Alain Prost — Ferrari 641/2 Front Wing & Nose, German GP 1990

The 1990 season opened a new chapter for Scuderia Ferrari: the reigning World Champion Alain Prost joined Maranello, bringing the number 1 back to the Italian cars and reigniting the team's title ambitions after years in the wilderness. Paired with Nigel Mansell, Prost — "Il Professore" for the lucidity of his driving — fought a season-long duel with Ayrton Senna's McLaren, taking five victories and keeping the championship alive to the final rounds.

The Ferrari 641/2, also known as the F1-90, is remembered as one of the most elegant cars ever built by the Scuderia: a sharp nose, coke-bottle sidepods and push-rod suspension gave it a balance Prost himself rated the best of the year. It won six Grands Prix in 1990, five of them with the Frenchman at the wheel.

Offered here is the original front wing and nose assembly from Prost's car at the 1990 German Grand Prix at Hockenheim, complete in its period Ferrari livery with race number 27 and built in carbon-fibre composite, the material at the leading edge of the era's aerodynamics. The essential geometry of early-nineties wings is intact — adjustable flaps, linear profile, robust endplates — and the light traces of use are the direct evidence of a part that raced. A fragment of one of Formula 1's most storied duels, and a technical object of real substance rather than a display replica.