The Williams that Ayrton Senna drove at the start of his final Formula 1 season is going up for auction in New York this month, with RM Sotheby's estimating it'll sell for £2.95 million to £4.45 million. It's FW16 chassis 01, which Senna drove in the warm-up at the 1994 Brazilian Grand Prix, and which Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and David Coulthard all used later that year. Senna's family owned it for 30 years, thanks to a clause in his contract, and this is the first time it has been offered at a public sale.
At the top of its estimate it would comfortably beat the roughly £3.7m paid at Bonhams in 2018 for the McLaren Senna won Monaco in, which is quite a sum for a car he never raced. It's also the price of around 370 Dacia Springs, Britain's cheapest new car, should you need a sense of scale.
Why did Senna's family own the car?
When Senna joined Williams for 1994, his contract reportedly entitled him to one of the team's chassis if Williams won the constructors' championship. He was killed at the San Marino Grand Prix in May, only the third race of the season, but Williams went on to take the title and honoured the deal, giving chassis 01 to his family at the end of the year. The car he crashed in at Imola was chassis 02, which is believed to have been destroyed.
Who drove Williams FW16 chassis 01?
Senna's only time in it at a race weekend was the Sunday morning warm-up in Brazil, where RM Sotheby's says he lapped faster than Michael Schumacher, who went on to win the race, before switching to another chassis for the grand prix itself. He and Hill had also put more than 800km on it in testing at Jerez.
After Imola it became a car with a lot of British history. Hill used it as his spare at Monaco, and Coulthard made his F1 debut in it at the Spanish Grand Prix, retiring with an electrical fault, before finishing fifth in it in both Canada and Britain. In between, Mansell raced it on his comeback at the French Grand Prix, where his gearbox failed, and after it was upgraded to FW16B specification it went to the last two races as Hill's spare, including the Adelaide finale where he lost the title to Schumacher by a single point.
That gives it three world champions behind the wheel, since Hill went on to win the title with Williams in 1996, and RM Sotheby's says it's one of only two surviving FW16s that Senna drove.
What condition is it in?
RM Sotheby's describes it as preserved and unrestored, with Senna's own seat fitted, which matters to collectors because originality is a big part of what they pay for. The current owner bought it from the Senna family through RM Sotheby's in 2024, and it will be sold at Sotheby's in New York during its contemporary art sales, a clue that the auction house sees it as much as a piece of history as a racing car.
Your own car probably won't fetch £4 million, but if you're curious what it's worth, a free car valuation from Regit takes a couple of minutes.
Our verdict
There are faster and more successful F1 cars, but very few with a story like this one, and the fact that it reached Senna's family through a promise kept after his death is what will push the bidding. We'd expect it to finish near the top of its estimate, and it would be a shame if it disappeared into a private garage for another 30 years without being seen.