A development of the previous year's 95T, the car was powered by the turbocharged 1.5-litre Renault EF15B V6 engine and ran on Goodyear tyres.

Senna's first was a brilliant performance in the Portuguese Grand Prix where he won by over a minute in monsoon conditions.

De Angelis added a third win (his 2nd and last win in F1, both for Lotus) at the San Marino Grand Prix after original winner Alain Prost (McLaren) was disqualified an hour after the race finished due to his out of fuel McLaren-TAG being 2 kg underweight.

However the Renault engine had issues with unreliability and fuel consumption; Senna and de Angelis suffered at high-speed tracks, which were more demanding on fuel consumption, so they had to turn down the turbo boost to save fuel and possibly the engine as well, although de Angelis likely caught on to this earlier than Senna, as the Italian consistently finished in the points in the beginning of the season whereas Senna failed to finish in all but one race before the Austrian Grand Prix.

The Renault engine in Senna's car blew up at Monaco, France (which caused him to have an enormous accident at the fastest corner), Germany, South Africa and Australia, while de Angelis suffered engine failure at Germany, Belgium and South Africa.