RM Sotheby's will offer the 1994 Williams FW16 driven by Ayrton Senna at public auction for the first time, during Sotheby's marquee contemporary art sales in New York on 16 November. The car, chassis FW16B-01, carries an estimate of $4 million to $6 million, and it is one of only two surviving FW16 chassis that Senna is known to have driven.

The chassis carries a story that was known only to a small circle for decades. Under a special agreement between Senna and Williams, the driver was entitled to one of the team's chassis if Williams won the 1994 Constructors' World Championship. Senna died after his crash at the San Marino Grand Prix, but Williams pressed on to take the title that season, and at the end of the year the team honoured the commitment by gifting FW16B-01, a car Senna had personally driven and extensively tested, to his family.

The car stayed with the Senna family from 1994 until 2024, when it passed to a new owner through a private sale handled by RM Sotheby's. It figured in the early development work on Williams' 1994 contender: during the Sunday morning warm-up at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, Senna turned a lap quicker than Michael Schumacher, who went on to win the race, and a few days later he and teammate Damon Hill ran the car extensively in testing at Jerez, logging roughly 523 miles as they refined the Adrian Newey and Patrick Head design. Senna never raced this particular car.

Three world champions sat in its cockpit: Senna, Nigel Mansell and Hill. After Senna's death, David Coulthard made his Formula 1 debut in the car and finished fifth at both the Canadian and British Grands Prix, while Mansell raced it at the French Grand Prix and helped Williams lock out the front row alongside Hill. Upgraded mid-season to FW16B specification, the car remains unrestored, apart from the addition of Senna's personal seat, with little altered across its three decades in Williams' care.