that his car was "not competitive" and that he "didn't lose by my own fault" Renault fired Prost only two days after the South African race. He re-signed for McLaren for the 1984 season within days and moved his family home to Switzerland after Renault factory workers burned the second of 2 of Prost's cars, one of them being a Mercedes-Benz. McLaren (1984–1989) 1984–1986 Prost joined double world champion Niki Lauda at McLaren (now being run by Ron Dennis) in , driving the John Barnard designed McLaren MP4/2 which used a 1.5 litre TAG-Porsche V6 engine. He lost the world championship to Lauda in the final race of the season in Portugal by half a point, despite winning seven races to Lauda's five, including winning in Portugal. The half point came from the , where Prost had been leading, albeit with Ayrton Senna (Toleman) and Stefan Bellof (Tyrrell) closing on him rapidly, when Clerk of the Course Jacky Ickx stopped the race at half distance due to heavy rain, which was controversial, for Ickx displayed the red flag without consulting the race officials. Under Formula One regulations, Prost received only half of the nine points normally awarded for a victory. Prost's seven wins in 1984 equalled the record set by Jim Clark in . In Prost became the first French Formula One World Champion. He won five of the sixteen Grands Prix during the season. He had also won the San Marino Grand Prix, but was disqualified after his car was found to be 2 kg underweight in post-race scrutineering. Prost finished 20 points ahead of his closest rival, Michele Alboreto. Prost's performance in 1985 earned him the Légion d'honneur distinction in France. Niki Lauda retired for good at the end of 1985, and was replaced at McLaren by World Champion Keke Rosberg for . Prost successfully defended his title, despite his car struggling against the Honda-powered Williams cars driven by Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell. Until the latter stages of the final race of the 1986 season, the , Prost appeared set to finish second in the Championship, behind Mansell. Prost had the same number of wins as Piquet, but he had four second places to Piquet's three, thus placing him second before the final race. While running third behind Piquet, and directly behind Prost on the road (3rd was all he needed to win the title), Mansell suffered