The McLaren P1 had quite a benchmark in the first place: the iconic McLaren F1 – a car which broke all boundaries of performance in the late 1990s. Now, the P1 has managed to add another feather to its cap: a sub- 7 minute time around the unofficial bench test of a racing track, the Nürburgring.
Right from the start, the McLaren P1 was developed with one goal in mind: to be the best driver’s car on offer, for both road and track. Thus, the developers made sure the entire programme focussed on making absolutely sure that the P1 would do nothing else but push the boundaries in terms of sheer performance. Tests were carried out in some of the most challenging conditions all over the world. However, there was one challenge which remained unchecked in their list. This was one, in their own words, arguably the toughest of them all.
To achieve this record, the P1 had to drive for 13 miles, or 20.8 kilometres, at an average speed in excess of 178 km/h! While that may sound like something you could just step in and do, figure in the facts. There were more than 150 corners, 300 metres of elevation changes and cornering forces of up to 2g to contend with; all of which had to be taken care of in under seven minutes.
Check. The McLaren P1 achieved its one remaining performance target.
McLaren Formula 1 driver and 2009 world champion Jenson Button said: “The fact that the McLaren P1 has posted a sub-seven-minute lap at the Nürburgring is unbelievably impressive.
I’ve been an F1 driver for 14 years, and I’ve driven more than 240 Grands Prix and, although I’ve never raced an F1 car on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit, because the last time the German Grand Prix was held there was before I was born, I know exactly how challenging, and daunting, a racetrack it is.
Over the past dozen-or-so years I’ve owned a lot of ultra-high-performance road cars. I’ve driven the McLaren P1 on a number of occasions – including up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it was sensational – and I think it’s a truly superb machine: unbelievably refined yet unbelievably quick.
But, as I say, for it to have recorded a sub-seven minute lap time around the Nürburgring is the icing on the cake: proof positive, backed by hard data, on the greatest racetrack of them all, that McLaren has created a genuine game-changer.”
Story: Jim Gorde
