Ayrton Senna’s 1991 Brazilian GP-winning McLaren is up for sale for £9m+

Remember Ayrton Senna’s dramatic victory at the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix? Of course you do. Heck, even if you weren’t born then you’ve probably heard all the stories and watched the bonkers highlights on YouTube.

Senna was already a two-time world champion and held more than superstar status in his home country, but victory in Brazil had evaded him on seven previous occasions. It almost did once again in ‘91, with his manual McLaren MP4/6 suffering gearbox issues that left him leading the race but stuck in sixth gear.

Somehow Senna managed to prevent the 3.5-litre V12 from stalling in the slower corners, and he held off a charge from Riccardo Patrese in the semi-automatic Williams FW14 to finally win in Brazil. And yes, the car you see above is the very same chassis that (just about) got him there.

This is actually the very first MP4/6 built, and it was the car that Senna and Gerhard Berger used for testing at Estoril in February 1991. Brazil was its only race-outing though, and at the end of a victorious season for Senna and McLaren it was retired from racing and kept at McLaren’s HQ for nearly 30 years.

Remarkably in 2020 chassis MP4/6-1 was sold off, and the person that picked it up then is now ready to sell up, so it’s heading to an RM Sotheby’s sealed auction between 8 and 11 December, where it’s expected to fetch somewhere between £9m and £11.5m. Yikes.

Amazingly, it sounds like the auctioneers are expecting it to be driven too, because the listing states that prior to its sale in 2020 it was “fully recommissioned to race-ready condition by McLaren Heritage”. We’re also told that it’ll be delivered to Lanzante for an inspection and startup before it heads off to its new owner this time around. It comes with a McLaren Certificate of Authenticity and “all the necessary starting equipment” including an external starter, a water tower, a remote dash, a fuel primer and an engine pre-heater.

Fancy popping out to the shops in the final V12-engined, manual gearboxed car to win an F1 World Championship? Best start saving now.