Until the BP23 Hyper-GT comes out to play, McLaren will wax lyrical about the Senna until we get bored out of our minds from it. Bruno Senna joins in on the action, claiming that the twin-turbo V8-powered tech-fest bearing his uncle’s name is the “most brutal, fastest road car” he’s ever driven. At £750,000 per unit and with production limited to 500 examples, the Senna would better perform if you ask me.
McLaren put together a 2-minute and 30-second video with Bruno and the Senna on the track, but what comes as a surprise is featured at the 30-second mark. The Brazilian racing driver that competes in the World Endurance Championship on behalf of Rebellion Racing says that he’d “waited a really long time for a road car to perform like a race car. And this is it. This is the real deal.”
Pardon me, but what about the F1 and P1? And if you dig deeper, there are other manufacturers of extreme road-going cars, including Ferrari. Such a statement isn’t just disrespectful to McLaren’s legacy, but an offense to the automotive industry.
Nevertheless, he’s the racing driver. The driver who secured a factory-backed drive with McLaren in 2015 for the GT3 project, to be more specific. But criticism aside, the Senna is on a different level altogether in terms of performance.
The list of superlatives starts with the 800-horsepower and 800-Nm engine, described as the “most powerful road car internal combustion engine ever created by McLaren.” Then there’s the 1,198-kilogram weight, making the Senna the lightest road-going Mclaren there’s ever been. And at high speeds, those 800 kilograms of downforce ensure the rear end stays put and controllable in the corners.
The Woking-based automaker isn’t over yet, claiming that the track-focused braking system is the most advanced solution ever fitted to a road car bearing the McLaren logo. Last, but certainly not least, the RaceActive Chassis Control II active suspension system is said to deliver “the most responsive and engaging road car experience to date.”
If purity of driving is your thing, what more could you possibly want from a McLaren?
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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