Prost, Senna Can Smile Again : Formula One: Former teammates part, with Prost going to Ferrari for Sunday’s season-opening race at Phoenix.

Alain Prost won his third Formula One world championship last year for McLaren, but there were no smiles from the little Frenchman.

Ayrton Senna, who finished second, rarely smiles for any reason. Last year, he had reason not to smile after being disqualified, fined, suspended and threatened with expulsion at the Japanese Grand Prix for a transgression that contributed to his losing the world championship he had won in 1988.

But that was last year.

The Professor, as Prost is known along the Grand Prix circuit, is smiling again.

Senna, a Brazilian who thinks of little else but winning races, is even smiling--a bit.

The start of a new season will do that. No one has lost, crashed, blown an engine or been fined yet. All is well in Formula One until Sunday, when the second Iceberg USA Grand Prix will be run through the streets of Phoenix.

More significant for Prost and Senna is that they are no longer teammates driving the same Honda-powered, British-built McLarens that have dominated Formula One for the last two seasons.

Prost has gone to Ferrari to drive the distinctive red cars with Britain’s Nigel Mansell, leaving Senna at McLaren with former Ferrari driver Gerhard Berger of Austria.

Without mentioning their former teammates by name, Prost and Senna made it clear this week that they are much happier with the new alignment.

“My motivation, my anticipation of being with a new team, has never been greater, but more than that, racing is fun again,” Prost said. “Nigel and I have been friends for a long time, and we think the same way about motor racing. We can work together with the cars, and then we can golf together for fun.”

Prost was admittedly upset with Senna’s intensity, which frequently found him in the garage checking with his mechanics long after everyone else had left.

“He is a computer. He sees only his success,” Prost said last year.

Prost is not the first driver to criticize Senna’s devotion to racing.

Prost was also nettled by what he considered favoritism toward Senna from the McLaren team.

“One thing I cannot understand is the way Ron Dennis behaved with Senna,” Prost was quoted as saying in the French sports daily, L’Equipe. “He forgives him everything. And he gives him whatever he wants. For instance, when I was ready to test, if Senna wanted the car, they asked me to give it to him.”

Asked if he faced 1990 with less strife than last year, Senna smiled as he answered: “I hope so.

“Well, yes, definitely I do. And that I am sure brings up the next question, why? My feelings are that respect comes from results, and it is reciprocal, and I think Gerhard (Berger) and I have that respect.

“As long as we maintain that respect for each other and honesty with each other, we will have the right relationship. And that relationship can have a great influence in the motivation we have.”

Even though Prost won the championship last year, Senna was the hottest driver. He won six races to four for Prost and took the pole in 13 of the 16 races, including the last six. Senna was on the pole in Phoenix last year with a speed of 94.287 m.p.h., but speeds should be much faster this year because of cooler weather. Last year, the race was in June, and the temperature was 100-plus degrees.

Senna and Dennis, the McLaren team director, are still smarting over the ruling in Japan last October by the International Motor Sports Federation (FISA) and resultant rulings by Jean-Marie Balestre, FISA chairman.

Senna needed victories in Japan and the season’s final race, in Australia, to retain his world championship against Prost, who already had announced that he was leaving McLaren for Ferrari at the end of the season.

Prost was leading with seven laps remaining when Senna attempted to pass, and their cars collided. Both spun off course. Prost was unable to restart, but Senna got his car going and returned to the race, finishing first.

Race officials ruled, however, that Senna had shortened the course by cutting off one turn when he restarted, and he was disqualified. This clinched the championship for Prost, and when Senna was fined $100,000 and given a six-month suspension, it set off a series of protests and appeals by McLaren and Senna.

Senna accused Balestre of rigging the title for his fellow Frenchman. Balestre responded by threatening to ban Senna for the entire season if he did not apologize.

“I still have not given up on last year,” Senna said. “It is a very complex situation, (with) two sides to it, and after much discussion, (FISA) came to a conclusion, and it was not the right conclusion at all.

“It was not right for me, the crew, the sponsors, the team, the sport, the nation. It was not good.”

Dennis said a decision was still pending as to whether McLaren would pursue the case in a French civil court.

“We will do what we think is in the best interest of the sport,” Dennis said. “At the moment, I can’t give you the answer.

“At the moment, our focus is on winning the 1990 world championship.”

Prost was not McLaren’s only loss to Ferrari. Also defecting was engineer Steve Nichols, but Dennis downplayed the significance of the move.

“A team is only as strong as its weakest link,” he said. “Steve was a very competent engineer, and he was successfully head-hunted (by Ferrari), but I doubt if his loss will have any effect on our program.”

Mansell, however, said Prost and Nichols will bring a lot of McLaren experience to the Ferrari team.

“Having Alain on our team gives everyone at Ferrari tremendous motivation for the coming year, and the coming race, in particular,” Mansell said. “Last year, we made tremendous strides with the new engine and the automatic gearbox. Now, with Alain’s and Nichols’ know-how, we should have better reliability.”

Mansell won the opening race last year in Brazil, but then was dogged by a string of reliability problems that caused him to drop out of five consecutive races. He came back to win in Hungary, and Berger gave Ferrari its third 1989 victory in Portugal.

“I would say we have a real crack at the world championship--as long as we can chip it in on the last lap the way Greg Norman did on the last hole at Doral,” Mansell said.

Mansell, a one-handicap golfer who, critics say, spends more time on the golf course than in his race car, was at Doral on his way here for Sunday’s race when he saw Norman chip in for an eagle to win a playoff.

Prost, who won world championships in 1985 and ’86 with McLarens powered by turbocharged TAG Porsche engines and last year with a non-turbocharged Honda, is approaching the season with unbridled enthusiasm.

“McLaren is in my past,” he said. “I feel like the first day of school. Ferrari gives me new motivation, and, after 10 years in Formula One, it is fantastic for me to be driving for Ferrari.”

If Prost can repeat as champion, he would be second only to Juan Manuel Fangio of Argentina, who won five world titles between 1951 and ’57. With three championships, Prost is tied with Piquet, Niki Lauda of Austria, Jack Brabham of Australia and Jackie Stewart of Scotland.

With only a bit more luck, Prost already could be tied with Fangio. Or even ahead of him.

In 1983, he lost to Nelson Piquet by one point while driving for Renault and commented after the season: “I can never be any closer and finish second.”

He was wrong.

The following season, he lost the championship by a half-point to his teammate, Lauda, in the first of six years with McLaren.

And in 1988, when he lost to Senna, he scored more points, 105 to 94, but Formula One rules allowed a driver to count only his 11 top finishes from the 16 races. Under that restriction, Senna won, 90-87.

Prost is also the career leader with 39 victories in 10 seasons, far ahead of runner-up Stewart, who has 27. Senna has 20 in six seasons.