Watch McLaren's $1.15 Million Supercar Scorch One Of The World's Toughest Tracks
Here's something that's helping the British automaker convince everyone that the P1 is as good or better than the F1: a sub-seven minute time on the famed Nurburgring-Nordschleife, the world's toughest and scariest racetrack.
That puts the $1.15 million P1 in rarefied company. Only three production cars have done the same: the Radical SR8, Radical SR8LM, and Porsche 918 Spyder.
McLaren won't give an exact lap time. But it does say that the P1 averaged over 111 mph on the 13-mile circuit. That sounds reasonable for a supercar that can hit 217 mph - until you look at the course itself. It includes 154 corners and 300 meters of elevation changes. Here's a map:
The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is the world's fastest production car, but the P1 is made for handling corners, not just straightaways. That's what gives it the edge on tracks like the Nordschleife.
McLaren produced a video of show off the feat. Skip the overly dramatic and long introduction and jump to the 1:15 mark to see the P1 do its thing:
[An earlier version of this story was written by Alex Davies.]