{"id":1779672,"date":"2026-02-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1779672"},"modified":"2026-02-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:00:00","slug":"stop-everything-ayrton-sennas-most-successful-lotus-f1-car-could-sell-for-9m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1779672","title":{"rendered":"Stop everything: Ayrton Senna\u2019s most successful Lotus F1 car could sell for \u00a39m"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>Formula One\u2019s turbo era reached its pinnacle in 1986, with ridiculously boosty, fire-spitting cars producing well over 1,000bhp in qualifying trim. And yet, somehow, they still managed to look absolutely fantastic. Anyone from contemporary F1 listening to this?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the pick of the bunch visually in the \u201886 season was the John Player Special-liveried Lotus 98T, and now you can actually buy one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>Although this isn\u2019t just any old Johnny Dumfries 98T chassis, this is 98T-3 \u2013 the most successful car driven by Ayrton Senna during his three-year stint with the team. Yikes.<\/p>\n<p>The Brazilian took this car \u2013 complete with its bonkers 1.5-litre turbo V6 from Renault \u2013 to five pole positions, two wins and three further podiums in the first half of the season, with his victories coming in Spain and the United States as he battled with Mansell, Prost and Piquet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>There\u2019s more good news for the well-heeled person that picks it up from the RM Sotheby\u2019s sealed auction too, because it has just been through a \u201csuperlative restoration\u201d at Lanzante, meaning it\u2019s \u201cprimed and ready for a return to the track\u201d. Oh boy.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the day, the 98T was reported to make around 1,200bhp in its qualifying trim. There were no restrictions on power output, and the teams ran so much boost the turbochargers would last just a single lap. Heck, Lotus even used different gearboxes in quali to cope with the extra grunt. And even in its more reliable race trim the EF15B engine produced 900bhp and revved to 12,500rpm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"HtmlContent\" class=\"MarkUpWrapper-sc-t20i90-0 hQwWlJ\">\n<p>Want a taste of what Senna had to wrestle with? If the estimates are correct you\u2019ll need somewhere in the region of \u00a37m &#8211; \u00a39m to find out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Formula One\u2019s turbo era reached its pinnacle in 1986, with ridiculously boosty, fire-spitting cars producing well over 1,000bhp in qualifying trim. And yet, somehow, they still managed to look absolutely fantastic. Anyone from contemporary F1 listening to this? Perhaps the pick of the bunch visually in the \u201886 season was the John Player Special-liveried Lotus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1779672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1779672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779672\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1779672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1779672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1779672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}