Does anybody still watch F1 races on the telly these days?
I actually know folk who pay a fortune to old Rupert Murdoch’s Sky operation to permit them so to do, but mainly because they keep forgetting to cancel their subscriptions. I’ve even stopped watching the bore fest on Channel 4, where David Coulthard and a Welsh bloke try to polish the F1 turd with their highlight show. This is supposedly the pinnacle of motor sport, but these days I’d rather spend Sunday afternoons dead heading my roses.

It’s all too obscene nowadays. The "sport", with so-called global status (USA doesn’t give a damn), forces participants to perform in countries esteemed for their championing of human rights programmes - Russia, China, Qatar, anyone?

It was bad enough to watch before the whole enchilada thought it might turn more relevant by pursuing the hybrid path, but these fearsomely complex and hugely expensive turbocharged little V6 hybrids may be immensely powerful but boy, don’t they sound crap? My 12hp lawn mower gives me a bigger aural tingle.

So, a 2018 F1 car goes like a shithouse rat yet sounds flat.
On a good day a race may be led by a German in a red Italian car or an immodest little English fashion victim in a silver German car that’s made entirely in England. Sometimes a Dutch schoolboy called Max Verstappen in an Austrian Red Bull thing, also entirely made in Britain, shakes things up and then crashes.

Missing in action entirely these years is the once all-conquering Woking based McLaren outfit. They have a huge budget, a fine driver in Fernando Alonso, but now struggle to get past skint no hopers like Williams and Force India. Blimey, they’ve not managed a win since Jensen Button pulled one off in Brazil…Six. Years. Ago.

Seamlessly cutting to the chase, McLaren’s woes on the circuits arose at about the same time that the company went into the business of nailing together expensive supercars to challenge the establishment made up of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche et al. This side of the business is going pretty well. Apart from a brief outing at Goodwood, I didn’t get to drive my first McLaren until a couple of years ago, when in a few days I biffed about in a 570S, a 570GT and a 720S. The numbers denote metric horsepower. There was/is much to admire about these machines. Build quality and finish of the very highest order, my only bleat being the hard to reach and fiddly seat adjustments, and a rather less than thrilling exhaust note. I still can’t bring to mind a car with sharper and more accurate steering. Such precision has been lost to electronic rather than hydraulic systems these days. Oddly, it was the least expensive 570S I wanted to keep..

Ayrton Senna crashed his Williams fatally at Monza in 1994, having left McLaren at the end of the 1993 season. All three of his world titles were achieved at the wheel of a McLaren. Arguably, Senna was the greatest F1 driver…ever. Actually, no argument. He was.

In recognition, McLaren has built a car to bear his name. It had better be good. It reads like this. The 4litre twin turbo V8 makes 800ps. This translates to 0-62 in 2.5 secs, 0-124 in 6.2 and a top whack of an agreeably sufficient 208mph. Breathtaking, especially as the Senna weighs in at a dry weight of just 1180kg - which is 200kg lighter than the 570S.

The huge rear wing and front splitters move in harmony to assist mightily with the Senna’s unprecedented downforce. Look at it and ask yourself, how can this thing possibly be road legal? It is. Every carbon fibre inch of it.

McLaren may lack some of the historic pedigree of the "others", but the Senna moniker makes up for much of that, endowing the car with that man’s inscrutable charisma, perhaps?

Between now and next year, McLaren will build a total of 500 Sennas. They’re all sold. Sorry.

All that stated, I’ll stick to the 570S and save myself around £607,000. I’ll call it the Button.