Thirty years on, Bruno Senna, nephew of Ayrton, drives a McLaren Senna hypercar at Donington Park in tribute to one among Method 1’s most excellent performances. Not solely was the opening lap spectacular, however Senna’s race victory was dominant. Ayrton Senna’s 1:18.029 lap report stays the quickest Method 1 race time on the Leicestershire, UK, circuit.
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Now, extra Senna names enter the Donington historical past books, with Bruno setting a lap report for a manufacturing highway automobile within the McLaren Senna on the ‘GP’ circuit. Produced in restricted numbers in 2018 – 2019, the McLaren Senna is probably the most excessive road-going and track-oriented McLaren Final automobile ever.
The Senna title has returned to Donington Park as one among a sequence of McLaren milestone moments commemorating Ayrton Senna’s legacy, 30 years after the legendary Method 1 driver’s closing race in Might 1994.
Reflecting on Ayrton Senna’s unbelievable efficiency on the 1993 European Grand Prix on the Leicestershire, UK, circuit, Ayrton’s nephew Bruno Senna took to the observe in a McLaren Senna hypercar in tribute to his uncle’s epic drive.
Held on 11 April 1993, the Donington Park race is eternally memorable, not solely because the scene of one among Ayrton Senna’s most completed race victories but in addition what’s broadly thought to be one of many biggest laps in Method 1 historical past.
Driving the McLaren MP4/8 in more and more moist circumstances, wherein status as a particular driver was cast, the Senna drove from fifth to first place on the opening lap. Recovering from a poor getaway off the road with distinctive expertise and trademark Senna instinctive driving abilities, the Brazilian driver went off the standard racing line in locations to cross present and future world champions in unbelievable model with particular person passes at completely different components of the two.5-mile circuit. This accomplishment, one among Senna’s most imperious performances, has grow to be often known as the ‘Lap of the Gods’.
This iconic first tour across the circuit was the start of a dominant efficiency within the race. Senna received by greater than 1 minute and 23 seconds, lapping all however the second-placed driver to report the most important margin of victory he had achieved in his Method 1 profession.
The McLaren and Senna names are intertwined so strongly. It’s a nice achievement that this workforce labored collectively to convey the McLaren Senna out, a automobile that might have undoubtedly made Ayrton extraordinarily proud.
Bruno Senna
Nephew of Ayrton Senna and former Method 1 driver
The race’s lore amongst followers of Method 1 and Ayrton Senna additionally extends to the unconventional winner’s trophy*, lifted by the victorious and triumphant Senna on the rostrum.
The Donington Park race was the precise type of efficiency that cemented Ayrton Senna’s legacy as a driver with exceptional skills who might lengthen past one of the best of the competitors via whole dedication to extracting the utmost from his expertise and automobile repeatedly—an ethos that McLaren stays impressed by three many years later.
Honouring the well-known show, Bruno Senna took to the observe within the McLaren hypercar that bears the Senna title and channels this whole dedication to on-track efficiency: the McLaren Senna.
The McLaren Senna is probably the most excessive road-going McLaren ever constructed and probably the most track-oriented of the McLaren Final automobiles. It stands out not just for its unbelievable degree of efficiency but in addition for its means to create an innate connection between automobile and driver, which is wholly acceptable in a automobile impressed by Ayrton Senna’s driving model.
“Ayrton, on that first lap at Donington Park in 1993, was on one other planet, in one other dimension to all these elite drivers. Placing on such a drive in such complicated, difficult circumstances and towards extra aggressive automobiles was an unbelievable achievement. It’s a type of races you need to bear in mind, like Portugal in 1985 and Brazil in 1991.
“Donington is without doubt one of the enjoyable tracks, and naturally, the climate can play a component right here, however in the present day was fairly completely different to the 1993 race! In a excessive downforce, super-lightweight automobile just like the McLaren Senna, you may really feel the improbable circulate and alter of elevation – and, in fact, the pace!
With a lightest dry weight of 1,198kg, enabled by its carbon fibre Monocage III chassis and physique panels, together with the 800PS energy output from its 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine, the McLaren Senna has a power-to-weight ratio of an astonishing 668PS-per-tonne (659bhp). The acute aerodynamic bundle of McLaren’s most track-orientated Final automobile consists of energetic parts entrance and rear, able to producing as much as 800kg of downforce. On the identical time, motorsport-derived brakes present unprecedented stopping energy: braking from 200km/h (124mph) to a standstill is achieved in simply 100 metres.
Bruno echoed his uncle’s exploits, taking the McLaren Senna across the circuit in 1m30.5s to set a brand new unofficial lap report for a road-going manufacturing automobile on the identical Donington Park Grand Prix configuration at which Ayrton was famously victorious.
