The 1989 Japanese Grand Prix is one of the most infamous races in F1’s history largely because of the tempestuous manner in which Frenchman Alain Prost took the driver’s title. Prost and McLaren-Honda teammate Ayrton Senna collided at the chicane on lap 46, and with Prost retiring from the race, Senna bump-started his car and re-joined the track via the chicane’s ‘escape road’. He went on to win the race, before being controversially disqualified for having exceeded the track limits, thus handing that year’s title to Prost.
You can argue to this day whose fault the collision was, but there’s another aspect of the ’89 Suzuka race that’s worth revisiting: Senna’s scintillating qualifying lap, which secured him pole position with a record time of 1min 38.041sec.
Using new recordings of the McLaren MP4/5’s 3.5-litre V10 engine, plus telemetry of the actual lap itself and a light sequence to show the car’s would-be position on the track, Honda has recreated Senna’s 1989 lap in a tribute to its greatest F1 driver. Watch the video, plus a behind-the-scenes making-of feature here – if your Japanese is a little rusty there’s an English captions option too.