Formula 1 is a sport where machines are just as crucial as the people involved. They represent the pinnacle of technological innovation and without a good car a Formula 1 team can’t expect to challenge for a championship. There have been some eye-catching designs over years, and not always for the right reasons! One of the most memorable being Niki Lauda’s Grand Prix winning 1978 car which was banned straight after one race for being a bit too radical – a massive fan at the rear created a vacuum under the car so that it could take corners at incredible speed. There have been six wheelers, strange protrusions, and bizarre front wings over the years, but there have also been some beauties – the most famous of which probably being the black and gold ‘John Player Special’ Lotus’. Most fans have their favourite, and for me the iconic McLaren MP4-4 is the F1 car I’d most love to sit inside for a photo! Here is the brief story of a car which became a star during the single year it was able to race…
During his time in Formula 1, Engineer Gordon Murray pushed boundaries and conceived radical designs. In 1987 he developed the incredibly low Brabham BT55. The low centre of gravity was designed to help the car stick to the track. The rear wing effectively had no bodywork in front of it as the rest of the car was so low to the ground, with uninterrupted airflow the wing should (in theory) be incredibly efficient – even if it did mean that the driver had to practically lie down to drive the thing.
It didn’t quite work though, drag was too high and reliability issues meant that having a car actually finish the race was a bonus. Brabham only scored 2 constructor points during the season but Murray was convinced that the engineering principles were still valid, when he moved to McLaren he had an another attempt at a low body chassis.
McLaren’s 1987 season wasn’t as bad as Brabham’s, but it was still a disappointing year with Williams clearly the strongest of the pack and McLaren claiming only three victories. 1988 was to be the last year of turbo engines and in an effort to make the transition easier, most F1 teams were designing their 1988 car with next years engines in mind. McLaren took a different approach and having gained the Honda engine package which had worked so well for Williams, they built their car around the turbo engine rather than plan ahead. Combining the most powerful engine on the grid with Murray’s radical design was a masterstroke, the result was the MP4-4 – one of the most successful cars in F1 history.
MP4-4 was the class of the field, a great car for two incredible drivers: World Champion Alain Prost and Aryton Senna. The car would make Ayrton Senna a world champion for the first time.
To say that McLaren’s MP4-4 was dominant is an understatement, of the sixteen races in 1988 it won fifteen. By the end of the season McLaren had notched up 199 constructor points …their nearest rivals were Ferrari with 65. The car was beautiful with McLaren’s usual white and ‘rocket’ red livery, being so low to the ground the rear wing stood proud and the cars found their main rivals to be each other.
Prost’s victory in the first race was indicative of McLaren’s performance for the rest of the season, the other drivers almost expected to be lapped by a McLaren at some stage of the race. Complete dominance may suggest that the championship battle was a boring one, especially when you consider that the constructor’s championship was won with five races left to go! The driver’s championship however was one of the most thrilling in F1 history and turned the track into an arena where Prost and Senna duelled to win the most races. The old scoring system used only the best 11 race results for each driver, so with by far the best car, both drivers knew that the most number of wins would be crucial to securing the championship.
The MP4-4 raced for only one year, the change in engine regulations meant that it would never race beyond 1988, but it has become a legend in the sport and is one of the most celebrated vehicles in motorsport history. It provided a terrific return to prominence for McLaren and proved Murray’s design theory correct, but most memorably it enabled Ayrton Senna to achieve a world championship, the first of three.
