In this very special video, I bring you the actual car raced by Ayrton Senna at Brazil in 1988. The McLaren MP4/4 was campaigned by Senna and Alain Prost throughout the season where it achieved near total dominance – 15 out of 16 races were won by a McLaren that year.
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Today, I show you why the car was so successful with the people who were there.
Thankyou to Antony and Damani from @sportzntouring for assisting with today’s piece.
#McLaren #FormulaOne #F1Car
Chapter Listing
0:00 Introduction
2:34 Brazil: The First Race
7:20 An Overview of the Car
12:20 Tyres, Brakes and Pit-Stops
18:13 The Design Process
20:38 Rear Wing & Downforce
24:17 Front Wing
26:09 The Style
28:53 The Monocoque
30:28 The Team
30:48 The Construction Process
33:12 Snorkel or No Snorkel?
34:03 The Paint
37:49 Undressing The Car
38:54 Airflow and Engine
43:25 Honda Reliability
44:32 The Tilton Clutch
46:06 Weight and Centre of Gravity
49:29 A Moment of Panic
51:12 The Mechanic’s Assessment
54:12 How To Start a 1988 McLaren MP4/4
56:46 The Front Suspension
62:02 Fuel
64:16 Cockpit and Controls
68:01 Parting Words
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Enjoyed this? Check out my interview with Steve: https://youtu.be/5Mz9nAzsLXU
I can't believe you could make this video about MP4/4. Exactly a year after the Steve Nichols interviews. I'm very happy and looking forward to watch it. 👍 😀
Absolutely fabulous Jay .
Beautiful and passion.. what a crew
Another outstanding vid in this series, thank you for this edit where these guys just tell us their story. Wonderful story tellers.
What talented men……amazing and historically significant car in F! history.
absolute weapon in every way
I didn't expect to watch the entire video but I was not bored for one second. The detail available on tweaking the car handling made me wonder why the 2022 Maclaren seemed so inflexible to suit the drivers, especially Ricciardo. Perhaps there has been a regression in development.
JUST LOOK AT IT!
I love how it's a race car, but around 27.00 they spend 5+ mins talking in detail about perfecting the look and aesthetics….no mention of designing for aero purpose – it's got to look beautiful too!
Quite possibly the best video on YouTube.
Simply the most beautiful car ever produced. Although that 1990 Ferrari was pretty sweet 🙂
As a teen growing up watching Senna winning in the MP4, it's such a treat to see and listen to the engineers talk about my favorite F1 car of all time.
car por… oops family friendly… sorry…
I’m here because of Gears and Gasoline
The MP4/4 is one of the sleekest, best looking F1 cars ever designed. What a team, with Senna and Prost. So dominant.
Great video 😎
Super-marvellous video! Huge congrats! Big fan of the channel, being Brazilian, big fan of our drivers as well…
I found this video after midnight, I opened it in a new tab to watch it later (other day), but I could not stop watching. Now close to the end, I feel that I have to express my appreciation. It is a great work (video) and content. Well done.
Just speechless. 🙏🙏🙏
Best looking F1 car of all time, and it sounded pretty good too! Great era
Well Done Jay! This video surely has to be the envy of every Motoring Journalist in the world. Amazing work.
Thanks so much for this!
Magnificent!! Great Job.
I don't think we are remotely aware of the magnitude of what we just watched.
This is a proper motorsport-historic tour de force of the finest execution.
A brilliant Christmas present.
Thank you 🙏
Great Video, was hoping for a controlled cold start and seeing that dash light up. Great video! Good to get the team back and sharing there story.
Well played Jay. This is a fascinating insight, and perfectly timed as I'm currently reading Malcolm Folley's book 'Prost v Senna'.
The 4/4 is one of the most beautiful F1 cars, in my opinion. It just looks right. The livery, and those clean, simple lines just work perfectly.
What a great presentation, the best I have seen on youtube for a long time.
Hang on a cotton picking minute. Where’s Lord Gord?
Amazing video & insight from the people who designed & built it. Could’ve watched hours of them talking about it. Hopefully you can do another video on the FW14 or another great car.
Look at how small this thing is. No wonder there was more competition and more action back then. How did we get to these damn behemoths they drive nowadays? Oh right, the same way we got the behemoths we drive on the streets.
I was look down the street the other day, comparing car widths between older and new cars. Older cars (up to late 90s) are narrower and shorter. This means more room to drive and park. Nowadays even a small city hatchback is so wide that it can barely fit through a one lane road (like in the city centre) with cars parked on both sides.
Production cars need to get smaller again. F1 cars need to get smaller as well. Badly.
Never heared of this channel or seen any videos, but I am sure this video is and will be your best 🙂
How great to hear these guys sharing the responsibility for the design of this car…….any lawsuits yet?
Nice! Jealous u got to shoot this magnificent peice of F1 history. Great video mate!
Fantastic video! Was amazed to hear Steve talk about styling. His efforts were not wasted on me, I always noticed and loved the way the cockpit curves carried onto the engine cover, but with bigger radius on the back forming a single sweep as it were. And the bits about Ron having the paint stripped after each race, plus the qualy tyres sticking to the ground, always wondered if these were urban legends or at least exxarations, great to have them confirmed.
The sound of that switch gear!
It maybe looks too perfect? Wish the car still had the marks and grime from race use.
WELL DONE !