousands of Portuguese officers armed with rifles and savage attack dogs Or A large man from Birmingham with a glorious moustache?

[@shubhamsanap1694]

​@@ghengilhar😂v

[@alexlazebat839]

its on the season review

[@nikeestar]

I always say to people that Lauda in 1984 is the single greatest title win of all time. He basically out Prost'd, Alain Prost. That's a insanely hard thing to do.

[@1greenMitsi]

prost learned his witiness from lauda

[@caincha]

One of the biggest ironies in F1 I can think of. Prost was begging for the Monaco race to be stopped and because it did he lost the tittle.

[@CyanRooper]

Prost: "I won but at what cost?" Lauda: "Trust me, there's always next year."

[@mrkipling2201]

Mind you, Prost had problems with his engine and brakes. Bellof should have felt hard done by.....

[@alphabetaxenonzzzcat]

Indeed. I have always wondered what the outcome of that race might of been had Mansell not crashed out - would he of been able to keep Senna at bay and Bellof as well - and how far down would of Prost fallen.

[@alphabetaxenonzzzcat]

@@flashgordon3715 Yep. It also might of been interesting to see where Belloff would of finished if it hadn't of been stopped.

[@caincha]

@@alphabetaxenonzzzcat this. As a Senna fan growing up in Brasil we were sold the idea that the win was 'taken' from Senna with zero mention to Belloff. I would love to see if they would be able to fight for the win if the race weren't stopped - imagine trying to overtake in Monaco with that much rain racing against a driver like Senna that was known for being very hard to pass in his early career (not that it became easier later is just that later he had better cars whereas at the beginning he would just shut the door no matter what - different rules back then)

[@Eteroklitos83]

Alonso was 11 points away from 4 championships? Prost was 0.5 from 5, 2.5 from 6 5 from 7 and 11 points away from 8 championships (numbers may vary a bit but you get the point) Alonso / Vettel / Hamilton had 2 or 3 champion teammates? Prost had 5 (Yes, i'm counting Hill) and his "weak" ones were Alesi level Jenson has won with 3 teams? Alain did it with 4 No matter how you measure excellence the guy is always up there

[@CyanRooper]

He is still 5th on the list of highest wins in Formula 1 with 51 wins over a 12 year career.

[@MrSniperfox29]

Interestingly Prost only had one teammate who failed to win at least one race, Eddie Cheever

[@wkleung11]

@@MrSniperfox29I think you have forgotten about Stefan Johansson.

[@Edelweiss1102]

Prost's stats and achievements are low-key insane. - he was 11.5 points away from being an 8 times WDC, he probably could have had shots at even more titles if his Renault had been more reliable in his early days or if he had fulfilled his Williams contract into 1994 - all of his 10 teammates were podium finishers, 8 of them were race winners, 5 of them were former or future WDCs, he outscored them all - he was active in 3 significant eras of F1, the ground effect era, the turbo era and the technical arms race era, he was competitive in all of them from his debut season all the way to his last one - he still is on 5th place with 51 wins and tied on 4th place with 4 WDCs, Schumacher, Hamilton and Vettel all had significantly longer careers with more reliable cars, more races and so on Like him or not, the fact some people question if he is even a top 10 drive of all time is ridiculous.

[@CyanRooper]

The 1982 and 1984 seasons are what turned Prost from a hotshot racer to The Professor. Kind of funny to think that Lauda unintentionally trained another driver to become one of the all-time greats in F1.

[@georgethomas7814]

More than one really.

[@jerryweirdspeed]

Fun fact: headline on the 1984 Austrian GP brochure was "McLauda or McProst?"

[@GrandPrixYannick]

I have been wondering whether Prost's Professor style of driving was influenced by losing the title to Lauda or whether he had always been like this. IIRC Lauda did approach that season in calculative fashion as he saw Prost has been the faster of the two. And in a way, that is how he beat Prost to the chamiponship.

[@CyanRooper]

Lauda used to have the nickname "The Computer" because of his approach to racing similar to Prost after him. Lauda definitely left an impact on Prost and turned him into The Professor that we remember him as.

[@Edelweiss1102]

He was definitely influenced by Lauda and the 1984 season. Prost used to be way more aggressive and Senna like in his younger years at Renault, until he rear ended Didier Peroni at the, I think, German Grand Prix 1982, which ended the formers career and could have gravely injured or even killed Prost. After that, he began to morph into the professor step by step, and Lauda and his own approach and story of the 1976 season and his infamous crash at the Nordschleife certainly did their part to shape Prost into what he would ultimately become.

[@davidmarecek1754]

I think I heard somewhere and I'm too lazy to check this fun fact, but Niki's 1984 championship is also unique due to the fact that he never started on the front row for the entire season.

[@AidanMillward]

He was also outqualified 15-1 or some mental stat like that.

[@davidmarecek1754]

@@AidanMillward talk about racecraft

[@mrkipling2201]

I think you're right, and it's absolutely crazy. Up there with Rosberg winning the 1982 World Championship, despite only winning 1 GP.

[@davidmarecek1754]

@@mrkipling2201 yeah, something about those early to mid 80'. Completely nuts.

[@palm92]

I think this championship took everything out of him. Sort of like a death scream.

[@wabba67]

13:38 Just checked, a Schumacher 1997 Champ cap is 450 € on eBay. Yikes! On a topic more related to the video, I always view 1984 as a prelude to 1988, but as you touched upon, there's actually quite a large difference between these McLaren-dominated season, with the former being far from dominant with the plethora of technical issues for the team. Something Ron Dennis et al. decided to fix.

[@AidanMillward]

450? Better off getting my own made. 😅

[@mrkipling2201]

​@@AidanMillward😂😂

[@georgethomas7814]

I would check for the made-in-China label mate. circa 2002

[@Antonypancake]

You should totally cover the 1964 Mexican GP, possibly the craziest championship decider ever, and one of the craziest races most people have ever heard of.

[@theocousins6386]

I believe he touches on it in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZrNmGSgr9l5pJIsi=L83W7Xn4YWfDjG8x

[@mrkipling2201]

I've been watching the 1984 race highlights a lot lately, and although McLaren had reliability issues, they were nothing compared to the issues Renault had with reliability. Tambay and Warwick were always competing for victories and podiums, only for the car to conk out.

[@chicobicalho5621]

I attended the two races Brabham won in 1984, Montreal and Detroit, and those were the two races the BMW engine did not blow apart. In Montreal Piquet won easily, but Detroit was no so, regardless, the BMW engine sounded as if it was about to explode at any minute (and it often did), unlike the TAG Porsche that seemed more well behaved. One thing that was remarkable about the Brabham BT52 and 53 is the fact it was a small, elegant car, beautiful really, standing still with its angine off, but when it was racing it became a beast, truly a monster, very much like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde.

[@MrSniperfox29]

Interesting stat, 1984 was the last time F1 failed to give out a full allocation of points at the end the race. In Detroit only six drivers completed over 90% of the race distance, and when Brundle was disqualified for his Tyrrell shotgun, this meant only 5 drivers scored points

[@CyanRooper]

Damn budget cuts.

[@palm92]

Monza as well, where Siffert's and Berger's cars were ineligible for points (5th and 6th).

[@RezaMaulana98RM98]

@@palm92 You mean Jo Gartner? Siffert was long dead by the time 1984 rolled around

[@palm92]

@@RezaMaulana98RM98 Yes! Major Faux Pas sorry! 😅

[@bscommissions892]

@10:09 Hamliton? didn't know he was racing back then ;)

[@DavidCaudry]

He's talking about Maurice Hamilton

[@AnimaDweller]

Prost really is under appreciated. He fought Lauda, Senna, Mansell, etc and beat them all. He fought on the same team as Senna and he managed to beat him several times. 4 time WDC. He should be considered one of the greats, but people tend to diminish his achievements and the Senna documentary (which blatantly painted Senna as a Hero and Prost as a villian) didn't do Prost any favors.

[@Batters56]

4:22 I would love to see a video on qualifying engines and exactly how lunched they were after a run. It’s one of those things that everyone knows but I don’t know any more than that. Did they sieze as they cooled? Were the valves going by the final inlap? Were the drive shafts knackered, that kind of thing? You could do a tally of everything they used to chuck away after qualifying; tyres, engine, special brake bads? Transmission, qualifying wings? The entire set up!

[@tungtranviet499]

I expected you would do this topic. I only know about this season when watching a mclaren tooned show about alain. People don’t talk about this as much as 1976 or even 2021 season.

[@alaeriia01]

McLaren Tooned needs to come back.

[@davorinrusevljan6440]

While I was a kid, Lauda was my hero. Thank you for this video!

[@Enevan1968]

Love that Simpsons reference @9:08!

[@y_fam_goeglyd]

That was one hell of a season to watch. Thanks for the memories!

[@JohnSmithShields]

The first season I can remember, that Monaco race stood out for sure. I was 7 years old.

[@ExodiaNecross2]

1984 Williams with honda was the start off the combination that would become a force to be reckoned with for a few years to come after they won the Dallas GP Hottest race.

[@gezatherton1071]

9:19 Aidan‘s time in “Put it in MGU-H” has served him well!

[@dawsonrobrts407]

Love how you cover f1 content across all different areas. Great channel keep it up!!

[@jambopaine]

Did you say 997 at 4:07 because that's the bus you get to Brum by any chance?

[@413TomaccoRoad]

I was 24 in '84 and McLaren actually already was a team people were looking at as on the ris in '83. Lauda had the TAG Porsche engine and Watson had the Ford DFV. They had a pretty good year then they got Prost for '84-

[@MsZeeZed]

In 1984 it was harder to add cooling to carbon brake discs than steel ones “at the track” so you had to plan the cooling at manufacture. With high race temperatures the steel brakes would glow and loose efficiency. An overheating carbon disc was more likely to explode under braking pressure.

[@cyberfutur5000]

I think some years ago you could get Coke or Pepsi in germany, proclaiming a football World Cup or Euros title that never happend. Or maybe it was a beer brand? I don't remember exactly, and I couldn't tell if it was 2006 or 2018 (my bet would be 2010-2016), but there was something. And they always have players on them who don't make the final squad.

[@EstebanRapido]

9:05 Where did this song come from? lol

[@RANDOMZBOSSMAN1]

8:07 a #blessed amount of people showing up lol

[@AidanMillward]

Best fans!

[@JimboXX78]

A distributor is a mechanical device that sends an electrical charge to the spark plugs, at roughly the right time to the right cylinder. Modern cars use electronic ignition, that can be mapped to cater for multiple conditions and much better when it works

[@Batters56]

2:58 childish point: does it have one of those foot brakes on a bar at the back of the car like my pram does? Seriously that row of holes is pretty much exactly the same!

[@minibus9]

Awesome video

[@joaogrrr]

13:45 "Piquest", ah yes.. The turbocharger era king Gorillian driver Marlon Piquest who won 30 consTRUCKster's titles

[@abhishekroy7516]

A very random one. Do you collect F1 model cars by any chance?

[@TheUnfinishedSynth]

Is that Huub Rothengatter with Prost and Lauda near the end?

[@carlosbarton763]

For me the Prost/Lauda pairing was one of the best in F1 history, absolutely no shortage of speed, intelligence, maturity and to a good extent respect between the two drivers, they set an extremely high bar imo

[@seancurtin8479]

A distributor is a electrical or mechanical feed from the ignition coil, making sure each spark plug is fed a charge of high volts when needed for ignition. TIL

[@Pablo668]

Good vid, well recounted season.

[@reptongeek]

Something else the wise man behind the microphone said; 'It's happened once, there's no reason why it shouldn't happen again' I've said this before but it does bare repeating. In winning the 1984 title Niki was the only WC to not score a single front row start all year and lost the qualifying battle 15-1

[@JohnSmithShields]

Logan Sargent is comforted by this stat.

[@CyanRooper]

The 1984 season really was arguably the season that caused Alain Prost to transform (insert 80s Transformers sound effect) into the Professor. And that new approach to racing from Prost contrasted with Senna's approach to racing similar to how it was with Hunt and Lauda.

[@robweeks3238]

Love it when your vids drop 👍🏻

[@crunchyfrog555]

I can't say for sure, as I can't be arsed to check frankly, but I feel the reason steel brakes fared better in the hottest conditions is probably down to conductivity. While carbon does conduct somewhat, metal obviously does a better job, so it can dump heat quicker and better than carbon. I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I bet that's a fair chunk of it.

[@PaperBanjo64]

Yeah carbon brakes need to be kept warm, if they get cold they don't work as good.

[@SiVlog1989]

I reckon what this bitter sweet season for Alain Prost did was teach him the value not always going for broke. There was no doubt about him having the edge in out and out pace over Niki Lauda, and his 7 wins in 1984 showed as such, but due to Niki being more consistent over the season, despite having "only" 5 wins and (even more remarkably) no pole positions, he did just enough to secure his third and final title

[@leoa4c]

Brake fade in motorsport is mainly caused by the fact that the friction of a material will depend on its temperature (search "brakes temperature-friction curve" for a visualization). When car's speed increases, it's kinetic energy (moving energy) increases as well. For the car to slowdown in the braking zone it needs to convert that form of energy into another. So, by the friction between the brake disk and the brake pads, the kinetic energy is converted into heat energy. And that's the problem. There is only so much heat energy that the brake's cooling system can dissipate into the atmosphere in between corners. Thereby, the brake disks and brake pads will get into the temperature ranges where their friction will drop off dramatically. It should be noted that even steel brakes do not perform at their best at ambient temperatures. Their temperature needs to go up a bit (which happens instantaneously on track) for them to be in their happy range. Carbon brakes or carbon-carbon (carbon in a carbon matrix) brakes have exactly the same type of problem, except that their "best friction range" happens at much higher temperature, thereby presenting the opposite problem to steel. Instead of trying to remove as much heat as possible into the atmosphere, with carbon brakes the challenge is to keep them at their happy hot temperature throughout the lap. They can still present brake fade when they get ridiculously hot, but their main issue is not providing adequate friction from ambient temperatures into low triple digit Celsius temperatures. The Portuguese for "Crickey, it's the rozzers!" is more to the tune of "Caramba, é a bófia!". Regardless, "polícia" was pronounced very much correctly.

[@TheUnfinishedSynth]

I have today learned what TAG stands for.

[@JohnSmithShields]

Piquest, the most underrated Brazilian since Roberto Moreno. 14:00

[@alexlazebat839]

brazil 84 lauda electrics were effected by a washing machine in downtown rio so clive james says no more silly than the trams effecting cars at Singapore

[@fleghel]

Could you make a video about the strategy situation back in those days when there was no communication with the drivers, no chief strategist, whole offline teams crunching the data? Were the drivers the strategists, did they have an agreed strategy they tried sticking to? how did the regulation evolve when it comes to strategy? Those drivers were geniuses, or at least thats what it seems without all the data we are used to now…

[@Zonda1996]

I imagine use of the pit board was very much key. 1/2 a second to read what the pit crew want you to do before it's out of sight again.

[@alaeriia01]

A distributor is an electromechanical device that sends the sparks to the spark plugs in sequence.

[@cosmicdust4749]

Here in Brazil, they talk a lot about the Monaco GP of that season. They say that the race was ended, so Senna couldn't take the win from Prost, as he was reducing the gap and could've won the GP. And its treated like a Karma that the Prost lost the championship due this race, cuz if the race was carried on and Prost finished 2nd, he would've won the title.

[@robertmacek6777]

But Lauda also lost by 1 point to Hunt in1976. Everybody knew he would win the title if not the accident. So he is basically 4 titles winner.

[@Sebastianraikkonen_actualname]

Can we take a minute to just recognise how epic the random "Bad Cops" was 😂

[@Mishima505]

Niki won the South Africa GP that year the first of his 5 wins. You can also put down Belgium to the superiority of the Goodyear tyres which Ferrari used over the Michelins of McLaren. Same goes for Dallas.

[@rhino7735]

The track layout of Estorial was similar to Catalonia

[@almeidaariel9]

Congrats with the Portuguese pronunciation, as a Brazilian that was pretty much spot on

[@johns950]

Always wondered Ronan Keating did after he quit that boy band.

[@PH-jv4ik]

Going through history outside a Hamilton and more so in his case Allan Prost has had what feels like the most epic finishes to seasons. The amount of times he's been in title decides or a few places of winning a championship is crazy especially considering his competition.

[@AidanMillward]

Prost is like a 9 time champion if stuff goes his way it’s mental.

[@mrkipling2201]

Similar to Nigel Mansell. A 4 time World Champion if his luck was of the good variety.

[@CyanRooper]

​​@@mrkipling2201 Mansell's issue/most iconic feature was that he always drove flat-out balls-out all the time and that always put him at greater risk of DNFs due to overdriving and not nursing his car through a race like how drivers like Prost would. It's basically the same thing with Colin McRae: both drivers could have won more championships if they learned to slow down a little bit but the fact that they always drove flat-out is what made them a joy to watch.

[@palm92]

@@AidanMillward My personal GOAT. His 1986 WDC is incredible.

[@skojuzija]

Lmao policeman taking the ball from mechanics playing football sounds like teacher taking the ball from children bcs they shot a window😂😂

[@modelcitizen8731]

Anyone else get all happy when adian puts a new vid up? I like to find a quiet spot for a entertaining 20 or so minutes of history about the sport i have followed for far to long Would love to have seen our nigel go and get the ball back off the coppers, shame the police didnt join in and have a cops v mechanics match

[@marguskiis7711]

The power numbers were actually pretty much bullshit to fool other teams. The real power was 600 --800 hp in the 80s.

[@marshallfischer8686]

I come for the stories but I stay for the Simpsons references

[@beefsuprem0241]

I wasn't around to see the Prost era. But he comes across as a weasel that won half his races in the stewards office. Or pottering along behind others in the wet and profiting when they went off.

[@BlueSkyBS]

I know Alfa Romeo used Benetton as their sponsor in 1984-85, but they were still called Alfa Romeo. Mostly (Euroracing mumble mumble).

[@darwinLee81283]

Everyone talks about Senna. BUT. Prost Beat Lauda, Rosberg, Senna, Mansell, and Damon Hill. To win 4 WDC titles. Outscored Senna in 1988btw and Senna had to purposely wreck Prost in 1990. Prost >Senna

[@AidanMillward]

Senna’s got a lot of fans fuelled by emotion unfortunately

[@Somedudethatlikeswrestling]

“Estoril cops are on the take, but what do you expect for the money we make?”

[@skojuzija]

I mean yes it was close but since both of them got .5 points, its basicly 1 point advatage

[@ronaldsiebrecht4408]

Tag heuer hat nothing to do with the engines. They wher badged by the company technique d'avant garde

[@matthewsallman1700]

TAG didn't buy Heuer until the next year.

[@palm92]

The reliability during this season was particularly atrocious - for everyone. Almost uniquely awful.

[@Edelweiss1102]

Well, what do you expect with 1400 hp engines that explode after 1 lap?

[@mrkipling2201]

If a car retired back then, the car would just park at the side of the track. No safety car deployed every 5 minutes either. I started watching F1 in 1984. It was brilliant. Give me those days of F1 every time.

[@AidanMillward]

That’s because safety was an afterthought

[@areasquirrel]

And we'll never see it again, just because a few keyboard warriors got upset at some rain. Cheers, an internet. Of course, the real culprit was Professor M. "Je te déteste !" Like to have seen Nigel try to get his ball back in Belfast...

[@eduardofernandes273]

Oporto isn't actually called oporto. It's Porto, don't know why people keep changing my town's name lol

[@hamdanali2036]

0:06 you can remove the ‘sim racing’ part from your slogan cos you pretty much don’t do that anymore for whatever reason.

[@AidanMillward]

I’m gonna keep it.

[@hamdanali2036]

@@AidanMillward why? where’s your sim racing? like literally where? don’t get me wrong your real life content is good but bro… most of us got into your channel through sim racing. why don’t you bother with it anymore

[@AidanMillward]

@@hamdanali2036 I did an 8hr race back in November. Since then there’s been nothing on for me to get involved in as I don’t have the time or the skill level is too high. If something like that F4 league comes round again I’ll probably do it.

[@hamdanali2036]

@@AidanMillward yeah i get you brother but i mean why not do single player stuff like Jimmer does? set challenges like you vs real life driver, BeamMG, try out various DLCs on AC of famous cars. that sorta thing

[@nanookrubsit]

I got reasons to believe you left a "foda-se" out.

[@Leahi84]

Please don't sing again.

[@georgethomas7814]

Nah that was good you should hear me and my mates.

[@kevinprior3549]

I think Prost is the most boring F1 champ there's ever been.

[@DennisBloodnokPhotographyVideo]

Minor error @ 4:42 - McLaren finish first (Laura) and second (Prost) in South Africa in 1984.