BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT IT WAS? The Story of the McLaren MP4/8 (1993)
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2024
- I don't know if it's Senna tax, Mandela Effect, or anything like "The FW15C was utterly god-tier", but there's a thing that the McLaren MP4/8 was a bucket of bolts that had to be dragged to the top step of a podium by Senna.
But was it?
Because it had most, if not all of the things the Williams had, and a driver that could lob it around, which is how those cars needed to be driven. It was actually really good around tighter tracks.
Power tracks? Yeah... It wasn't that good... It needed more power.
So what was this thing then? Let's have a look.
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I’ve long appreciated the Frank Williams opinion that no one factor makes a championship worthy car. He described it as being 25% chassis, 25% engine, 25% tyres (as in tyre war era specifically) and 25% driver. Having a big advantage in one of those areas isn’t enough to overcome weakness in any of the other 3.
I tend to agree with that assessment.
Hi Aiden, very good synopsis by you of the MP4/8. I was fortunate to be the engineer that integrated the same system into the Footwork car, we bought the system from McL for the '93 season. The active systems at this time were very different, the Willams was "fully active", by that it was purely a hydraulic ram, goverened by sensors that dicated the ride height, bumps, everthing! The McL system was similar, inputs regarding ride height, etc, but the McL system used coil springs to support the car, but had active spring seats that raised/lowered each corner and also passive ARB. the McL system acted/responded to a 5Hz input, meaning that all the bumps, curbs, etc were managed by the springs, this was also linked into "circuit dependancy" where the car knew where it was on the circuit at any time, dump the arse on the straights, lower the car through corners, etc. The biggest difference between the Williams and the McL systems were that the Williams system was "entirely active". The ride height sensors, everything had a hystrisis, meaning a delay, from sensor input, raise/lower, and this made the car very spooky to drive. Where as the McL system would have responded to the driver inputs passive/immediately.
Fantastic comment. Love the insight!
This explains a lot about Patrese's lack of 'comfort' with the active system, but also interesting to know that the McLaren system had DRS also, I've only previously heard it to be mentioned at Williams & Benetton in 93. It was a somewhat crazy investment by Footwork in '93 though, all things considered regarding the driver aids bans.
Well, McLaren was adamant that it was their best car to date. Senna apparently loved driving it. They just needed more engine power.
I think its just one of those times that you make a great job but someone else just makes a better one by the slightest of margins.
I do think 1993 was a far closer season than we realize.
it wasn't far closer, mclaren had a great car, Williams did better, Williams and Prost walked to the world title despite Senna's best efforts
Agreed. Prost only won the title with 2 races to go. If only it had rained at the real power circuits where Williams were untouchable, it could have been a different story.
@@detectivepayne3773 I'd recommend you actually watch the 1993 season
I wonder what the '94 season would've looked like if McLaren made the deal with Lamborghini instead of Peugeot... That engine may not have been much more reliable than the Peugeot, but I wonder if Senna would have stayed with McLaren if Ron had agreed to use Lambo... Oh well, we'll never know.
@@MrSkeleton131I've watched the 93 season. Only Prosts mistakes and poor wet weather driving was the only reason it got to Estoril. Plus he would've won if in Monza if it werent for the late engine failure. So yeah the Williams was far clear of the Mclaren.
Spot on. People tend to merge 92 and 93 into 1 year where everything was "the same", which hurts the mp4/8. As if the Malboro backed McLaren would see the tech advancements and go "well, there's nothing we can do about that"
Yeah the MP4/7 was a pretty middling chassis.
I believe Ron Dennis has said that out of all the cars, he is proudest of the MP4/8.
Having watched "a team a season with McLaren" at the end of 1993 had a general idea that McLaren had active suspension and engine modes to play with.
Fantastic documentary. DTS by comparison shows how far we have fallen
I appreciated the 787B jab. Fun fact - the 1991 LeMans win was the only win that car ever achieved anywhere. It never won in its domestic series.
*sad brap brap noises*
@@CyanRooper There was an active suspension prototype of it though than ran briefly in the JSPC. Hard to find info on it…
@@CyanRooper There was also a 767 that ran a Cosworth in the JSPC in 1992.
@@palm92 That sounds kinda wrong. That would be like replacing the V12 in a Ferrari with an LS V8.
@@CyanRooper It was even less successful than the other privateer 767Bs and 787s.
i recall sitting in a post race meeting at what was TAG Electronics at the time. Udo Zucker was very pleased with the publicity we were getting. He recalls while watching the race, after Senna had got a stoppingly good start, the commentator said that it appeared Mclaren was winning the electronics war. Udo was very pleased about this, as he told us that during the start of the race, Senna wasnt even using traction control. He added, "our Traction Control was Ayrton Senna".
Cant recall what race that was, may even have been the 7A in 92 to be fair, but an anecdote worth telling all the same.
Steve matchett said that Benetton couldn’t run the traction control system that McLaren used because FORD wouldn’t allow the spark plug activated unit that McLaren used due to reliability concerns and McLaren was warned that using the system would incur them with charges for motors that were damaged. McLaren said they would take the chance and foot the repair bill for any motors that blew up
McLaren could do whatever they wanted with their engines because they were paying for them. I believe they ran their own TAG engine management system on their Ford HBs in 93.
@@ElectoneGuyyes. They didn’t receive the air valve engine until later in the year
If McLaren had started Hakkinen in the other car for the whole season instead of Andretti, I think it would have been a much closer battle with Williams and between the 2 McLarens themselves but Senna had 4 retirements to Prost's 1 (Prost and Senna each had one non-scoring finish). Hill also had 4 retirements and one non-points score, same as Senna and he was in his first full year in the sport, which speaks again as to the quality of the car that he finished only 4 points off Senna in the Championship. The MP4/8 was a very good car, but the FW15C was more reliable over the season, with fewer driver errors too - Hakkinen outqualified Senna at Portugal and then crashed from a very promising position in the race and his brakes failed in Australia and Andretti crashed out of quite a few races, including at Kyalami and Interlagos.
Senna had 6 retirements but you say 4 because of wikipedia.
And the Williams drivers made tons of mistakes. Prost spun in Brazil, made a meal in Donington, stalled in Monaco. The only reason Senna led the championship after Monaco was because of errors from the Williams drivers. Senna only made an error in Monza.
Except Andretti was Senna's replacement. The expectation was Andretti & Hakkinen, only later did Senna's capriciousness & $1m per race keep him in Hakkinen's seat. So not that McLaren kept Andretti on, he was absolutely supposed to be a leading driver. Nobody expected him to be as poor as he was.
Honda. The Power of Running for the Door.
Pulling out then running an F1 prototype throughout 1993 as a side project.
@@palm92 there’s pics of it on wiki commons.
@@AidanMillward TY.
What else did they need to prove? At this point, they were looking at entering CART for 94.
@@palm92 well, to be fair, that prototype was something that Honda engineers (from the mass production side, not the racing side) decided to build in their own time, with money given to them for side projects to boost morale. It wasn't an actual attempt for Honda to re-enter the sport.
Honda's actual attempt to re-enter F1 as a constructor came in '98-'99, with the RA099. Aidan has an excellent video about it.
I love the RA106 for its different front wing design approach (other teams went with the stacked front wing). It was such an elegant design visually.
Also I think it had the nicest BAR livery out of all of them
Fascinating story on that McLaren. Adian, you gotta do a deep dive on the Toyota Eagle Mk. III. Maybe the best prototype that Toyota ever made and dominated IMSA in 1992 and 93.
The MP4/8 is in the Automobilista 2 Formula Hi-tech pack if you want to try driving it in a sim.
I don't own AMS2. I probably should get it at some point but since everything I 'need' is in AC and rF2 I might as well carry on using those.
@@AidanMillward, you definitely should. They even have the manual diffuser stall programmed in for the '93 cars. They also have the option to add a programmable "second brake" that functions correctly on the MP4-12.
ASR made a mod for it in rf2 but then there became an official one
ASR also made on for AC and it is probably their best work yet
@@adammodan8030 ah ASR.
Had a meltdown when a UA-cam mate of mine said the cars were too fast and shouldn’t be able to take copse flat out at 190mph and threatened him.
But changed it when I said the same thing. 🤔
@@AidanMillward thats an interesting moment, but not that surprising considering half of their cars handle completely differently to the other half
12:00 "...does that leave the door open..." - Dangerous to do that, given the subject matter/persons...
Especially if there's not even a gap / door in sight.....
i think i read in Richard Williams "The Death of Ayrton Senna" many years ago, that Senna likened the 93 car to his nimble old FF2000 cars and was more than happy to throw it into corners
Here in Brazil people still think that Senna only drove bad cars, especially the MP4/8, some even say that this car didn’t had any eletronic assists which is insane. I love these videos that “humanize” Senna, he was an epic and relentless driver, no doubt, but he was no miracle worker.
Type in on UA-cam '1993 on boards Silverstone f1' and you'll see how crazy fast these are, with the Benetton hitting 193 down the hanger straight!! Mansell could only do 182 during qualifying in 1992!!!
And thats part of the myth of the Donington lap from Senna... Williams setup was so extreme that didt work fine in wet weather conditions, noticeable the whole year, and Senna has been beated previously in wet tracks... Spain 1991 for example (and that Williams was not active at all).
Williams was still better in the wet. Prost just had a stinker in wet races.
@@theiceman7590 No and No.
@@Holanduzo Yes it was as commentators rightfully pointed out. Prost spun out in Brazil when it started raining while Senna eased to a win.
@@Holanduzo And Prost had a history of stinkers in the wet. If you cant find a good setup for wet conditions then thats Prosts fault and maybe he isnt the setup king we thought he was.
Great video with a unique perspective.
As far as wet weather performances I was always impressed with Rosberg 1.0 at Monaco in ‘83 - really brilliant and he had the flu!
A last minute offer was given to Mansell to partner Prost for 1993 but by then it was too late & he decided to leave. It's a shame because it would have been nice to see red one & I think Mansell would have wiped the floor with Prost for the reason of the active cars suiting his aggresive style.
That would have been great!
It wasn't 'too late' as such, but Mansell simply refused to be teammates with Prost after their 89-90 experience at Ferrari, so although Williams did up their salary offer, they had already signed Prost.
That Williams was so good, it really should have won more than 10 out of 16 races. Crazy how much unreliability there was back then.
Aidan thank you for it all. I love your story of perseverance.
Congrats for 100K and cheers for 200K subs.
Out of curiosity is this now your full time job
It’s been my full time job for five years.
Just watched the re-runs of Sprint Quali of Chinese GP (because it was broadcasted when I was at work) and was going to look for the analysis of why Lando’s super pole lap was reinstated. Not that I mind it though, I support McLaren but I was curious.
Then stumbled across this which was uploaded just ‘1 hour ago’. Alright then, stopping by here first 😂
My thought is that it was reinstated because it wasn't deliberate, and there was no performance gain, kind of common sense vs regulations. I'm sure there is a conspiracy floating around though...
@@astonwards7236 yep, his S1 & S2 time were down compared to the lap he went off. That could be a strong reasoning for reinstating the lap. Makes me wonder how much the gap would have been had he not gone off on penultimate lap.
And unfortunately the sprint was Sochi 2021 all over again for him at turn 1. And again he was fighting Hamilton 😅
I always wondered why McLaren didn't use Mugen engines for 1993.
Didn't even watched it yet, but so curious about this McLaren because here in Brazil there's this legend that like Ayrton Senna's car barely have a working steering wheel against the mighty all technological Williams, and Senna would still win (yeah, some exaggeration, but for some here, Senna would still be champion even if he was driving a VW Bettle)
Yeah, that's probably Senna tax. The car was as advanced as the Williams was and better around tighter tracks. It's that it was underpowered.
@@AidanMillward The TAG electronics too had issues all year working with the Cosworth - the car did have a bunch of weird electronic issues with the Active Suspension at certain tracks, and even in one instance affecting the gear change in one of the cars.
As is almost always the case, the truth sits somewhere in the middle. Senna's abilities shaved off those extra few tenths in machinery that wasn't THE best but still very good. Senna hardcores would point out that he destroyed his team mate, I'd respectfully argue that anybody who saw Michael Andretti in F1 would hardly be surprised. 😂 Hakkinen would have done much more in the other car.
@@azapro911 Hakkinen out qualified him first chance he got.
@@AidanMillwardYep, in hindsight the even more irritating thing about the Andretti experiment is that we could have had veteran Senna vs. young Hakkinen for a full season. 😔
This car had no chance against williams. Senna absolutely drove the hell out of it. However it is an absolutely gorgeous car, one of the prettiest ever.
Two very different cars underneath really... Williams' was a pure hydraulic three-legged-stool system (one for the front and two for the rear) with hydraulics taking care of both ride height control AND road compliance. The Mclaren was completely different in that all four wheels had independent hydraulics for ride height control but road compliance was handled by conventional springs and dampers. This made the MP 4/8 more fiddly and time consuming to set up and repair.
Senna ranked his Estoril '85 wet weather drive above Donington '93 because it was in a passive car.
After this video I'd love to see a retrospective on Michael Andretti's short F1 career, how much of his failures was his fault or not, etc.
I really enjoyed this video. I attended the Montreal GP working with one of the teams and got to see Senna drive this McLaren. This video brings back some good memories for me. I really liked the look of the MP4/8 and it was fascinating for me to see it up close in the pit lane back in the day.
As you said, definitely by the end of the season the McLaren was in great form, as Senna won both in Suzuka and in Adelaide on merit (okay, you might argue that Prost might've checked out mentally by then, but still).
Best looking F1 car ever.
Thanks for this one A! Love to have a video on Andretti’s efforts from ‘93 also.
There was no effort, so that's a pretty concise video!😂
Senna was a great driver no doubt and I think that makes people forget that while at McLaren he was driving some of the best cars on the grid every year he was there
Not even some of the best, THE best. The 1988 MP 4/4 is still the most dominant car ever, winning 15 out of 16 races, and they would have won the 16 one if it wasn't for Senna crashing into a backmarker and Prosts engine blowing up. The 89 to 91 cars weren't as dominant, but still the best on the grid. If it wasn't for Prost, the McLaren-Senna-Honda combo would have been pretty much unbeatable for 4 years. It took Newey and Head to design a spaceship and Mansell being able to get the most out of it to finally put them down. The 92 and 93 McLarens were obviously weaker than the Williams, but especially the 93 car was nowhere as bad as people make it out to be, as stated in the video.
This doesn't take away from Sennas driving capabilities, but the simple reality is that you need a competitive and reliable car to win championships. Senna at Simtech and Lotus was fast, but he was never gonna beat McLaren or Williams to the championship with them.
Next to all the stuff presented in the video, the MP4/8 was a BEAUTY!!!!!
Imagine if the Zetec-R arrived a year earlier and McLaren had it in this car 🤔
The MP4/8 abides by the rule of 'If it looks right, it is right.'
Everything about this car was right.
Hello Aidan: Thank you very much for this. I have genuinely learned something. Up until now, I always thought that the FW15c was the ultimate F1 car. Have a good day.
top 3 fav car for me!
The belief is certainly held nowadays that the MP4-8 was better than the FW15C, however I don’t think McLaren would’ve won with the Lambo engine, the reliability of that engine was pretty dire in the hands of other teams, still it’s a fascinating case of what if….
Keep in mind too the TAG electronics cause no end of issues with the Cossie - I imagine it would have been just as problematic with the Lambo.
The engine straight blew up on Hakkinen in one of the tests. So I think it would make no actual difference, as it would retire as much or more than winning. Then we would be talking about "If Mclaren hadn't gone for the Lambo engine, Senna would've won more with the Ford." - Alternate reality type shit.
@@rigel8755 Apparently the engine that Lamborghini-Chrysler provided for that test was much improved power wise though - much better than the units in the Larrousse cars.
@@palm92 They tweaked the engine. Senna had influence on that, he convinced Mauro Forghieri to change it a bit.
@@rigel8755 Chrysler’s CEO was really keen on getting the McLaren deal for some reason (odd as they would sell Lamborghini within a year of this or so.)
Good thing you at least getting prop to Senna lately. A better look than previously
@@4517onlyglory I’ve often given Senna props. People just choose to only listen when I’m talking about the other part of him.
I suspect that Honda's move to a V12 was a backward step. The V10 came back in later iterations and proved surprisingly competitive in second tier cars. Then there was the full-on comeback that yielded Jordan's brief golden age.
Just because you have the best car doesn’t mean you win every race. When your brakes fail on lap 2, for example.
Thank you for the analysis. How about analysing the 92 or 93 Benettons?
Congrats on 100k
5 wins, all on street circuits or in wet races, advert for Senna's skill and McLaren's chassis design. The mid-season was all about power circuits (Silverstone, old Hockenheim, Spa, Monza) and a V8, not even the best one, was going to win. McLaren going several races without a podium definitely hurt them, suggesting the Benetton was sometimes 'best of the rest', even with engine levelling.
At the time it was regarded as a great chassis.
I tape recorded the entire 93 season way back then. I can tell you that it was well-known that the MP4/8 had the most sophisticated active suspension system on the grid, but they were hamstrung due to not getting the very latest Ford HB engine because Benetton was the official factory sponsored team. Ron Dennis lobbied hard the entire year to get parity of equipment with Benetton.
So when McLaren got the same Ford engine as Benetton at Silverstone and we’re 1.6 secs slower in qualifying than Benetton with the same engine how were they hamstrung?
They had parity early season as Benetton were running the HB-VI in their modified B192 early on. Only after Donington did McLaren become aware they weren't going to get the upgrade to the VII as contractually they had to be a step behind Benetton (as the works team). It wasn't Dennis, but Ecclestone who lobbied Cosworth to give McLaren the updates, as Senna was leading the championship after Donington & Bernie was desperate to stop yet another dominant championship decided early as had been seen in 92.
Briatore agreed on the condition that Benetton/Cosworth got TAG's assistance with traction control (ironically cost Schumacher a win at Monaco) with McLaren only being behind Benetton engine spec between Imola & Magny Cours.
Also a reason Senna didn't turn up at Imola until Dennis agreed his 1m per race contract and had to be fetched from Monaco by Berger's personal pilot on Friday morning JUST in time to sign in for the weekend.
1:40 not naming Steve Nichols, blasphemy!
Did all that in the MP4/4 video.
My understanding is 8:30 is not correct. In “The Life of Senna” (Rubython, 2004) it is stated that the engine deal was still in place, merely they had managed to get two upgrades. So Benetton went to South Africa with a Series VII and McLaren with a Series V. By Silverstone, McLaren got a Series VII… but Benetton had a Series IX.
I’m more impressed by the Harvard referencing in a UA-cam comment
if you really want to stir up some drama, make a video on the F2012. I'm an Alonso fan, but I refuse to believe a car with 3 wins 15 podiums and 2 poles was the absolute tractor people keep saying it was.
What about the Ferrari F310B in 1997? Some peeps claim its the 3rd or 4th best car lol
Massa was terrible around this time tbh
I was researching about this car only yesterday!
I wonder if the legend of Senna's performances in this car would've been as great if he were partnered by Hakkinen all year, who would've been a much more even match than Andretti.
Honestly if it was at all feasible, McLaren should've tried to run the Honda RA122E/B from the 1992 car. A quick google suggests that engine had a good 20hp over the next most powerful engine in the 1993 grid, with a max quoted power of 800hp. The V8 was a significant step backwards in my eyes.
lol. I referenced your Mazda 787B video in the comments of another video about that car recently that came out not too long ago. I think the Group C cars were going over Jaguar 250 mph on the Mulsanne Straight according to Derek Daly when I met him before a Motorsports engineering class. So yeah...
Absolutely gorgeous looking car
1993 is one of those seasons Senna proved to be one of the GOATs. With a not so good car he did wonderful performances. He came stronger from 1992 wich is probably his worst season.
But, that's the whole point of this video--to show that the MP4/8 was actually a very good car and that Senna's wins were hardly surprising. Idk, for me, '93 was not his most impressive season.
@@flyingphoenix113 The car was down in power and technologically outdated, he did wonderful drives in Donington and Brazil for example. And those results were archived thanks to driver's skill, nothing about the car.
@@mindujiman The MP4/8 was not technologically outdated.
@@mindujiman In the video, At Donnington the Williams were “surfing” on the wet track because of their low ride height. And Brazil Prost retired.
@@mindujiman Did you even watch the video?
I like these “cars” storytime :) , I believe McLaren had the best chassis that year..
My understanding of the deal Bennetton had with Ford was that Ford could supply other teams but the engines had to be two versions before. Simply put, if Bennetton had version 7, McLaren had to have version 5.
There's always the unanswerable question, what if those cars had been around longer, and drivers really learned how to wring the most from them. What would could they have done once they learned "Oh I can get that deep into the corner" and stuff like that.
11:27 Believe is a way better word for that
If McLaren had run the Lambo V12 from race 1, they would have had less success. The Lambo was pretty unreliable compared to the Ford HB. The same thing happened to Tyrrell when they went from the light-but-underpowered DFR V8 in 1990 to the heavier Honda V10 in 1991: the handling of the nimble 019 chassis was ruined.
So ruined that they scored double points at Phoenix, 2nd in Canada and a front row start in Monaco...?
And that's with a ruined car... Not buying it.
I wonder how close it would have been to the Williams fw13c if it had some POWAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Been wait for this one
Going to bringb out the story from Donington where Senna said something about switching cars, and Prost was absolutely silent on it which makes me wonder what Le Prof thought about the MP4/8
Us brazilians... we love to make up a whole context in stories to wich we believe be the truth. But it's all an illusion.
Brazilians put Senna on a pedestal no matter what. So because of this, this MP4/8 is known here as a weak-ass car that had no chance to win anything, that's why he was so praised of even winning something... for purely his brilliance, not the car at all.
But in reality, the MP4/8 was as,,, or some say,,, more advanced than the FW15C by the end of the year, just underpowered. It wasn't a bad car at all nor was Senna the almighty that drove this thing to beyond its capabilities. It was very much capable, of doing more even.
It's interesting behavior. Diehard fans will always put all the glory on his favorite driver, not the car, but the opposite in case the one they don't like wins - So Prost had the best car in the world and he barely did nothing, if we go by this warped logic.
The car was still several seconds off the Williams even on tracks like Monaco and Hungary. It just wasnt a good chassis. Nothing to do with engine power.
@@theiceman7590 Like I said, it's the opposite. You didn't watch this video, or Aidan's last one about this car.
@@rigel8755 the car was competitive because of his brilliance, as James Hunt correctly pointed out MANY times during the season. If the car was as good as you claim, Senna would never had signed with Williams and would've fully signed with Mclaren as soon as he first tested the car, rather than sign on a race to race basis.
@@theiceman7590 Man.. did you watch the videos? That's the point, it's a misconception that this car was bad.. or are you just gaslighting me?
@@theiceman7590 The race to race contract was Senna and Dennis' plan to take as much money as possible from Marlboro. At 1993, he didn't want to stay anymore so he figured that would be the best thing to do before leaving, as there was no other business to attend to inside Mclaren.
I still can't fathom how Senna got 5 wins from that season. Only he could have pulled that off.
My favorite car ever
Many say the McLaren had better systems then the Williams especially the active suspension pretty sure I remember even Patty Lowe saying as much also. Power was the only drawback.
Postulate?
I think claim is fine though. I think we all like you because you use approachable language. Congrats on 100k
I am not sure that the McLaren active suspension was better than the Williams'.
According to Paddy Lowe, the Williams system was a reactive system, whereas the McLaren's was pre-programmed to define where the car was on track and then would change attitude 4 times per corner, or at least so was the case at the beginning of the season.
So, in other words, the Williams car would continuously adjust its suspension, come what may, throughout the lap. The McLaren, on the other hand, had a memory chip on the onboard computer which was programmed before hand. If a driver wasn't happy with some preset attitude adjustment, the memory would have to be changed in the garage.
At least this is the information that I gathered over the years. I could, of course, be partially correct or completely wrong.
Another difference is that the Williams used gas springs do deal with high frequency bumps while the McLaren still used coil springs to deal with high and mid frequencies.
Regardless, the MP4/8 was still a good chassis. We can see that from the way the car behaved on track. It wasn't at all a bad design.
Andretti was a horrible teamate that year that car was awesome he just couldnt drive in F1
excelent video
Another outing for the pointless Courtaulds logo (it's the one depicting a man attacking the back of a Morris Minor convertible with a Stanley knife).
11:44 so the 2016 red bull?
100K subs!!!
We all know the 787b was banned for sounding too damn good 😉 The only things that could sound better is the 90's - 00's V12 / V10 F1 Ferraris, 5 Rotors, I5T's, the M3 GTR from Most Wanted '05 (TVR Cerbera Sample) or the GMA T.50 to name a few. So much noiseporn has been created with internal combustion, good grief. 👌🏻👌🏻
Yes! Squashed hedgehog time! 🦔
McLaren used the same engine as Benetton from Germany, and to top that off, Senna preferred the older spec engines torque band. So that's another bit of a fairytale when people go on about the so called massive advantage Benetton had with the Ford engines. My dad worked for Cosworth and even he said the gap between the Ford engines was no where near 30 horse power. More like 10-15.
if it had the lamborghini engine, it would've been a serious challenge for the williams
For about ten laps, before erupting.
@@azapro911 During the test, Senna supposedly asked the engineers to make changes to the engine (I remember it being something about giving it a "fatter mid range torque curve") and when the McLaren engineers made the changes the engine ended up making slightly more power and it didn't explode unlike when it was in Hakkinen's car (it really did straight up explode in Mika's car and he saw nuts and bolts fly past him). There is a good chance that it could have worked but one of the reasons why they never used the Lamborghini engine was because Chrysler (who owned Lamborghini at the time) didn't actually have the resources to support such a serious endeavour (that's why the Lamborghini engines were mostly used by backmarker teams).
Still, it's quite the "what if?" scenario especially since the argument between Senna and Dennis regarding the engine was one of the reasons why Senna left McLaren for Williams in 1994.
It would have been a smoke show - the Lambos were unreliable.
But that was a year later. The test was at the end of 93, when the choice was Chrysler or Peugeot rather than Chrysler, Cosworth or Mugen.
Senna's talent is something to factor in, it was everything like some ^suggest.
"Suggest" is a nice safe word. It places the ownership of the statement on whoever said it (in this instance, the unsited "some") but lacks any connotations.
"Claims" always sounds, to my ear at least, like the speaker thinks the claimant is full of crap. I know it isn't always, or even usually intended that way, but the more contentious an issue is (like anything to do with Senna) the more I'm wary of words like claims, or supposedly. It's just not worth the fight.
If you want to see a Red Bull down on power just wait for 2026. 😊😊😅😊😊😂
It was a decent car that was far better than the 1992 car. But Michael Andretti made it look bad.
Question that has regularly entered my brain about Mclaren in 1992 when they lost Honda; why didnt Ron entertain Mugen for 1993? I mean those customer Ford engines which he ended up going with were the same ones minardi had right? wtf why did he appear to go for the worst engine deal on paper? In hindsight he wouldve been better off with mugen till he signed with merc in 1995
He probably (maybe correctly) viewed them as not befitting of a team like McLaren.
Odd.
@@palm92 surely a better option than customer ford V8s? Look at what ligier and jordan achieved with them. Something that has happened a few times since (williams with supertec, Benetton with playlife, Red bull with Honda)
@@1greenMitsi Agreed, but Mugen was a relatively obscure manufacturer at the time. They went very well in the Footworks and the 1991 Tyrrell had a Mugen-Tuned Honda V10.
@@1greenMitsi I wonder why they couldn’t work out a deal to run the Honda V12s as something else (maybe with Mugen handling those as well.) - Honda had a prototype F1 car called the RC100 that was running all through 1993 with those engines.
@@1greenMitsi I would say it was because
Mugen were a small outfit with only a single season (1992) behind them and had not produced anything remarkable at that point. Also note Mugen were contracted to Footwork for 1993 and it is extremely unlike Mugen could support two teams as for their entire existence in F1 they only supplied one team per season.
You can't really say "well look at what Jordan did five years down the line" as a reason for Dennis to make that decision when the engine maker had only scored 6 points at that point
McLaren had a great start to the season with Williams struggling. Prost was declining and was returning from his sabbatical and Hill was a rookie. Once Monaco hit, McLaren's performance deficit appeared as the TAG electronics were not good and lacked driveability. McLaren were stuck with two year old Ford engines and development dried up. Williams should've won 13 races that season, with Donington, Suzuka & Adelaide being Senna's 3 wins. Being outqualified almost 3 seconds at tracks like Magny-Cours and Silverstone, where Ligier and Benetton beat Senna was the death knell for Senna's title fight. So finishing 2nd was a respectable effort.
The channel never disappoints even though current f1 sucks
800th like 🎉🎉🎉🎉
you did do a good job Aidan!
Thouhgt Senna got 750k per race
Million dollars was about 750 grand in GBP at the time
The Williams FW15C was better
Well done sherlock 👏 😂
According to Senna's fanbase, Benetton had a better car than McLaren in 93, simply because it had 20 hp more or so ( for a while only ).
It's like these people have a twisted sense of reality and it's hard for me to take them serious.
The Benetton was better regardless of engine. Senna had his worse run of qualiying in his career in the MP4/8. Consistently 3 seconds than the Williams and 1.5 seconds slower than the Benetton even on twisty tracks like the Hungaroring.
@@theiceman7590 Let me guess, the MP4/4 wasn't that great either, right ?
It was all Senna and his miraculous talent extracting 150% of his cars
@@viniciusbraga9881 Where did I say that?
The MP4/8 was probably the slowest Mclaren since 1980. It was three seconds a lap slower than the Williams. It wasnt even reliable to beat the Williams.
A content creator is going to be killed by a religious brazilian mob because of.....facts👍🙈.😂
I just love it when you say the Michael
All I know is I'm 2 seconds slower at Monaco in the MP4/8 in Assetto Corsa. I'm sure the models are not super accurate but the FW15c feels a lot more planted and is also more powerful. Could just be a difference in the tyre models.
Assetto Corsa is correct and your assumption is true. The Mclaren was nowhere near the Williams, it was even slower than the Benetton. Facts show the car was 2-4 seconds slower than the Williams if you look at qualifying times for most Grand Prix just as Assetto Corsa accurately displays.
Nimble chassis with electronics that easily rivalled Williams' by the end of the year, all it lacked was the sheer horsepower. Senna was brilliant, no question about that but people get too romantic about the idea that he could drag anything anywhere, he had a fantastic little car at his disposal.
Calling it fantastic is overstatement of the century.
@@theiceman7590 Senna loved it himself when he first tested it.
@@McLarenMercedes Well Frentzen called the Jordan EJ11 the best car he ever drove. Doesnt mean much.
Brazilians like to say that Senna in 93 made miracles in a shitty car, me I study deeper and this video makes me happy because it really was a great car
Senna Widows someone referred to them as in a previous video on stuff he did.
@@AidanMillward it's a common say in Portuguese or Brazil as well in general... 🤣 Hardcore Santos FC fans are known as Pele's widows since 1970s... But Senna is sacred, only Piquet fans say anything unholy about Ayrton
Brazilians take the term fan-boy to extreme levels.
As an brazilian F1 fan, here's an advice: always take these Senna widows stories with a grain of salt.
Although Senna was a special talent, there's so much myth and absurd narratives around him that I consider him overrated in general. The typical Senna widow barely knows anything about Formula 1, all they know are twisted narratives to always portray Senna as a hero and to inflate his status in some way or another.
The Mclaren was nowhere near the Williams
My absolute favourite McLaren. I’ve got a photo of me standing next to one during a secret late night tour of the MTC 🤫
Was it a secret tour or did you just break in 🤔
That Jonathan Frakes' Beyond Belief cameo caught me off-guard. I remember when I was nee high watching that series on television back in early 2000s.Creeps the heck out of me every single time.
Relevant to the 787 propaganda tho.