Senna’s Starter

Senna’s first F1 car comes up for sale in Monaco later this month.  The estimate is 2.8 – 3.8m Euro.

If you have deep pockets this could be the one for you – and it is eligible in historic F1 racing – what more excuse do you need?

1984 was a time before the £100m F1 budgets – a vastly simpler time.

Toleman was at or near the back of the grid – sometimes not even able to get hold of a full allocation of tyres for a weekend of racing!

They took a chance on an unproven – but incredibly fast rookie – Ayrton Senna da Silva.

To cap it all they even had an ‘underpowered’ Hart Turbo 415B engine that could manage a meagre 800HP in quali trim.  BMW at the time were putting out so much they couldn’t actually measure it on their dyno!  But at least 1,100HP.

To make it worse Harts were nicknamed ‘hand-grenades’ for their propensity to go bang under 4 bar of turbo boost!

This particular chassis for sale managed to get rookie Senna in the points twice.  Bear in mind they only used to give out points for the first six finishers – not nearly half the field as per now.

So sixth at South Africa and Spa is no mean feat in your rookie season.  But the sister car to this saw one of the best ‘arrivals’ of a rookie ever.

At Monaco in May 1984 he had harried his car in qualifying to 13th on the grid – better than it should have been.   But then in the race, the rain came.

If you have ever seen any Senna films you will know he used to go and practice in his go kart as a kid every time it rained.  Rain was his thing.

He started moving up the field, and the other drivers kept falling off.  He made it up to second from 13th.  The gap to leader Prost was 30 seconds.

He kept attacking and by then less that half the field was still running.  The gap was down to seven seconds – and then the race was red flagged!

So we never found out if he would have passed his future nemesis Prost.

We had to wait another 11 months before his first win at the April 1985 Portuguese GP.  By that time his skills had graduated him into a powerful and well-sorted Lotus Renault.

But this is where it all began. A midfield car that was nearly peddaled to a fantastic win – and you can even race it yourself!

Start saving now.

Thanks,
Neil @ Carrosserie
Tel: 01833 630 011

PS.  Please contact us to chat about your classic.