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The 1988 Formula 1 season was dominated by the Honda-powered McLarens; the newly formed partnership that resulted in Formula 1’s most successful car, the unstoppable (and nearly unbeatable) McLaren Honda MP4 / 4.

The year also saw the birth of arguably the sport’s greatest rivalry between teammates – Brazilian Ayrton Senna and the Frenchman, and then two-time world champion, Alain Prost. It was Senna’s first year with McLaren and he and his teammate combined to win 15 of 16 races, including the decisive World Championship victory in Brazil at the 1988 Japanese Grand Prix.

As the McLaren duo dominated the season, tension grew between the best drivers in the sport and reached a boiling point during the Portuguese Grand Prix when the enthusiastic Senna tried to stop Prost from taking the lead and nearly sent his teammate to team crashing into the pit wall. Prost managed to outrun Senna and take the lead, but did not appreciate the aggressive racing style of his young adversary.

The penultimate race of the season came to the challenging and winding Suzuka Circuit, Japan, which Honda built in 1962 as a test facility and featured a unique figure-eight design. Race day was scheduled for the epic showdown with Senna and Prost wheel-to-wheel in the championship battle.

Senna, who edged Prost by nearly half a second, earned his twelfth pole position for the year, and the pair achieved McLaren’s eleventh grid lock of the season. In the second row of the grid was the only non-McLaren race winner in 1988, Ferrari’s Gerhard Berger in third with Ivan Capelli in the March-Judd at his side. Reigning world champion Nelson Piquet and local hero Satoru Nakajima, both in a Lotus-Honda, could only finish fifth and sixth respectively.

When Senna released the clutch, her engine stalled. It would be his only missed start that year. With the Championship hanging by a thread, the pole-sitter sat motionless on the grid as the other riders passed him. But thanks to Suzuka’s sloping grid, he was able to start his car and come out in fourteenth place. With his rival leading the way, the determined and unwavering Brazilian found his rhythm and regained six places on his first lap.

By lap four, Senna had moved up to fourth place and his battle with Prost for supremacy was back, while the battle for second raged between Berger and Capelli until the fuel-poor Austrian handed over the second to Capelli, who had set the fastest lap of the race.

When the rain began to fall, Senna demonstrated his mastery of wet-weather racing by chasing the leaders, while Prost missed a march as he exited the final chicane, allowing Capelli to seize his chance and take the lead, becoming the first naturally aspirated car to lead a Grand Prix since 1983. His first place was short-lived, however, as his Judd was no match for the Honda turbo and the Frenchman regained and held the lead, while Capelli retired three laps later due to an electrical failure.

Meanwhile, Senna was quickly catching Prost as the pair made their way through the backmarkers, until the future World Champion seized lap 27 and flew past his teammate to take the lead and victory. . It was a grand prix of pure competition, with the young Senna, not intimidated by the older and more experienced Prost, beating his teammate to spectacularly secure his first Formula 1 World Championship.

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