The startlingly well-preserved running-order car, ‘Chassis 6’, is being auctioned to mark the 25th anniversary of the Brazilian driver’s victory. The three-time Formula One world champion, rated by many as the greatest of all time, won a record six Monaco Grands Prix.
The 1993 season was Senna’s last with McLaren and he had consented to remain with the team on a race-by-race basis in return for a rumoured $1 million fee for every start. The 1993 McLaren car demonstrated such technological and mechanical sophistication that by season’s end, it was one of the most competitive of all contemporary designs.
Senna drove this particular car in eight of the 1993 season’s races. In his debut with the brand-new car, the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, he finished second behind Prost’s Williams-Renault. Next, at Monaco, he experienced an apparent problem with the car’s ultra-modern ‘active’ suspension system during qualifying, resulting in a spectacular crash into the barriers at the Ste Devote corner.
‘Chassis ‘6’ was repaired in time for Saturday running, and Senna qualified third fastest behind Prost’s Williams-Renault on pole and Michael Schumacher’s Benetton-Ford second. Prost then jumped the start, incurring a ten-second stop-go penalty, to be served in the pit lane.
Schumacher led the race from Senna until lap 33, when the Benetton-Ford retired with hydraulic failure. Senna promptly took control of the race, 15 seconds ahead of Damon Hill’s Williams-Renault. As the great Brazilian took the chequered flag for the sixth time in Monaco, he broke Graham Hill’s record for the most victories in the race, set back in 1969.
This McLaren MP4/8A was raced again by Senna in that year’s Canadian, French, British, German, Belgian and Italian GPs, finishing fourth at Magny-Cours (France), Hockenheim (Germany) and Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium). At Silverstone in the British GP, Senna looked set to finish third, only to run out of fuel in the closing stages, being classified fifth. ‘Chassis 6’ was the spare car at both the 1993 Japanese and Australian Grands Prix.
Mark Osborne, Bonhams Global Head of Motorsport, commented: ‘Ayrton Senna was the most charismatic Grand Prix car driver of the modern era, and the MP4/8A was the car with which his team, McLaren, surpassed Ferrari as the most successful team in Formula One World Championship history. This particular chassis, number 6, cemented Senna’s legend as the Master of Monaco.’
