The Alfa Romeo 158 is not a Formula 1 car. Prost won seven races, Senna won eight, and the Brazilian secured his first of three F1 championships. Between them they clothed the Honda V6 in a chassis and body that proved well beyond anything its rivals could come close to. Here we introduce not only McLaren chief designer, American Steve Nicholls, who designed the car, but also South African Technical Director, Gordon Murray, a name with which you may be familiar. Secured with the best engine on the grid McLaren now needed a chassis to match. Williams had won the last two Constructors’ Championships with Honda power, while McLaren’s time using a privateer engine, financed in house, built by Porsche, had been initially successful, but was gradually being overtaken by the better financed manufacturer engines. It holds a 93.8 per cent victory rate.Ĭoming toward the end of the first turbo F1 era, McLaren’s first step toward the total dominance of the MP4/4 had been to basically steal the engine supply of its nearest rival. The weekend after Enzo Ferrari died, even McLaren had to feel OK with losing that one win to Ferrari.īut for the rest of the season the MP4/4 was imperious in a way never seen before or since. In the 1988 F1 season, in the hands of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, the MP4/4 won 15 of the 16 races, only missing out on the complete set at the Italian Grand Prix when Prost’s Honda engine let go and Senna was then removed from the race while lapping Jean-Louis Schlesser’s Williams. Where else do you start? The McLaren MP4/4 is, statistically, the best F1 car of all time.
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