Found this on the web:

Four-time Formula One World Champion Alain Prost has conceded that Michael Schumacher is a better driver than he was. Prost believes that Schumacher, who won his third world title in Japan last weekend, has been able to get the best out of every car he has driven.

"I wasn't able to drive every car at top speed straight away," said Prost. "In that he is better than me."

Prost, who won three world titles with McLaren in 1985, 1986 and 1989 and one with Williams in 1993, is sure that Schumacher has benefited from the Ferrari team's policy of favouring the German over his team-mates.

"It was a risk for Ferrari to introduce the Schumacher system," said Prost, in reference to Schumacher's favouritism from Ferrari over past team-mate Eddie Irvine and current team-mate Rubens Barrichello.

"Naturally, you can criticise that everything was done to cater for just one man. But for Ferrari it was the only way. To succeed they needed the discipline.

"Without a driver of his calibre, Ferrari would hardly have survived without a title. Without Michael the team would have been politically destroyed."

It has to be Prost !!

The days are gone when it was all done on the track and not in the pit lane, Prost was a master on the track in the days when they had to protect their tyres more, no re-fueling not banking on pit lane stratagy as much (did it even come into the issue then?) I have many visions as a kid/teenager with Senna/Prost/Mansell racing proper ....... oh the good old days ..

K

I always preferred Senna to Prost, so I may be a bit biased against him.

I would have liked Schumacher to have some real competition like when Senna, Prost, Mansell etc. used to compete against each other. Hakkinen just isn't up to the standard IMHO.

I dont see how people can compare drivers, things change soo fast, who knows if Stirling Moss would have been as good with todays technology, you cant even compare the drivers today bacause you dont know that the cars are equal, apart from the team mates, even then are you 100% sure they both have identical equipment?

IMHO schumy is better than prost, only because schumy is more aggressive, prost was known for not being aggressive, and backed down too often, hence senna usually beat him.

robski

As a Prost fan, I'm sure Le Professeur was just being modest. Not to mention getting prepared for losing his most GP wins record to Schumacher.

Schumacher I'd say is superior in the wet because Prost didn't enjoy driving where he couldn't see. But mostly, it was because Prost didn't get over the crash with Didier Pironi which ended his countryman's career.

Schumacher is quick, but he's made more mistakes than Prost ever did, as well as more "questionnable manouevres".

Schumacher might get a lot out of a car, but his record as a development driver is not that great. Typically, under him, teams do not make great strides forward in their capabilities.

As for Senna vs Prost, well, in their first season together, Senna won 8 GPs to Prost's 7, but Prost had more 2nd places. If it wasn't for the "best 11 races" rule, Prost would have taken the title, but he had to throw away points from his "worst" races - some of which were <I>2nd place finishes!</I>

It's always interesting to compare the fastest-lap tallies of Prost & Senna too...

Difficult to compare drivers from different eras due to changes in rules and technology.

However Prost and Senna were always driving the best cars when they won their world titles, but Schumacher has yet to drive the best car in F1. When at Benetton, Williams was the best car, and now he's at Ferrari, the McLaren is the best car.

Schumacher turned down McLaren as he wanted the challenge of winning the title for Ferrari, so I guess that I agree with Prost that Schumacher is the better driver.

But I am just a little bit biased towards Schumacher.

I'm sure that at least part of the reason for Schumacher going to Ferrari was that they would make him the no.1 driver and gear the whole operation around him.

At least Ferrari are out in the open about how they operate. Unlike that sham at the beginning of the 1998 season when Coulthard moved over to let Hakkinen win, and then claimed some rubbish about "the first person to the first corner at the start of the race" beng allowed to win the race. That whole episode didn't sit too well with me.