McLaren has unveiled its latest racetrack weapon, the Senna GTR, which takes the recently unveiled—and already sold out—Senna hypercar to what could be its ultimate extreme. It follows in the footsteps of previous McLaren racers like the Le Mans–winning F1 GTR and the more recent P1 GTR.
The Senna GTR is limited to just 75 customers, each of which will have to shell out $1.4 million for the privilege of owning one. For the extra few hundred thousand dollars over the “regular” Senna, owners will get more power and torque, more grip and downforce, and a car that, McLaren promises, will offer the brand’s fastest lap times outside Formula 1.
This technically being a concept car, there aren’t a ton of details yet—McLaren promises a full download later this year—but we do know the GTR will weigh about the same as the roadgoing Senna while getting at least 814 horsepower from its twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8, an increase of about 25 horses. The GTR will also have a racing gearbox, a track-oriented suspension tune, and Pirelli slicks as standard.
The body maintains the Monocage III central structure but is modified from that of the somewhat aesthetically challenged regular Senna—call it function over form—with a wider track, fatter front and rear fenders, and all manner of aerodynamic addenda, including extreme front-splitter and rear-diffuser elements that bring to mind preassembly flat-pack furniture or maybe bosozoku-style body mods. At the rear, a combination of Gurney flaps and louvers direct air away from the deck, creating a low-pressure area that draws hot air out of the engine bay. The new bodywork results in up to 2200 pounds of maximum downforce; the speed at which that’s produced is unspecified, but the street car makes 1764 pounds at 155 mph. The GTR also does without the regular Senna’s door-located glass panels in favor of lighter carbon-fiber pieces, and it rolls on a set of new center-lock racing wheels.
It makes little sense to offer what is essentially a customer race car—even for a spec, factory-owned series—if you don’t also plan a factory program, and we suspect McLaren will itself field a few Senna GTRs in competition, perhaps even at Le Mans, a location where the marque has had historical success. Production of the car will commence in 2019, and when all 75 Senna GTRs are built, some 575 total examples of the model will be on global roads and racetracks, more than five times the number of F1s McLaren built in the 1990s. But with the normal car sold out and the GTR sure to do so soon—orders are being taken at the Geneva auto show as we type—there’s little doubt that this latest McLaren special will be as much a blue-chip investment as it is a potent track weapon.
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