The last Honda V10 to power Ayrton Senna is up for auction

Honda will soon be auctioning off the last V10 engine that powered Ayrton Senna’s rise to become the 1990 Formula 1 Drivers’ Champion, and helped McLaren-Honda clinch that year’s Constructors’ Championship. Until now, it’s been in Honda’s possession exactly as it was at the end of the 1990 season. Come August, it’ll be sold to one lucky collector.

The Honda RA100E engine is number V805 and saw action at the final two rounds of the 1990 F1 season, the shocking Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit, and the Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide. At Suzuka, the engine was used only during warm-up sessions, so it wasn’t involved in The Crash, one of the most memorable moments in F1 history.

Going into the 1990 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit, McLaren-Honda’s star driver Ayrton Senna was locked in a fierce rivalry with Ferrari driver Alain Prost. Senna was ahead in points, but if Prost performed well enough in these last two races of the year, he had a chance to surpass Senna and win it all.

Therefore, as soon as the checkered flag dropped, in the very first turn of the race, Senna steered his McLaren-Honda MP4/5B directly into Prost’s Ferrari, damaging both cars and taking both drivers out of the race. Neither driver logged any points, giving Prost no chance of surpassing Senna’s tally. By taking Prost out at the first turn, Senna had guaranteed his spot as world champ.

The following month in Australia, Senna once again took pole position. Engine V805 was used during the race this time, but a gearbox failure ended Senna’s run on the 62nd lap. Prost ended up finishing in third, but because of the incident at Suzuka, Senna had already won.

Normally, the engines would be returned to Japan so engineers could tear it down and study it, looking for signs of wear before ultimately scrapping it. However, since a new Honda V12 was already under development, the V10 was spared that fate. Now, after kicking around in a Honda warehouse for a few decades, it was carefully disassembled and placed into a nice glass display case.

Honda engines were undefeated in Formula 1 for six consecutive years, starting with a turbo V6 in the 1986 Williams-Honda FW11 and ending with a V12 in the 1991 McLaren-Honda MP4/6. This V10 is part of that illustrious history and will come with a certificate of authenticity from Honda verifying its provenance. Honda will be auctioning V805 with Bonham’s at Monterey Car Week in August. It is expected to sell for $80,000 to $120,000.

Images courtesy of Honda.