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Hennessey's McLaren 765LT Meets Ferrari F8 Tributo, Easily Settles Drag Score

Anyone who’s been watching closely drag racing wars early this year has already found out the British-born McLaren 765LT is quickly becoming the stock supercar everyone is trying to beat. And that’s before it undergoes any performance improvements, as teased by Hennessey during the latest outing with the Long Tail.
Hennessey McLaren 765LT vs. Ferrari F8 Tributo drag race 20 photos
Photo: Hennessey Performance/YouTube
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Just like any other respectable automaker out there (after all, they’re building the Venom F5 all on their own, right?), Hennessey seems to have learned the valuable lesson of setting up a proper teasing campaign. That’s opposed to their usual way of dropping the aftermarket bombs with no additional preparation.

For example, they love giving us snippets of their work done on limited-edition performance upgrades after the build has already been completed. But, on the other hand, they’re taking their very probable tuning program for the McLaren 765LT the other way around, enticing us to all sorts of stock capabilities before the supercar gets touched by the Texas-based specialist shop.

Because we’re dealing with one of the most promising models in the world of drag racing right now, we’re giving Hennessey a hall pass on this occasion. Especially since they decided to settle a European supercar score the proper American way, with a couple of quarter-mile runs.

One might remember that McLaren’s 720S was also a darling of the drag racing world, and other automakers didn’t have a proper answer to its reign – until Ferrari introduced the F8 Tributo. Now it’s time for a rematch between the newer 765LT and the “older” Prancing Horse, all done with the proper telemetry, of course. After all, we’re dealing with professionals here, not vlogger wannabes’ trying to make a name for themselves on the street (while putting everyone else in jeopardy).

The short video (embedded below) features just a couple of runs between the 765LT and F8 Tributo, but that’s enough to provide an overview of the current size of the gap. Both seem to provide very constant runs, with the result (the charts for both runs are in the gallery) basically coming down to the gap between sheer power – both the one on paper and the real horsepower count.

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About the author: Aurel Niculescu
Aurel Niculescu profile photo

Aurel has aimed high all his life (literally, at 16 he was flying gliders all by himself) so in 2006 he switched careers and got hired as a writer at his favorite magazine. Since then, his work has been published both by print and online outlets, most recently right here, on autoevolution.
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