This time again we are gonna discuss the British supercar manufacturer, McLaren, and the car in the discussion today is one of McLaren's ultimate series car. It's a Hypercar that's made to obliterate the fastest cars around the world on a track. Its the Track hypercar, the McLaren Senna, named after one of the greatest legends the world of F1 has ever witnessed Sir Aryton Senna. One thing is for sure that this car has got a very big name to live up to. McLaren has put all of the F1 track knowledge they have and pumped it all into one serious track machine. Keeping up with McLaren's iconic 4.0 Litre twin-turbo V8 Layout that puts out close to 800 horsepower and 800 nm of torque, now that's what a 1:1 horsepower to torque ratio is, pretty impressive in my honest opinion. That huge wing in the back at 155mph or 250kmph generates more downforce than the weight of 8 baby elephants. Just one question, HOW DID YOU ALL THIS MCLAREN???? Even with such a huge horsepower number and rear-wheel-drive layout, the 0 to 60mph time of the McLaren Senna is the same as the Current Nurburgring lap record holder, the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ and to remind you all, the SVJ has an All wheel drive setup. Just 2.9 seconds to 60mph. The impressive part is yet to come, the 0 to 200kmph timing of the Mclaren Senna is 6.8 seconds, that's just 0.3 seconds slower than the God of the Hypercars, the Bugatti Chiron. Now even with such a high downforce generating Wing at the back, the Senna is still able to achieve an impressive top speed of 335kmph. To experience all the power it takes some time, as the car shines its full potential in the top end. Full 800nm of torque is achieved at 5,500 rpm and for the full power to kick in, the engine needs to rev up to 7,250rpm. The sound this car makes is what's the real beauty of the V8 engine, the top twin exhaust mount is located for a specific reason that McLaren hasn't disclosed yet, but it's similar to the design philosophy of the exhaust placement on the McLaren 600LT. Now, coming to the design, if the McLaren P1 wasn't enough spaceship lookalike you should take a look at the Senna, it's nothing like any road car out there. It's obvious that every moving car needs to stop, but the Senna isn't a normal car to stop, it's a high downforce generating monster of a car that's just somehow road legal. Multi-caliper brake system has been equipped all around the car and the brakes high temperature withstanding carbon ceramics. Since the goal behind making the Senna was to make the ultimate track car money could buy, it needed to be light, very light and thus McLaren went super-crazy with weight-saving. The seats don't have a continuous flow of leather, instead, they have particular areas where the parts of the seat cushion are embedded, the doors are as hollow as they can get, and thus to save weight the doors have been fitted with glass panels instead of actual door panels. Extensive use of carbon fiber can be seen across the whole car. One thing that I would do like to point out in the Senna that I didn't quite like is the grip from the front tires, they are just to slim for such a powerful car, that's the reason why the car often tends to understeer during hard cornering.
Talking about the aerodynamics, there are huge air intakes in the front of the car, the air splitter has been designed such that it directs a large proportion of the air towards the brakes, to keep them cool.
The air intakes in the Eye Socket like headlights direct the air around the car and increase its aerodynamic efficiency, the side skirts help in preventing the car from lifting off!!! active aerodynamics helps to change the downforce levels at various speeds.
The design of the Senna is very polarizing, the hate towards this car is crazy, people around the internet criticize it by saying it ugly and whatnot.
You won't find the Senna beautiful even if you are not a car person. and even if you are, you have to spend some time with this beauty, cause only then will you understand, what the McLaren Senna really is, and how well it defines the purpose for what it was made for, it's an engineering marvel undoubtedly and is surely one of the greatest track cars of the 21st century.
That's it for this time guys
Thank you
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Photo bySpencer DavisonUnsplash