S12 E5: McLaren’s 1994 nightmare with Peugeot
Bring Back V10s - Classic F1 stories
The Race Media Ltd
4.9 • 764 Ratings
🗓️ 31 July 2025
⏱️ 86 minutes
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Summary
McLaren’s single season with Peugeot in F1 goes down as a year to forget in the team’s great history. But even though the short-lived alliance didn’t enjoy much success, there was plenty going on to make it worth the Bring Back V10s treatment.
Glenn Freeman, Ben Anderson, and Edd Straw revisit how McLaren tried to adapt to life after Ayrton Senna, and how it nearly coaxed his great rival Alain Prost out or retirement to spearhead its new era. We also dive into Martin Brundle’s gamble to land the seat Prost rejected.
We couldn’t possibly dig into every Peugeot engine failure from that season, but we do stop off along the way at the most famous ones, and look at the fallout behind the scenes after Brundle’s car burst into flames at the start of the British GP.
We then get into how quickly the relationship fell apart, with McLaren finding a way out of its Peugeot deal to link up with Mercedes for 1995, to the benefit of Jordan.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.7 | MacLarren started a new era in 1994 with Eton Senegal and a new works engine partner |
| 0:17.1 | as it welcomed Perjo into F1 for the first time. |
| 0:20.7 | Hopes were high or modest, depending on who you talk to, and despite some early promise, |
| 0:25.1 | the partnership became most famous for the red and white cars pulling up at the side of the track |
| 0:29.3 | with smoke and or fire coming out of the back of them. |
| 0:33.2 | In the end, things went so badly that McLaren wanted out of the deal, and it had to find |
| 0:37.6 | another team to take Peugeotile, underpowered engine so it could begin a new era with |
| 0:44.1 | Mercedes. I'm Glenn Freeman, and to help me revisit the often disastrous McLaren-Perso |
| 0:49.5 | partnership here on Bring Back V-Tens, we have Ben Anderson and Ed Straw. |
| 0:59.8 | Now, Ben, I know you love the 1994 season, although I don't think that's for reasons related to McLaren-Pershaw. |
| 1:01.3 | So when you think of this short-lived partnership, what's the first thing that comes to mind? |
| 1:06.5 | Well, it is this model of said McLaren Perjoow, which obviously listeners won't be able to see, |
| 1:14.7 | but viewers on our YouTube channel will. |
| 1:16.3 | More reason to go to bring back V10's YouTube channel. |
| 1:18.9 | Exactly, yeah. |
| 1:20.0 | It's the Mika Hakenen, MP49, which my dad bought for me at a Thruxton club meeting. |
| 1:26.1 | I went to watch trucks with him. |
| 1:29.5 | I was really getting into Formula One at this point and they had a model shop, mobile model shop at the track. |
| 1:34.5 | And his air conditioning company was working for McLaren at this time, fitting out their old facility pre-MTC. |
| 1:44.1 | And I was quite a fan of the McLaren colour scheme. |
| 1:48.0 | So I got this car. |
... |
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