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FOCUSED FIRE - McLaren P1
One can imagine that when the engineers at McLaren set about creating a replacement for the F1, they knew it wasn't going to be easy to surpass, both in outrageousness and in performance, McLaren's first foray in the world of road-going supercars. As a matter of fact, the F1 is by many believed to be a significant turning point in the history of high-performance automobiles: the first of the hypercars, masterpieces of automotive design that can rival a jet fighter in sophistication, performance, and prize. And yet, somehow, they managed to raise the bar a little bit higher.
In many regards, the F1 an the P1 are very different cars; in many others, they follow the same rationale and ethos. Allow me to explain: both are designed to go fast, mind-numbingly fast. In both cars design, form follows function, and you can be sure every detail - even the most insignificant one, has been obsessed over by the engineering wizards at McLaren.
But where the F1 looked flamboyant and extravagant, the P1 brims with intent and purposefulness. The F1 was about sending a message; the P1 is simply about crushing the now-present and very fierce competition into a pulp with superior handling. What is unnecessary is simply not there: the naked carbon fiber sides, for example, are left unpainted to save the weight of the paint.
And then there's the big difference in what pushes the car forward - in the F1 it was a somewhat-ordinary BMW V12 naturally-aspired engine. But here, it's a twin-turbocharged engine that once powered Nissan's Group C Le Mans cars, coupled with an hybrid system. This makes the P1 the first road-going McLaren hybrid, and part of a very exclusive club of dual-engined performance cars that is destined to grow as batteries become cheaper and lighter and engines become more efficient.
And as you approach a tight corner at speeds that are dangerously near the magic 300kph barrier, the brakes and active aero doing their job at slowing the car down and the huge Pirelli tires keeping it steady, the engine snarling and the single exhaust spitting flames, it is hard to argue that the P1 is not an excellent car, really. From a purely technical standpoint, it's perfect. Maybe too much.
I can't help but feel the P1 is lacking in the flair and flamboyance its predecessor had in spades, and that was sacrificed on the altar of performance. The P1 is a game-changer... Yet it doesn't feel like one. The innovation is there, but it works in the background to chew away seconds in a laptime rather than to make the ride more involving, more adrenalinic. It always feels like you're going very fast, but through the senses of someone else.
And that makes the controversial choice made by McLaren to keep the P1's Nurburgring laptime under wraps all the more puzzling. Perhaps they understood, too - but it is too late to regain the innocence lost.
This is not to say the P1 isn't a marvelous machine - far from it.
But it makes you think: has McLaren perhaps realized something I can't wrap my head around? Hypercars are no more a dreamer's folly, but a rational product designed with one and one only goal in mind: to go faster than the competition. And I can't help but feel that in the transition from the purpose of awe to the purpose of speed, something that made cars such as the F1 turn heads around was lost.
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May be time for series on those two.
But in all seriousness, it's not about how the car performs or handles or feels. It's about its drive and purpose. The F1 was dressed to impress, while the P1 has put on its serious business suit and talks about laptimes and efficiency and things I'd care were I trying to estabilish the fastest company car fleet in the world, but not when I'm talking about a car I can only own in my dreams (hence the term "dream car", I suppose). Under that regard, the P1 is quite the opposite of the Pagani Huayra, which in my opinion represents better than any other car currently in production the very idea of outrageousness.
