This is the last Honda V10 Ayrton Senna ever raced. It’s a 1990 Honda 3.5 liter V10 RA100E Formula 1 engine that has been disassembled and put on display, and it’s now being sold directly from the Honda Racing Corporation in Japan.
After each race, engines would be shipped back to Honda in Japan where they would be carefully disassembled by engineers and studied to learn where they could be improved. Due to this engine’s unique Senna-linked history, it was kept in storage and only rediscovered recently.
Above Video: This 20 minute video from Honda Racing shows the engine in this article being carefully disassembled by two Honda engineers.
The Honda V10 RA100E Formula 1 Engine
The Honda RA109E was the Japanese manufacturer’s first 3.5 liter V10 Formula 1 engine, developed in response to sweeping FIA regulation changes for the 1989 season. These new rules banned turbocharging, requiring naturally aspirated engines capped at 3.5 liters. While Honda had dominated the turbo era with its V6 units, the switch to atmospheric engines prompted a clean-sheet approach.
Rather than simply scaling up the turbo V6 or reverting to a V8, Honda chose a V10 configuration – recognizing its balance between the compactness of a V8 and the power potential of a V12.
This 1989 72º V10 was designated the RA109E, it would be succeeded a year later by the closely-related RA100E in 1990. This V10 was paired with the all-new McLaren MP4/5, a car designed around the new power unit by Neil Oatley and Steve Nichols. The engine itself had a displacement of 3,493cc, with a bore and stroke of 90.0 mm x 58.0 mm.
It ran a compression ratio of 12.5:1 and produced approximately 700 bhp at 13,500 rpm, a remarkable figure for the first season of naturally aspirated racing, though significantly less than many of the much smaller turbocharged V6s which had come before.
While it was Honda’s first V10, the RA109E proved competitive out of the gate. In 1989, it powered the McLaren MP4/5 to 10 wins out of 16 races. Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna fought a bitter intra-team battle that season, with Prost narrowly taking the championship after Senna was disqualified from the Japanese Grand Prix. Honda secured the Constructors’ Championship convincingly.
This is the last Honda V10 Ayrton Senna ever raced. It’s a 1990 Honda 3.5 liter V10 RA100E Formula 1 engine that has now been disassembled and put on display.
The RA109E was refined into the RA100E for the 1990 season, incorporating some key reliability and performance improvements. The RA109E and RA100E formed the foundation for Honda’s V10 dominance of Formula 1 in 1989 and 1990.
The V10 layout Honda pioneered in 1989 became the engine configuration of choice in Formula 1 for over a decade due to its runaway success. While Renault had dabbled with a V10 earlier, it was Honda’s consistent competitive successes that seemed to legitimize the layout.
That said, Honda switched to an in-house developed V12 design in 1991. They would enjoy immediate success with it, with Senna and McLaren using the engine to power themselves to both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships that year. In 1992 Honda withdrew from F1, but Mugen continued to develop the V10 and offer it to customer teams including Team Lotus, Ligier, Prost Grand Prix, and Jordan Grand Prix.
Honda would return to F1 with the RA000E V10 engine for British American Racing (BAR), a team that they would take over in 2006, making it the official Honda team.
The Engine Shown Here: Ayrton Senna’s Final Honda V10
The disassembled engine on display you see here is the final V10 F1 engine ever driven by Ayrton Senna. It powered Senna’s works-entered McLaren-Honda MP4/5B cars and was used during both the 1990 Japanese and Australian Grand Prix race events.
Senna would out put the car on pole position in Australia and would lead much of the race, sadly suffering a minor crash on lap 61 (of the scheduled 80) due to a gear-selection problem. Senna would ultimately win the Drivers’ Championship in 1990 and McLaren would win the Constructors’ Championship thanks largely to Senna, and also his teammate Gerhard Berger.
After each race, engines would be shipped back to Honda in Japan where they would be carefully disassembled by engineers and studied to learn where they could be improved.
This engine was returned to Japan and out into storage, but not much attention was given to it at the time, as Honda was busy developing their V12 engine for the next season of racing. It was rediscovered again more recently, and it’s now being offered for sale.
The engine has been carefully disassembled and put into this display cabinet, and it’s being sold directly by the Honda Racing Corporation in Japan. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Image courtesy of Bonhams
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