McLaren MP4/2
Formula One racing car
The McLaren MP4/2 was a Formula One car produced by McLaren for the 1984 season. An iteration of it, the MP4/2B, was used in the 1985 season, and a slightly updated version, the MP4/2C, raced in the 1986 season for McLaren. It was closely based on the MP4/1E model that was used as a test car, used in the final races of 1983.
The chassis was designed by John Barnard, Steve Nichols, Gordon Kimball, Alan Jenkins, Tim Wright and Bob Bell with the car being powered by a TAG-Porsche engine, designed by Hans Mezger at Porsche.
Overview
1984
Like most of its major competitors (other than the Williams FW09), the car used an all carbon fibre chassis pioneered by the car's designer John Barnard with its predecessor, the MP4/1. The car was powered by a 1.5 Litre, 90° V6 TAG-Porsche turbo engine that produced 650 bhp (485 kW; 659 PS) in race set-up and up to 800 bhp (597 kW; 811 PS) in qualifying set-up i.e. with maximum turbo pressure. It was first used in the 1983 Dutch Grand Prix, at the insistence of veteran Niki Lauda, who felt that the new engine required race testing before a championship challenge could be mounted. Porsche built these engines while TAG Electronics paid for the whole engine program. The MP4/1, which until then had raced with the Cosworth DFY V8 engine, was modified to MP4/1E specs to take the new engine and in the final race of the 1983 season in South Africa, Lauda proved the car was competitive, running at the front of the field and challenging for the lead of the race.
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This entry incorporates text from “McLaren MP4/2” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.