Senna was fuming for having his victory invalidated even before he climbed on the podium at Suzuka and made several harsh comments about how the 1989 championship turned out. Under pressure during the off-season, between 1989 and 1990, Balestre reacted with threats against the 1988 champion and against McLaren itself. The Frenchman decided to fine both the driver and the team in 100 thousand dollars, otherwise they wouldn\u2019t be allowed to race in 1990, besides demanding a public apology.<\/span><\/p>\n Senna and Gugelmin<\/em><\/p>\n As the days went by, in 1990, Ayrton appeared very relaxed, respectfully welcoming reporters at his house in Angra dos Reis (Rio de Janeiro) during his vacations. Whenever asked about Balestre\u2019s statements, he always answered the same, \u201cNo comment\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n But another driver decided to talk to the press about the subject: Maur\u00edcio Gugelmin, who raced for team March in 1990, and who was friends with Ayrton ever since they both raced in Formula 3. When asked about the possibility of a season without Ayrton, Gugelmin was emphatic, \u201cA driver like Ayrton Senna cannot be left out. It\u2019s like if Pel\u00e9 had been taken out of the \u201970 World Cup, are you crazy?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Reluctantly \u2013 but thinking about his future in F1 \u2013 Ayrton apologized and the team paid the fine in the last day of the deadline. A few years later, in 1996, Balestre admitted he had \u201chelped out\u201d Prost a little bit so his countryman could win the 1989 title. Senna\u2019s payback, however, came on the track, in 1990, when he won his second world title, also in Suzuka. This time, a crash between Senna\u2019s McLaren and Prost\u2019s Ferrari benefited the Brazilian, who was leading the championship.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the greatest controversies in Formula 1 history took place at the end of the 1989 season, when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost were gunning for the world title. The champion was not crowned on the track, but backstage, after the Brazilian driver was disqualified from the Japanese GP for cutting through a chicane […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,17,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias","category-novidades","category-senna-na-midia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.senna.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Senna-e-Gugelmin_reproducao.jpg\")
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