Pato O’Ward Drives Ayrton Senna’s 1990 F1 Automotive at Laguna Seca

System 1 followers spend numerous time waxing in regards to the aural sensations of the game’s V10 period, and for good purpose: These machines have been absolute screamers. This video, from racing journalist extraordinaire Marshall Pruett, proves that. However the sound is simply in regards to the third most vital factor happening on this video.

That’s as a result of what you’re watching here’s a current-day racing hero exercising one of the vital legendary F1 automobiles of all time. Yep, that’s Pato O’Ward, behind the wheel of the particular McLaren MP4/5B that Ayrton Senna drove to a contentious world championship in 1990.

Yep, that is the automotive that Senna used to drive teammate Alain Prost off the observe within the first nook at Suzuka in 1990. This transfer clinched the championship title for Senna with one race to go within the season. When requested later by racing god Jackie Stewart in regards to the determination to spear his personal teammate off the observe to safe the championship, Senna delivered his now-famous quote: “Being a racing driver means you might be racing with different folks, and in the event you not go for a niche that exists, you might be not a racing driver.”

Fortunately, the MP4/5B survived, and when O’Ward hopped within the cockpit at this weekend’s Velocity Invitational classic racing occasion at Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca, Marshall Pruett was there to slap an motion digicam on O’Ward’s helmet.

We’re grateful he did. Even with out the championship strain that made Senna full-throttle crash out his personal teammate, the McLaren makes a spine-tingling shriek as that 3.5-liter V10 leaps to redline. And watch O’Ward’s fingers: This was nonetheless the period of three-pedal, lever-shifted handbook transmissions in System 1. O’Ward spends rattling close to half his laps steering with one hand, the opposite on the shifter as he seamlessly rev-matches each shift. A grasp at work.

Flip the quantity as much as admire what’s happening right here in its full aural glory: