Senna's unrestored 1994 Williams FW16 goes to auction for the first time with $6m estimate

The Williams FW16B-01 that Ayrton Senna drove during the 1994 Formula 1 season is going under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s in New York for the first time, carrying an estimate of $4 million to $6 million (£2.95 million to £4.45 million). The chassis will appear in Sotheby’s ‘The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction’ and has never previously been offered at public sale.

Senna joined Williams from McLaren ahead of the 1994 season, and the team agreed that he would receive one of its chassis should it win that year’s constructors’ championship. The three-time world champion died at the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola, driving a different chassis — FW16-02. Williams ultimately beat Benetton to the constructors’ title, while Damon Hill narrowly lost the drivers’ championship to Michael Schumacher by a single point. True to its word, the team presented FW16B-01 to Senna’s family at the end of the season.

According to RM Sotheby’s, the car is one of only two surviving FW16s that Senna actually drove, even though he never raced this particular chassis. It served as the spare car at the season-opening Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, where Senna used it for the race-day warm-up and posted a faster time than Schumacher, who went on to win the race. Days later, Senna and Hill shared the chassis during a test at Jerez, completing 842 kilometres across three sessions.

The Senna family retained ownership of FW16B-01 from 1994 until 2024, with Williams keeping the car in its care throughout that period. The current owner acquired it privately through RM Sotheby’s in 2024. Crucially, the car has never been restored.

“Chassis FW16B-01 remained completely untouched for the following 30 years, with a notable exception being the addition of Senna’s personal seat, and is today presented in totally preserved, unrestored condition,” the auction listing states. “Acquired by the current owner in 2024 having been purchased from the Senna family via RM Sotheby’s, it has remained preserved and unused since.”

The sale represents a rare opportunity to acquire a piece of Formula 1 history directly connected to one of the sport’s most revered figures, in the condition it left the Williams factory more than three decades ago.