Guys, it seems like this week, it's going to be all about McLaren. This time we are going to discuss McLaren's first Hypercar, yes you all guessed it right, it's the McLaren P1, the car that started was the stepping stone for McLaren in the world for Hypercars. The Car that coined the term "Spaceship" the moment it was launched. McLaren's Halo car, which was a depiction of McLaren Automotive was capable of, the car that was intended to be the true successor to the legendary McLaren F1. It was one of the very few cars able of reaching 60Mph in under 3 seconds at that time. It has the technology that's even unheard of, in the automotive world. It's one of the elite members of the Holy trinity of Hybrid Hypercars, along with the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder. It won't be wrong to say that McLaren has mastered the Ultimate engine configuration for their cars, the Twin-turbo V8 layout is defeating almost all of the supercars in the world and giving them a run for their money. Although the sound of a naturally aspirated engine is any day better than an engine with forced induction, I have to admit that these forced induction engines don't sound that bad, they are quite good. The exhaust placement at the center of the car, adds a certain amount of beastly character to the Car. The output from this engine is truly monstrous, at 727 hp and 720nm torque alone from the engine, this is one of the most powerful engines McLaren has ever built and the engine capacity isn't that big too, it's relatively small at 3.8 liters, Add in the electric motors which are very impressive at just 4.7Kwh and still add an extra 177 Hp, 260 Nm of torque, the combined engine output stands at 903 Hp and 980 Nm of torque. Launching the car from is true bliss since the engine is rear mid-mounted, getting traction at the rear wheels isn't a problem for this monster, no wheelspin whatsoever and the Rear-wheel drive setup makes the car more fun to drive and a bit dangerous too as all of that horsepower has to be handled by those two rear tires. Carbon fiber has been one of the chief elements while building this car, to make it as light as possible, and to be comfortable at the same time, clever engineering has gone into the making of this car. The car has a top speed of 217 Mph which is not exactly "slow" in the modern world, it does it with the Aid of an F1 derived technology called Drag reduction system or DRS for short, what it does is that as the car approaches its top speed the rear wing retracts itself down completely for maximum aerodynamic efficiency, one of the other reasons of this kind of top speed is the drag coefficient of the car which is very low at just 0.34. The intriguing stuff about hybrid hypercars is to drive them in EV mode, according to the company stats the McLaren P1 can travel a short distance of about 11 km or 6.8 miles in pure EV mode. The estimated total range of the P1 is 330 miles and at 1,547kg it isn't exactly light but the power and torque makes up for the extra weight. The short wheelbase of the car at 105 inches is the reason why it's so agile around the corners, which is why out of the Holy Trinity of Hypercars the McLaren P1 is the fastest car around the Track, it lapped the Silverstone circuit in just 58.24 seconds, few milliseconds faster than the LaFerrari and the 918, thus becoming the ideal choice of track hypercar among the three. The 7-speed dual-clutch transmission allows the drive to perform quick upshifts and downshifts. The rear wing in the car generates 600kg of downforce at 260kmph. The McLaren is not just quick on the track, it's quick everywhere, the company claims that it will do a standing quarter-mile in just 9.8 seconds, however in the real-world test it did it in 10.2 seconds, still very fast. The carbon-ceramic rotors are insanely capable, they stop the car in just 6.2 seconds from 300kmph to 0, that should be enough to give you all an idea of its capability.
This car is more exclusive than a Bugatti Chiron. only 375 P1's were ever made, and it's truly an engineering marvel, it gives us all an idea of how far McLaren has come from building its first road car in the 1990s to building a hypercar 2 decades later,
That's it for this time Guys
Thank you
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Photo byEdgar ChaparroonUnsplash