NATURAL NAMESAKE

aerodynamic needs. The wing weighs only 4.9kg but is capable of producing a staggering 800kg of downforce at 249km/hr.

My brief but intense time behind the wheel of the Senna produced the curious effect of warping my perception of performance while attempting to evoke a poignant page in racing history. But then again, a name is just a name. What separates the McLaren Senna is not its evocative moniker but the staggering achievement that makes this street-legal road car not far off the performance benchmarks of Ayrton Senna’s F1 cars, which famously diced alongside rivals at Estoril while approaching speeds of 306km/hr. The Senna blends the contemporary wizardry of power and aerodynamics with a nod to an era in motorsports that will never return. cars.mclaren.com

Senna the car and Senna the man are separated by the march of time and the inexorable creep of technological progress. And while McLaren is quick to remind us that the link between the two is more philosophical than literal, the legendary Brazilian did score 35 Formula 1 wins and three driver’s titles with the marque. “You commit everything to such a level where there is no compromise,” Senna once insisted. “You give everything you have – everything, absolutely everything.” That unrelenting ethos is indeed translated through the car’s extreme lightweighting and race-focused demeanour. But while enthusiasts may debate whether Ayrton would have approved of his name being slapped on a high-dollar exotic without his input, sceptics can at least be assuaged by the fact that McLaren auctioned off the Senna’s final build slot for US$2.67 million, donating the proceeds to the Ayrton Senna Institute, which aids underprivileged children in the racer’s native country.