Quote Originally Posted by Osella
Not quite true actually. To quote McLaren's then team manager Jo Ramirez "That year (1988) Ayrton won eight GP's, Alain won seven. In the end Alain scored 105 points, Ayrton had 94, but on the dropping-points rule Ayrton was champion by three points"

So, as you can see, Prost actually scored more points, but Senna was given the championship as he has more retirements (the best 12 of 16 races counted toward the drivers title). So Prost was more consistent, but lost the title scoring more points! Ironically enough, if Senna hadn't run into Williams' Jean-Louis Schlesser in Monza and prevented McLaren's clean-sweep of the year, he actually would have lost the title by winning that race!..
Everyone knew how the points system worked. And Ayrtons best 12 results massed more points than Alains. So Ayrton scored more points than Alain, under that points system.