Function Form

Wilder Than P1 And With The Potential To Be The Fastest Production Car Ever Made, Mclaren’s 588kw Senna Screams Its Intent

- Matt Prior + Pics Chris Brown

OVERHEAR somebody talking to my instructor/passenger/ babysitter as I strap myself into the McLaren Senna. But “remind him he’s got less...” is all I catch as I do up the harness buckle before somebody plugs in an intercom.

Presumably the rest of the sentence was “time”, because I’m meant to have a 15-minute slot driving the Senna, but know the time it takes to attach many, many video cameras to its innards and outards will reduce my allotted minutes.

And then the doors slam down and my minder, Josh Cook – a works Vauxhall driver in the BTCC – tells me what has actually been said. “They say to remind you you’ve got less tyre temperature, because the car has been in the pit lane for a while,” he says. Right. I see. Josh, isn’t this a road car? And we’re worrying about tyre temperatures?

Some road car. “We wanted to create the ultimate road-legal track car,” says Andy Palmer (no, the other one), McLaren’s Ultimate Series director. “It’ll pioneer technology that we can bring down to the Super and Sports Series cars.”

So although there will be 500 McLaren Sennas, fully homologated as a series production car for worldwide sale (this one is still, technically, a prototype), it happens to make 588kW, and an accompanying 800kg of downforce at 250km/h. Hence the rear wing. And the rest of the looks. It won’t take long to reach 250km/h, either. McLaren is usually accurate with its acceleration quotes: it says 0-100km/h will take 2.8sec, 0-200km/h 6.8sec and 0-300km/h just 17.5sec. The top speed is 340km/h.

Another, perhaps even more significant, number is the 1198kg the Senna weighs (before fluids). The previous Ultimate Series McLaren, the P1, weighed 1395kg in similar trim, owing to its hybrid tech. The 720S weighs 1283kg dry.