McLaren Racing Driver Lando Norris Drives New Elva, Calls It “Very Enjoyable”

Between race weekends, marketing shenanigans are part of Lando’s contractual obligations. On this occasion, however, the up-and-coming driver from Bristol was tasked to check out the Elva as part of “the final stages of testing and development.”

Norris highlights that “it’s actually my first time seeing the car up close,” adding that “it feels like a go-kart in here. I love it.” Even though he can’t stick to McLaren’s rather boring script, the promising driver shows no mercy to the rear tires of the Elva.

After leaving the pit lane with a load of wheel spin, Norris gets accustomed to the car relatively fast. You can watch Lando giving the twin-turbo V8 mill the beans at the 2:10 mark of the following video, donuting and drifting the car like there’s no tomorrow.

“I loved it, it was very enjoyable” is how the youngster describes his experience behind the wheel of the Elva, and the fun stuff ends here. Typical of McLaren Automotive, the British automaker is too embarrassed to reiterate that the production run has been reduced twice since the special edition’s unveiling in November 2019.

At that time, the Woking-based company said that 399 units are offered at $1.69 million before options. Chief executive officer Mike Flewitt announced in April that 249 will actually be made, and last month, that figure decreased to 149 examples of the breed.

Hindsight is 20/20, no doubt about that, and McLaren didn’t know how bad 2020 would be. The entire group received £150 million in funding from the National Bank of Bahrain, but nevertheless, 25 percent of the workforce will be ousted and the headquarters have been mortgaged together with the historic car collection.

Another victim of the financial turmoil resulting from the global health crisis is the indirect successor of the Sports Series. Currently known as the High-Performance Hybrid, the plug-in V6 supercar based on a new platform has been delayed to 2021.