Formula 1 has had its own set of Lance Armstrongs

Lance Armstrong‘s recent confessions in the Oprah Winfrey interview have surprised and saddened many people around the world. In the interview, Armstrong mentioned that his ruthless desire to win forced him to take performance enhancing drugs. But is he the only sportsperson with “desire to win at all costs” mentality? Let’s find out.

Michael Schumacher, Aryton Senna and Alain Prost were also of the same breed and shared the same mentality to a certain extent.

Michael Schumacher won the 1994 Driver’s championship by taking out Damon Hill after he had been overtaken by him. He tried to repeat the same feat in 1997 at Jerez when he purposely drove into Jacques Villeneuve. But this time, luck didn’t favour him as Villeneuve’s car didn’t suffer any damage and was able to continue and win the race, thus sealing Jacques’ first world championship title. Later, Schumacher was disqualified from the championship after FIA deemed the move as intentional. Schumacher himself admitted in a press conference and apologised for his behaviour.

In the 2006 Monaco Grand Prix, he stopped his car purposely on the track during the final leg of the qualifying session so that nobody else could get a lap time quicker than his. FIA again found this move intentional, as they didn’t find any reason for Michael to stop on track. He was disqualified from qualifying and had to start the race from the back of the grid.

Aryton Senna and Alain Prost’s infamous battles at the 1989 and 1990 Japanese Grand Prix are other great examples of this desire to win at all costs mentality.

In the 1989 Japanese Grand prix, Alain Prost had been leading the race. It was lap 46 when the second placed Aryton Senna went for a move on the Frenchman at the last chicane of the Suzuka circuit. Prost went for the outside line while Senna held his inside line. As they approached into the braking zone, neither of them backed out and the end result was Aryton driving into Prost. Though Senna won the race after being able to get going again, he was disqualified from the Japanese Grand Prix as the officials felt that Senna had taken help of marshalls to get his car started again. The title was awarded to Alain Prost.

In 1990, both Aryton Senna and Alain Prost again found themselves fighting for the championship in the last race of the season at Suzuka. After Qualifying, Senna was angry that he had to start from the dirty side of the grid even after qualifying on pole position. So, before the race, during the briefing, he raised the question of changing the pole position slot on the grid. The FIA officials disagreed and according to sources, it is believed that Senna had planned to take out Prost if the pole position slot wasn’t moved to clean side of the grid. In the end, that’s how it panned out with Senna taking out Prost in the very first corner of the Japanese grand Prix.

All of these infamous incidents indicate that the line between desire to win and cheating is very small and at times, some sports persons cross this line in an attempt to be the best. Of course, what Lance Armstrong did cannot be compared with the above mentioned incidents but it highlights the fact that he wasn’t the only one who had this ruthless attitude.