McLaren MP4 / 4

In the 1987 season, the McLaren - TAG Porsche team won only three victories. However, she managed to get a one and a half liter V6 turbo engine Honda , the strongest in Formula 1 of the time. The 1988 season was the last year for turbo engines , so most teams made efforts to develop naturally aspirated engines. Designer Gordon Murray proposed a car design with a turbo engine , which gave the team a clear advantage over competitors.

The low-lying chassis was designed by Murray while still working on the Brabham team. The idea was that the low car was more aerodynamically efficient and allowed more air to pass through the rear wing, adding more downforce. In theory, it sounded great. In practice, the BMW engine used in Brabham turned out to be very "gluttonous" and unreliable, which made it impossible to effectively use this idea on the Brabham BT55 . However, the Honda motor was much smaller and had a lower center of gravity than the BMW , which was ideal for the low chassis design that Murray designed.

The McLaren MP4 / 4 chassis, a pair of Senna and Prost riders, and finally the new Honda RA168E turbo engines, became a winning combination for the team. However, teams using turbo engines had problems due to the fact that the FIA introduced a restriction on fuel consumption for cars with turbines up to 150 liters for the entire race distance. Honda engineers urgently finalized the engine in terms of reducing fuel consumption. The team also experimented with active suspension, but these tests did not have time to finish by the beginning of the season. The car did not participate in the tests until the first race, but this did not stop Senna from taking the pole position at the first 1988 Grand Prix in Brazil .

Until 1988, the most dominant Formula 1 racing car was the Lotus 79 , but the success of the MP4 / 4 exceeded all the results shown before. The season was an easy walk for the McLaren team: the team won 15 of 16 races, winning 10 takes (1 and 2 places at the finish) and 25 podiums (out of 32). Domination was interrupted only once, in Monza , when Senna, who was in the lead one and a half laps to the finish line, had an accident, overtaking Jean-Louis Schlesser , who was lagging behind, and Prost came down after a rare Honda engine failure that year. The race was won by Gerhard Berger of Ferrari . Perhaps the most expressive example of the unconditional dominance of the MP4-4 was the Monaco Grand Prix . Ayrton qualified 1.5 seconds faster than Allen, and he, in turn, was ahead of the rest of the peloton by a second.

At the end of the season, McLaren easily won the Constructors' Cup . In the standings of pilots Senna (who had fewer points) beat Prost according to the then current rule - only eleven best results were counted, but the relations between the racers deteriorated and did not recover anymore while they performed together.

According to the results of the year, McLaren MP4 / 4 was awarded the prize of the British magazine " Autosport " - "Racing Car of the Year 1988" .

This model was replaced by the McLaren Honda MP4 / 5 in 1989 .

During the 1988 season, with the participation of Hercules Aerospace, six MP4 / 4 chassis were cast from fiber carbon (carbon fiber). Chassis received numbers from 1 to 6 and were used throughout the year.

All six MP4 / 4 chassis still exist: buildings No. 1, 3, 4 and 6, belong to the McLaren Group, chassis number 1 is on display at the McLaren Team Technology Center ( McLaren Technology Center ), No. 3 is leased and put on display at the Donington Grand Prix Exhibition in Donington . The other two are on display at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu . Chassis # 5 is owned by Honda and exhibited at the Honda Collection Hall in Motegi , Japan . Chassis number 2 is in a private collection in the United States .

Chassis, victory, racer:
No. 1 - San Marino and Canada, Senna.
No. 2 - Brazil, Prost; USA and Japan, Senna.
No. 3 is the only MP4 / 4 that has not won a single Grand Prix.
No. 4 - Monaco, Mexico and France, Prost.
No. 5 - Great Britain, Germany, Hungary and Belgium, Senna.
No. 6 - Portugal, Spain and Australia, Prost.

• Photos McLaren MP4 / 4

The magazine "Russian edition of F1 Racing." November 2004 - ed. ITC Publishing. - P. 65–70.