The McLaren P1 Might Eat GT3 Race Cars For Lunch

We've heard for a while that the McLaren P1 is going to be rocket fast. If new rumors are to be believed, it could be even faster than we originally thought. We're talking way faster than a GT3 racer fast.

The very active McLaren Life forums are buzzing about the P1, just as you'd expect they would. One member of the forums recently saw a finished car and says that it's glorious. But then he drops this interesting tidbit:

One thing that was telling, it's 6 seconds faster than a GT3 12c round the Catalunya racetrack.

That means the P1 can lap the Catalunya grand prix circuit in 1:45. The Catalunya track is 2.9 miles long. Cutting six seconds off an already staggeringly quick time over the course of three miles is ridiculous.

This isn't the first time we've heard a claim like this around the P1. We were also told that it was 24 seconds faster around the Silverstone Circuit than any other production car ever. A six second speed differential sounds less outlandish, but still a bit crazy.

We'll find out for real when the P1 hits Geneva in a few weeks.

McLaren P1 claims mantle of world’s ultimate supercar — for now

By Justin Hyde | Motoramic – 6 hours ago

Writing about supercars can be like doing a radio show about cooking; words only go so far to describe the experience and appeal of the real thing. So when McLaren starts promoting its P1 supercar as a world-beating successor to the McLaren F1, those of us who follow the industry have few ways of validating McLaren's boasts. Today, McLaren gave out the recipe for the P1, and if the numbers are true, it's one for the ages.

By the tale of the tape, McLaren says the 903-hp P1 will hit 62 mph in well under 3 seconds, 124 mph in 7 seconds and 186 mph in 17 seconds — a full five seconds faster than the F1. The top speed will be limited to 217 mph, until some brave soul attempts to turn the electronic monitors off, and the car will be track-ready from purchase thanks to its own unique formula of Pirelli tire.

With the photos released today, McLaren says it decided to make only minor changes to the car revealed in Paris last year; it also decided to limit production to 375 copies, with a price tag of about $1.3 million each — making the P1 rarer than the Ferrari Enzo. If McLaren holds to that limit — and supercar builders in the past have been known to push out extra copies beyond a projected cap — the P1 would likely become an instant collectible. Which is a shame, because nothing that goes this fast should ever be parked for too long.

McLaren P1 will smash Nurburgring & Top Gear lap records

March 7, 2013 By Cars UK

Ron Dennis has said that the new McLaren P1 will smash lap records at the Nurburgring and at the Top Gear track at Dunsfold.

Perhaps, just perhaps, LaFerrari has taken the crown as the star car at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show from the McLaren P1.

But that’s as much about the run-up to Geneva as the Motor Show itself as Ferrari had managed to keep LaFerrari under warps until just a few hours before it debuted. So interest and excitement were high and LaFerrari did little to disappoint.

But the McLaren had a different path to its public reveal at Geneva in production guise, with a virtually identical P1 bowing in at Paris last year and a constant drip of information and photos – and a P1 reveal before Geneva – taking the gloss of the P1′s debut in Switzerland.

But McLaren are fighting back with big claims for the P1′s performance – which seems the match of LaFerrari – and Ron Dennis has said that not only will the McLaren P1 get round the Nurburgring in ‘under 7 minutes’ (the only cars to have done that are both Radicals) but that it will blitz the Top Gear lap record at Dunsfold.

Ron has revealed that he drove the P1 round Dunsfold and put in a time 10 seconds better than the current Top Gear lap record.

We assume he’s referring to the contentious lap record set on the Top Gear track by the Pagani Huayra a week or two ago – which would mean the P1 went round Dunsfold in around 1:03 – but even if he’s talking about the previous record by the Ariel that still means Ron Dennis drove the McLaren P1 round the Top Gear test track in 1:05s.

Ron Dennis made his claims for the P1 at the launch of the P1 in Geneva, which you can watch below. What we now need to know is how quickly will the Stig be able to get the McLaren P1 round the Top Gear Track.

And on which tyres?

Read more: http://www.carsuk.net/mclaren-p1-wil...#ixzz2MvpAWckE