Gallery: 13 of motorsport's greatest head-to-head battles

“Ayrton was different, nobody understands this. You can say all good things about him, and he had lots of qualities, but you cannot compare him to a normal racing driver,” Prost noted in the book Senna Versus Prost. “Ayrton was apart. You do not realise that immediately. It takes time. Slowly, I realised that his motivation was not just to beat me, it was to destroy me. [And] I was not prepared to die in a race car…”

Senna talked of driving his McLaren in a way that was “beyond his conscious understanding”, following his mesmeric pole lap in 1988’s Monaco GP, during which he was two seconds faster than his teammate. “Ayrton’s pole time was fantastic. But you have to take risks for a lap like that, and I am not prepared to do that so much any more,” Prost responded. “Prost goes only for second places; I race only to win. I have lost my respect for him,” Senna later observed.

In 1988, McLaren won 15 of the 16 races, but tensions escalated, as Senna turned up the heat on the way to his first world championship. “If [it] is so important to you that you are willing to kill or be killed, I don’t want to be part of it,” Prost grumbled. In 1989’s championship decider, they clashed on track, and Senna was disqualified for push-starting his car. Prost took top honours. A year later, Senna deliberately drove his McLaren into Prost’s Ferrari at Suzuka. Senna was champion. Prost was disgusted. “If this is the way the championship is going to be concluded, the sport is dead… I’m not ready to fight against irresponsible people on the track who are not afraid to die.”

Despite retiring at the end of 1993, Prost often received calls from his former nemesis during 1994. He was also one of the pall-bearers at Senna’s funeral, following his death at Imola on 1 May that year...

They never actually hit each other, and, in truth, there was profound mutual respect. But, in 1976, the battle for F1 supremacy was conducted between two diametrically opposed personalities: the outwardly languid English public schoolboy James Hunt and the blunt, zero-bulls**t Austrian Niki Lauda, a man who leveraged his own life insurance to buy his way into F1. During that long, hot summer, Europe simmered in a heatwave, punk rock exploded onto the streets of the UK, and Hunt brought his own brand of anarchy to motor racing. He won six races that year for McLaren, but none of the victories came easily.

Then there was Lauda’s accident. Back in 1975, on his way to his debut world championship, he’d set the first sub-seven minute lap time around the Nürburgring: a still-awesome 6mins 58 seconds. “I knew every driver was taking his life in his hands to the most ludicrous degree,” he wrote of the ’Ring in his biography To Hell and Back. His call for a boycott of the ’76 race was rejected, and he later crashed on the fast left before Bergwerk, thanks to a broken rear suspension.

But despite horrendous injuries, he was back in his Ferrari just six weeks later at Monza, and on the podium. It remains one of the greatest and arguably bravest achievements in all of sport. Lauda’s commitment shocked Hunt to the core, though the Englishman did just enough to secure the championship at a treacherous season finale in Fuji, when Lauda withdrew. The Austrian would win two more F1 world championships. Hunt died in 1993, aged just 45. The story is now a film, Rush. Say no more.

PS: see also Hunt’s swing at an innocent marshall during the 1977 Canadian GP.

A WWF bout involving the race crews. “Somewhere in the middle of that is Jeff Gordon,” says the commentator. “There are going to be a lot of visitors to the NASCAR truck after this.” There were.

Not your traditional motor-racing squabble, this. In 1991, Jordan driver Gachot had an argument with a London taxi driver near Hyde Park, and decided to settle it by spraying CS gas in the guy’s face. He did two months inside, and Eddie Jordan replaced him with some bloke called Schumacher...

“We’ve got cars overheated, and we’ve got drivers overheated… something’s gonna have to give here boys!” says the commentator. No kidding. Busch is a well-known hothead, and seems to live in a semi-permanent red mist. This one’s a corker, though: when Harvick finally gets out to make his feelings known, his car promptly rolls into the pit-wall...

When Tracy drove straight into Tagliani, pretty much without due care and attention, Tagliani was understandably miffed.

Harvick is seen here tussling with well-known Colombian Zen master Montoya, ex-BMW and McLaren F1 driver. Burger King or Big Mac? Tough call...

Simko gets taken out on lap 112 by St Denis, and is so incensed he ends up feet first through his rival’s windscreen. NBC called it the “Zinedine Zidane headbutt of auto racing.” We call it “when tubby blokes go bad.”

Newcomer Irvine sealed his reputation as one to watch by daring to unlap himself after Senna went past his Jordan. Senna sought him out after the race, told him he should have more respect, and Irvine’s reply – one can only imagine how delicately phrased it was – led to a punch in the gob. On another occasion, Irvine was refused entry at a security gate by one of Ecclestone’s guards, whereupon he punched him so hard that the guy tumbled over a rail.

After being spun into the wall, Greg Biffle wound up one of the biggest punches in NASCAR and sucker-punched Jay Sauter when he was still in the car. Boom…

A fiery three-times F1 world champion, Nelson Piquet has never been a man to trifle with. Unfortunately, the hapless Chilean Salazar threw the whole dessert trolley at him. As Piquet went to lap him at the Ostkurve chicane, Salazar bungled his braking and his ATS-Ford collided with the Brabham-BMW. Piquet’s response answers the Racing Fight Club question: yes you can hit a man wearing a crash helmet. And kick him. Repeatedly.

Vettel takes out Webber under the safety car in his debut season. “It’s kids, isn’t it, kids with not enough experience. You do a good job and they f**k it up,” Webber said. Righto. “There’s no fight,” insisted the German after he collided with Webber during the 2010 Turkish GP. OK. “Not bad for a number two driver,” said Webber in 2010, when he won at Silverstone despite having to give Vettel the newer front wing. Yep, roger that. “Multi-21,” said Webber to Seb after baby-Schumi nicked the win in Malaysia by ignoring team orders. They hate each other, these two.

A classic encounter, memorable also for being the first time the 500 had been broadcast live on TV. Allison led Yarborough into the last lap, but Yarborough tried to squeeze past. They nudged each other down the straight, and then the crashing started. And when the crashing stopped, the fighting broke out. People still talk about it 34 years later.