McLaren MP4/4: Was It Really the Most Dominant F1 Car Ever?
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The usual explanation for the McLaren MP4/4 fits in three words: Senna, Prost, Honda. Two of those are fair. The third has a problem, because in 1988 the same Honda engine sat in the back of a Lotus driven by the reigning world champion, and that car didn't win a race.
So the engine can't be the answer. The answer is a season in which the rules, the engine, the shape of the car and the two best drivers in the world all landed in one garage, for one year only.
Rules written to end an era
1988 was the last year of the turbos, and the sport wanted them gone. Boost was cut from 4.0 bar to 2.5, policed by a pop-off valve that dumped pressure the moment a car exceeded the limit. Fuel was cut from 195 litres to 150 for a whole race. Non-turbo cars had no fuel limit at all.11 Period coverage in Motor Sport, May 1988. McLaren's heritage page says 2.8 bar, an outlier against the other sources.
Most teams took the hint. Honda built a new engine for a single season. The RA168E was a 1.5-litre V6 with two turbos, making about 685 horsepower by Honda's figures, and designed to live on a ration meant to starve it. Honda also lowered the crankshaft by 28 mm.22 Honda's own RA168E history and MP4/4 page. Other sources put power at 650 to 675 hp. McLaren built a three-shaft gearbox to match, which let everything behind the driver sit lower.
Low was the point. The driver lay almost flat, the bodywork stayed close to the road, and cleaner air reached the rear wing. It went from drawing board to track so late that its first public run came on the last day of the final test at Imola, nine days before first practice in Brazil. Some journalists had already gone home.33 Told in ESPN's account of the launch.
Same team, same car, one title
Ron Dennis already had Alain Prost. For 1988 he signed Ayrton Senna as well. It's one of the bolder decisions a team boss has made, and it explains the season better than any part on the car. Each driver's only serious opposition was in the other half of the garage.
Senna was disqualified in Brazil for switching to the spare car after the green flag. At Imola, both McLarens lapped the entire field. At Monaco, Senna took pole by 1.427 seconds from Prost, in the same car, then led by about 50 seconds until he hit the barrier at Portier on lap 67. He walked to his flat and the team didn't hear from him until that evening. Prost won.
Monza
Enzo Ferrari died on 14 August. Four weeks later, Formula 1 went to Monza.
Prost's engine failed on lap 34, the team's only in-race engine failure of the year. Senna kept leading. On lap 49 of 51 he came up to lap the Williams of Jean-Louis Schlesser, standing in for a Nigel Mansell laid up with chickenpox. They touched at the first chicane and Senna was out. Gerhard Berger and Michele Alboreto finished first and second for Ferrari, in front of the Italian crowd, weeks after the old man's death. If a scriptwriter had handed that in, it would have been sent back.
It was the only race McLaren lost all year.
The correction
The MP4/4 was all about the Honda engine.
The Lotus 100T had the same engine, fuel limit and rules, with Nelson Piquet driving. It scored no wins and three third places.
At Monaco, Piquet's team-mate Satoru Nakajima didn't even qualify.44 Honda's Lotus 100T page and the Wikipedia entry. The Honda was the price of entry. What McLaren built around it, and who it put in the seats, did the rest.
The title it couldn't settle cleanly
Two weeks after Monza, at the start of the second lap in Portugal, Senna moved across on Prost and squeezed him towards the pit wall at more than 280 km/h. Prost kept his foot in, got through and won. Words followed.
At Suzuka, Senna stalled on pole. The sloping grid let him bump-start the car, but he had dropped to 14th. Rain arrived around lap 14, he passed Prost for the lead on lap 27, and he won by 13.363 seconds to become world champion for the first time.
Prost, however, scored more points. He finished the season with 105 to Senna's 94. Only each driver's best 11 results counted, which made it Senna 90, Prost 87.55 Gross and counted totals at formula1points.com. The most dominant team of its age needed a rule about which points to throw away in order to crown a champion.
Is it still the most dominant?
On the headline number, no. In 2023, Red Bull's RB19 won 21 of 22, and its engine was also a Honda-built turbo V6.66 Formula 1's record of the 2023 season.
| Car | Season | Wins | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red Bull RB19 | 2023 | 21 of 22 | 95.45% |
| McLaren MP4/4 | 1988 | 15 of 16 | 93.75% |
| Mercedes W07 | 2016 | 19 of 21 | 90.48% |
| McLaren MP4/2 | 1984 | 12 of 16 | 75.00% |
The MP4/4's case rests on what that table leaves out. It took 15 poles from 16, scored 10 one-twos and led almost every lap of the year. It did this with two all-time greats splitting the wins eight to seven while trying to beat each other. Then turbos were banned, the rules it was built for were gone, and it never raced again.
Who built it?
Even now, the people responsible can't agree. Gordon Murray, the technical director, says he took his failed Brabham BT55 drawings to McLaren and that the MP4/4 was basically that car. He called the opposing account "the biggest load of rubbish you've ever heard".77 Motor Sport, 4 August 2021. Steve Nichols, who led the design team, says it grew from McLaren's own MP4/3 and calls it "the ultimate expression of teamwork".88 Motor Sport, 20 October 2021.
We won't pick a winner, and the evidence doesn't force one. Murray had form with unusual ideas, as the fan car had shown ten years earlier. Nichols led the team that drew this one. Everyone wants to have built a car like this.