Can’t Afford Senna’s McLaren? Try This 1999 Jordan F1 Instead

Well-off Formula 1 fans might be enticed to bid on the McLaren or Toleman that Ayrton Senna drove in the Monaco Grand Prix, as both are coming up for auction in Monaco next month. But for those interested in acquiring a vintage F1 car of their own, yet can’t quite stretch to one of Senna’s cars, this might be the next best thing.

At the same event, RM Sotheby’s will auction off this Jordan 199. It’s the very car in which Heinz-Harald Frentzen took two podium finishes in the 1999 World Championship. Those spectacular (for an independent team) results helped Frenzten seal third place in the drivers’ standings that year, and the same for the team in the constructors’ championship.

Jordan’s Best Car
Standing out in its yellow and black Benson & Hedges livery, the Jordan 199 packs a 3.0-liter V10 built by Mugen-Honda in one of F1’s most exciting eras. This was the third chassis built, and only ever finished on the podium, behind Eddie Irvine’s Ferrari in Australia, and behind Mika Hakkinen’s McLaren and Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari in Brazil. It was the best season out of the 15 in which Jordan competed before it was sold to Midland, then to Spyker and eventually to Force India. And none of those teams have repeated this car’s success.

After those races, chassis #3 is believed to have been retired, never to race again. But if you place the right bid, you could be driving it in an historic racing series like BOSS GP, where F1 cars from the 1990s and 2000s can still stretch their legs. There’s no telling how much it will sell for, but you can bet it will be much for affordable than any of Senna’s cars.