The most dominant car ever
Formula 1 is incredibly competitive. It’s rare for one car to dominate the rest of the field, race after race; rarer still for both cars in one team to consistently find themselves so far in front of the third-placed car.
That’s why 1988 was so special for McLaren. The two greatest drivers of the era, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, were both battling in McLarens. We won 15 out of 16 races, recorded 15 pole positions and led all but 27 laps during the season. All of these feats have yet to be beaten.
We achieved this through a combination of a pace-setting Honda engine, an equally brilliant chassis, the most dedicated team imaginable, and the sublime skills of Senna and Prost, in full mastery at every race. At San Marino, the McLarens qualified more than three seconds ahead of the third-placed car, a feat utterly unthinkable today. They finished 1-2 on 10 occasions, with Prost winning seven races and Senna eight. Senna also scored an incredible 13 poles, the first six consecutively.
Productive tensions
The rivalry between the Frenchman Prost and Brazilian Senna intensified as the year progressed. 1988 proved that man-management skills were an integral part of the modern racing team. Both drivers were hugely talented, in different ways, and neither wanted to be the other’s ‘number two’. “Working with Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost that year was stressful, but pretty enjoyable,” Ron Dennis admits. “My job at the time was more a diplomat than team principal. It was about maintaining a constructive working relationship between the two, and it worked most of the time – but not always!”
Eventually at Monza, disappointment struck. Prost’s engine blew on lap 35, and Senna crashed into a backmarker on lap 50 – ruining the team’s clean sweep of race victories in 1988.
A crushing victory
In the end it was Senna who won the Drivers’ Championship, with an awe-inspiring drive at the Japanese Grand Prix. He started badly, stalling on the grid while in pole position, but then stormed from 14th to 1st in 28 laps, to win by more than 13 seconds. We scored 199 points, almost three times as many as our closest rival, Ferrari, to win the Constructors’ Championship and make the MP4-4 the most dominant car in Formula 1 history.