"I don't like to go over curbs, because I don't want to be hard on the car"
About this Quote
Prost’s line sounds like a throwaway detail about driving etiquette, but it doubles as a manifesto for how he built a legend: by refusing the macho theater of unnecessary risk. In motorsport, hopping a curb is a small act of bravado - a visible, audible proof you’re “on the limit.” Prost flips that symbolism. “I don’t like” isn’t timid; it’s preference as discipline. The reason he offers is almost comically domestic: be kind to the car. That understatement is the point. He drains the romance out of danger and replaces it with stewardship.
The subtext is strategic humility. A Formula 1 driver saying he avoids curbs isn’t confessing softness; he’s advertising control, mechanical sympathy, and a long-game mentality. Curbs can unsettle the chassis, stress suspension, overheat tires, and invite the kind of tiny damage that becomes a retirement 40 laps later. Prost’s genius was often invisible: not the heroic overtake but the lap-by-lap refusal to donate performance to chaos.
Context matters: Prost’s nickname, “The Professor,” was earned in an era when the sport celebrated gladiators. Against teammates and rivals who made speed look like violence, he made it look like accounting - margins, wear rates, probabilities. The quote works because it’s anti-mythology. It suggests that winning at the highest level isn’t always about being fearless; it’s about being selectively fearless, saving aggression for moments that pay back. Even the phrasing “hard on the car” quietly frames the machine as a partner, not a disposable tool. In a sport obsessed with spectacle, Prost makes pragmatism sound like rebellion.
The subtext is strategic humility. A Formula 1 driver saying he avoids curbs isn’t confessing softness; he’s advertising control, mechanical sympathy, and a long-game mentality. Curbs can unsettle the chassis, stress suspension, overheat tires, and invite the kind of tiny damage that becomes a retirement 40 laps later. Prost’s genius was often invisible: not the heroic overtake but the lap-by-lap refusal to donate performance to chaos.
Context matters: Prost’s nickname, “The Professor,” was earned in an era when the sport celebrated gladiators. Against teammates and rivals who made speed look like violence, he made it look like accounting - margins, wear rates, probabilities. The quote works because it’s anti-mythology. It suggests that winning at the highest level isn’t always about being fearless; it’s about being selectively fearless, saving aggression for moments that pay back. Even the phrasing “hard on the car” quietly frames the machine as a partner, not a disposable tool. In a sport obsessed with spectacle, Prost makes pragmatism sound like rebellion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
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