Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren MP4-25A, which won the Turkish Grand Prix in 2010, sold for £ 4,836,000 over the British Grand Prix weekend – but what about the most expensive Formula 1 cars ever to be auctioned off to the public?
Saturday at the British GP marked the first time a Lewis Hamilton Formula 1 car went under the hammer, but it was definitely not the first time a Formula 1 car made millions on the block. Read on to find out the top earners.
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5. 1993 McLaren MP4 / 8A – sold for £ 3.6 million in 2018
This McLaren MP4 / 8A, chassis # 6, is exactly the car with which Ayrton Senna took his sixth and final Monaco Grand Prix victory. And that was after falling at about 100 mph in training on Thursday at Ste Devote.
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Auctioned by Bonhams in 2018, 25 years after the Monaco victory, it sold for £ 3,606,198 – in the principality itself. Powered by a V8 Cosworth Ford engine, it was bought by a collector from McLaren boss Ron Dennis in 2006 and was purportedly the first privately owned McLaren MP4 car.
Senna also drove with chassis # 6 in Canada, France, Great Britain, Germany, Belgium and Italy this season and finished second in the championship behind Alain Prost. But Monaco was the race in which Senna wrote this car in the history books.
The MP4 / 8A chassis # 6, engine # 510, photo courtesy Bonhams
4th 2010 McLaren MP4-25A – sold for £ 4.8 million in 2021
RM Sotheby’s sold the MP4-25A, chassis # 1, for £ 4,836,000 after the very first F1 sprint ahead of the 2021 British Grand Prix.
By then, no Lewis Hamilton car had been publicly offered for sale and it fetched almost a record price for an F1 car at auction. Hamilton not only managed to win in Turkey, he also drove to P2 at the 2010 Chinese Grand Prix with chassis # 1, while Jenson Button took it to P3 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix season finale.
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With the car fully prepared for the race by the McLaren Racing Heritage Team, more than 100,000 spectators watched the Mercedes V8 powered machine make demonstration laps to Silverstone before going under the block.
Its new owner has the keys to a very impressive machine in his care.
Lewis Hamilton’s # 1 McLaren MP4-25A Chassis was sold during the UK GP weekend in 2021
3. 2002 Ferrari F2002 – sold for around £ 5m in 2019
The sterling silver McLaren is nothing to sneeze at, but who wouldn’t dream of owning a Ferrari F1 car from Rosso Corsa? And a Michael Schumacher Grand Prix winning F1 car too. The F2002 took 15 wins, 11 poles and 15 fastest laps in the season of 19 races in 2002 and this one, chassis # 219, sold for $ 6,643,750, or just over £ 5 million when it was at the Abu Grand Prix Dhabi was auctioned in 2019.
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This chassis was tested by Rubens Barrichello in Barcelona in March 2002, before Schumacher drove to victory in San Marino, Austria and France – and won his fifth driver title there – before another victory in Hungary.
Undeniably one of the most successful Formula 1 cars of all time, it was sold at auction by …
The F2002 will be auctioned on the 2019 season finale weekend
2. 2001 Ferrari F2001 – sold for around £ 5.5 million in 2017
… his predecessor. The Ferrari F2001, chassis # 211, surpassed its estimate by $ 2 million and sold for a total of $ 7,504,000 at an RM Sotheby’s auction in New York in 2017. This was led by Schumacher to victory at the 2001 Monaco and Hungarian Grand Prix, tested by Schumacher, test driver Luca Badoer and Barrichello in February 2002 in Mugello.
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As with F2002, part of the sale went to Michael Schumacher’s Keep Fighting Foundation.
The result of the auction meant that this car broke the record as the most expensive modern F1 car ever sold in a public auction, but there was one machine the price of which knocked this car out of the park.
Schumacher’s Ferrari F2001 # 211 on display ahead of the 2017 New York auction in Hong Kong
1. 1954 Mercedes W196R – sold for £ 19.6m in 2013
The car with which Juan Manuel Fangio won the second of his five Formula 1 titles is not only the most expensive Formula 1 car that has ever been publicly auctioned, but also broke the record in July 2013 when it was the most expensive car at auction Overall, Bonhams got it under the hammer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.
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For $ 29,650,095 or GBP 19,601,500, the new owner recorded a piece of Grand Prix history. Mercedes W196 chassis # 6 won against Fangio in Germany and Switzerland before Hans Hermann finished fourth in Italy.
This car is the symbol of the Silver Arrows’ first successful foray into F1. Six decades later, Hamilton was on the way to a second championship to usher in a new era of Mercedes domination.
Fangio on the way to victory at the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix in Bremgarten