BRITISH HEROES McLAREN P1 GTR <strong>September</strong> 2015 | CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK 117
‘I remember when all this was gearlevers’ – Brundle meets the future End fences help scoop air from the wheel wells. Pirelli rubber helps you avoid crashing THE SHAPE BURSTS into view and turns towards me, evil little lights ethereal and distorted in the haze of the hot tarmac between us. Behind it the air’s a maelstrom of heat, diffuser-flung spray and, I swear, air left visibly broken by the yellow McLaren’s demanding aero. There’s a noise building too, a curious hybrid – apt – of deep V8 thunder and otherworldly jet turbine whine. Then everything drops into slow motion. With one clean input and an instantaneous response the P1 GTR switches direction. Physics is overruled before it can lodge an objection. Despite scarcely imaginable mechanical grip the car drifts into a textbook cornering attitude, its broad, alien haunches set wide in a couple of degrees of yaw. Then more noise and it’s gone, blasted from view by a slug of acceleration so prodigious the video cameraman next to me freely admits he completely failed to keep the car in frame. That’s the problem with the P1 GTR – it’s a very difficult car to grasp, to make real, to capture in any tangible way. You could dismiss the McLaren as a £1.98-million, 986bhp, 1345kg track-only irrelevance, but it’s also the bleeding edge of performance car development. The enormous premium over the P1 yields greater rarity (49 units versus 375 P1s), another 83bhp, a 10% increase in downforce, 50kg less weight and sufficient grip, courtesy of an evolved chassis, to generate peak cornering forces 20% higher than those of the P1. All of which is either a graphic demonstration of the law of diminishing returns or, given the astonishing capabilities of the P1, a towering testament to the MTC’s speed-yielding prowess. But what does the GTR feel like, and how does it make you feel? Deadly serious instrument of laptime or, as the numbers promise, quite simply the most fun you can have in a British-built car, clothes on or off? Stinking hot, wheel-less as wets become slicks and silent as checks are made, the GTR is at rest. Inside and perhaps eight laps into his relationship with the McLaren, Martin Brundle sounds happy. ‘It’s sensational through that direction change, even on overheating wets,’ he gushes. ‘You can really attack. The overriding first impressions are of a completely sorted car. Just driving from the paddock to the pits in E-mode everything works. You get the same feeling out on the track. The driving position’s fantastic, you can see out – you can’t put a high enough premium on that – and it feels sorted, like a production Mercedes that’s done a million development miles. All your conscious and subconscious barriers to pushing the car hard get a tick in the box, leaving you free to get on with driving it. Some people might call that a lack of character but I don’t agree. On the track you’re not there to work around a car’s foibles or its lack of development.’ What of the P1’s near-1000bhp powerplant? Impressive, even when you’ve driven F1 cars and Group C Jaguars? ‘It just gets up and goes. It hooks up and then… warp speed,’ says Brundle, no small hint of awe in his voice. ‘So much power, so much torque – you do have to be careful. Down the back straight it’s quite bumpy and I can feel it breaking traction now and then, even at 170mph. But the delivery is as linear as I expected. It’s just this mighty shove, with a sound going on behind you. It doesn’t make an angry noise like a race car. That’s the only thing missing for me, that crescendo you build to with a normally aspirated engine, where you can feel the torque curve; feel where the power’s at its best and where it starts to drop off. You don’t connect with this engine in the same way. Instead it’s through the palms of your hands, your backside and your right foot. I’m looking forward to getting out on slicks.’ With fierce, almost tropical sunshine baking this morning’s damp tarmac dry, McLaren technicians switch the GTR’s very secondhand-looking wets (‘The car very quickly overwhelmed its wets when the track dried, and started sliding nicely…’) for fresh slicks. There’s a telltale tightening of the belts too, and Brundle makes some changes on the steering wheel, switching out of Boost mode (which pegs 118 CARMAGAZINE.CO.UK | <strong>September</strong> 2015
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