P1 [Official] McLaren P1 Supercar

[Mark ANTAR]

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[Mark ANTAR]

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[martinbo]

From the hallowed bitumen of the Nurburgring - undisclosed laptime not withstanding - all the way back down to the Top Gear airfield. That's anti-climax with a capital Meh.

 

[Mr Robert]

I don't understand the reasoning behind the marketing of this car. I honestly can't get my head around it...

 

[Cashmere]

Didn't Mclaren do the same with the MP4 12C? There was continuous fluff from Mclaren saying that it would outperform the 458 Italia but then all the reviews came out stated otherwise.

In any case, despite all that, the MP4 seems to be selling very well and I would hardly call it a failure.

 

[Mark ANTAR]

Didn't Mclaren do the same with the MP4 12C? There was continuous fluff from Mclaren saying that it would outperform the 458 Italia but then all the reviews came out stated otherwise.

In any case, despite all that, the MP4 seems to be selling very well and I would hardly call it a failure.

Well, you might want to rephrase that bit, because it does outperform the 458 in every way.

 

[Mafalda]

Well, you might want to rephrase that bit, because it does outperform the 458 in every way.

wrong: Mp4 is surely fastest in straight, but in direct comparos 458 usually wins on track and overall too...

 

[Mark ANTAR]

wrong: Mp4 is surely fastest in straight, but in direct comparos 458 usually wins on track and overall too...

I don't want to derail this thread any more, but you are completely incorrect.

12C VS 458

Sachsenring - 1:33.61 VS 1:34.30

Ring Knutstrop (Conf 2) - 1:08.00 VS 1:10.00

Top Gear Track - 1:16.20 VS 1:19.10

Nordschleife - 7:28.00 VS 7:38.00

Hockenheim Short - 1:08.70 VS 1:09.70

Vairano Handling Course - 1:14.81 VS 1:15.14

Laguna Seca - 1:34.50 VS 1:36.22

Balocco - 2:43.46 VS 2:43.90

Bedford Autodrome West Circuit - 1:19.60 VS 1:19.30

Autocar Dry Handling Track - 1:08.60 VS 1:08.90

Anglesey National - 0:59.30 VS 0:59.20

Spring Mountain (Radical loop section) - 1:19.23 VS 1:17.99

Mireval - 1:30.58 VS 1:31.60

Rockingham International Super Sportscar - 1:29.24 VS 1:28.30

12C Spider VS 458 Italia Spider

Vairano Handling Course - 1:12.92 VS 1:15.15

Sachsenring - 1:33.69 VS 1:35.72

 

[Mafalda]

I've just said "direct comparos"
strangly, in single test MP4 is 3s faster than 458, but in direct comparos Mp4 return to the Earth...
Also in overall verdict: usually 458 wins, and the british mags write "458 is the best in class" too (autocar, TG...)

 

[Mark ANTAR]

I've just said "direct comparos"
strangly, in single test MP4 is 3s faster than 458, but in direct comparos Mp4 return to the Earth...
Also in overall verdict: usually 458 wins, and the british mags write "458 is the best in class" too (autocar, TG...)

Yeah, it's McLaren that provides the media with tweaked cars, not Ferrari.

We are comparing both cars in terms of performance. The 458 is more desirable to most people, but it's not necessarily the better car.

 

[martinbo]

Ok - that's enough of 12C vs 458 Italia in this thread. Please use the Internal Combustion section for this.

 

[Mark ANTAR]

Another great review! : )

Tom Ford 15 November 2013

Typical. I get to drive a McLaren P1 and the rain is biblical. It's also just been Belgium's first heavy frost of the year, and so the pounding rain is bouncing off a slithery-looking tarmac that couldn't be any less inviting for an £866,000, 903bhp hypercar than if you'd oiled up some ice and lined the road with puppies.

The caution is definitely a good thing though. As I will find out later. Meanwhile, gingerly tip-toeing away from the Spa Francorchamps circuit at 5am in the P1 proves distressingly easy. In fact, not even waking the other guests in our hotel by the simple expedient of creeping out in EV mode, the only noise the crunch of tyres on frosty ground and a faint sci-fi whine.

I can see out of it to reverse it from the garage thanks to useable rear-view mirrors, and the view ahead is wide-screen and useful. It feels small. And unthreatening. And easy. Wasn't expecting that. The twin-turbo V8 derived from the 12C grumbles into life after a bit, and we head toward the UK. Which is when it all gets a bit scary.

Pulling onto the motorway, the P1 decides to give me a little warning shimmy as the turbos come on boost at about 4,000rpm in third gear. Sounds high, but you're already being generously towed along by the electric motor before that, the lag hole neatly filled by a KERS-like pickup. We can deal with a wiggle, though. It's still wet and cold, and the tyres are new and freezing.

A few miles later and it's still wet, but I gently roll onto the throttle in fifth. The P1 eases forwards like it's greased, smooth and insistent. And then it hits boost, and spins the wheels. A lot. There is much swearing, with little punctuation.

Lesson one. You do not take the McLaren P1 for granted. And the most effective traction control is apparently your right foot and sense of fear. After that, I basically drive it back some 350 miles to the UK like a diesel estate, and try to figure out whether the P1 any good at just being a car.

It is. It feels a bit like a beautifully made Lotus, light and agile and clear. The tech all works: press the EV-mode button and the motor dies and you can drive around on just electric (we managed 7 miles on the motorway at 130kph in Europe, and more in town).

Press the ‘charge' button and the car uses the motor to drive the e-motor and replenish the batteries, like a range extender. So you get modest performance, but a full electric charge when you hit traffic. All you do is completely lift off the throttle, press the appropriate button, and resume.

On the inside it's a little boomy, but the cabin of our test car has no carpet (it's a no-cost option) and is made of carbon, so you expect a bit of hiss. I even swapped the driving with Ed-in-Chief Turner on a regular basis and nodded off in the passenger seat quite happily.

The P1 makes all this complicated, integrated tech extremely simple to use. Which is a triumph in itself. But it's all very well making a hypercar that your mother could drive to the shops, so once we get back to the UK, we close a local airport and preder up some sun. As you do.

Driving the P1 on the road is an exercise in restraint. If we're honest, you can't really push the thing and remain safe, let alone legal, because it produces the kind of acceleration and cornering G to surpass a sports bike. The rest of the world just isn't geared up to cope.

But even on an airfield, I was shocked. Set the car into ‘Race mode' - a process that takes about 30 seconds, static - and the wing rises, the suspension dropping 50mm. Press ‘Boost Mode' and left foot brake. Flatten the throttle and wait for the boost to build, then just let go of the brake and hold on to your spleen.

No wheelspin. Just... goodbye. And 195mph with room to spare, the brakes slamming the 1395kg car to a stop again and again without a tremble. Robbie, the chap who holds the video camera, let out a series of squeaks no adult male should reasonably be able to produce while not under torture.

Repeat 12 times, just to see if it was a fluke. It wasn't. And I have never felt - really felt - downforce like this in a roadcar. Case in point: the airfield we ran on had a large bump on the runway. Hit it at 90mph at throttle and the car would spin its wheels, hard. Hit the same bump at 150, and the P1 simply suckered over it. You felt the bump, but rode it hard, rather than lifting over it, like a giant hand pressing the car into the floor.

All the time, the P1 is feeding information at you, hands, wheel, bottom, ears, eyes. It's flat, no body roll, but - weird word to use, this, but appropriate - sensual. It feeds like nothing else. Talks, chatters, garrulous in the connection. You have to re-calibrate, and learn.

And that's before you even get to play with the DRS button on the wheel that flattens off the rear wing, or the IPAS button on the other side, that scavenges the electric motor to give you full engine and e-power in one hit as long as you're over 80 per cent throttle. It's like a 150bhp shot of nitrous. In a car that's already travelling like an angry missile.

The truth? The P1 is a very easy car to drive, but a very hard car to drive to the limit. You have to learn it, figure it out. It is not point and pray, more delicate than that. And that's genuinely exciting. It's not the fastest car I've ever driven, but it is the most potent in terms of experience. It's got all the power, and crucially, all of the poise to exploit it.

The P1 is a great car to pootle and show off in, but it has an edge that scared the bejeezus out of me a couple of times. I came away fascinated, exhilarated, and wanting another go, as well as just a little bit glad I handed it back in one piece.

I bloody loved it. The ‘best driver's car on road and track' as McLaren boldly states? Right now, there isn't a car to surpass it. P1 indeed.

Source: http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/World-exclusive-first-drive-McLaren-P1-2013-11-15

 

[Mark ANTAR]

Some photos.

 

[Bridster]

P1's battery DOES NOT run out of juice on the 'Ring. It actually recharges and discharges twice in a full hot lap on the Nurburgring.

I wonder what exactly you mean by that. Are you saying that one full charge worth of battery power is harvested back while two full charges are depleted by moving, all in one lap, and the car arrives at the finish just as the power runs out?

If so, how do you explain that the Porsche, which also uses "engine breaking", but then in addition to that regenerative breaking from actually breaking the whole car - which I assume must be a superior way of generating an electric charge -, runs out of it just before the final straight?

 

[Mark ANTAR]

I wonder what exactly you mean by that. Are you saying that one full charge worth of battery power is harvested back while two full charges are depleted by moving, all in one lap, and the car arrives at the finish just as the power runs out?

If so, how do you explain that the Porsche, which also uses "engine breaking", but then in addition to that regenerative breaking from actually breaking the whole car - which I assume must be a superior way of generating an electric charge -, runs out of it just before the final straight?

It's still not very clear how the system works, but here's a somewhat clear explanation of the system from 'ftyl', a McLarenLife member and a future P1 owner who was at Dunsfold to test drive the car. : )

Two VERY important things regarding the Hybrid drive that I have learned this trip:

The P1 can regen in all kinds of situations, even in full throttle scenarios. I will not go into details, since I tried explaining things here many times and most people ignore it anyway or do not understand it fully. I had a good long chat with one of the main hybrid tech guys (Andy was present) and what he explained made perfect sense. (And made even more sense after talking a little with Chris about it too.)

Trust me and accept when I tell you, it all makes sense. The Hybrid regen system they have developed is staggeringly good. It regens battery power all the time, it does so very quickly. It uses up to the full 130kw of the e-motor to do so depending on scenario, it also sometimes uses very little... Whatever it can do, it will regen without losing ANY power required on the wheels.

When you watch the battery charge meter jump up and down constantly when tracking the car or just driving it, you realize how good it is at it! Also, important to realize, we drove the cars constantly for a good hour or more, fast, slow, lighting, everything you can think of. And the power never ran out in any shape or form!

One comment that I think shows this even better was that Chris said, in the last years driving all of the P1 XPs and PPs, not a single time did they HAVE to actively charge one. Not a single team did the batter deplete or the car lose some of its power.

Also, regarding the whole "what about the second lap of nordschleife" questions everyone keeps asking... McLaren's goal for the Hybrid system's regen capability is based on the Ring. Their goal is, that when doing one lap of the Ring, the car has to have enough battery power to do the final very long straight from start to finish without running out of batter power for it. Once it passes that straight, then next turns and not full throttle parts are enough to recharge it again so that once it gets back to the long straight, it again has enough power. The car will run out of fuel before battery power, and when it gets empty, put it into E-Mode, drive to the petrol station and fill it up....

You can find some owners' reviews who test drove the car two days ago here.

 

[Bridster]

...but here's a somewhat clear explanation of the system from 'ftyl', a McLarenLife member and a future P1 owner who was at Dunsfold to test drive the car. : )

Unfortunately, that doesn't really explain much. Yes, Mclaren is using the extra power that the engine can't use, either because there wouldn't be enough grip or because the car is slowing down at the moment, to power the electric motor - what some call engine breaking although it really has nothing to do with what you normally call that. But as far as we know Porsche is doing the same thing too, and, in fact, it appears that their hybrid systems work exactly the same way in the rear (that is, an electric motor connected by a clutch to a combustion engine and both sending their combined power through a gearbox to the rear wheels), except that then the Porsche has an extra electric motor in the front with its own small gearbox that is not connected to the main gearbox or the other two motors (and which is why it decouples at 235 km/h), and a regenerative breaking system (which I am not sure works by breaking the front wheels only, or all wheels).

Now, we also now that the Mclaren has a battery capacity of 4.7 kWh and its electric motor produces 176 hp, giving it an endurance ratio of 0.0267 magic endurance units . And that is higher than Porsche's 0.0243 (6.8 kWh/279 hp). But only about 10% higher. Other things to consider: 1. Porsche's rear electric motor is slightly less powerful than Mclaren's (154 hp vs 176 hp) and therefore can generate less electricity with "engine breaking". 2. The Mclaren will use the engine breaking more often since it's only RWD and the rear tires will find themselves at the limit of the grip more often than in the Porsche which puts part of its power down through the front wheels as well. 3. As mentioned, past 235 km/h the Porsche's battery is drained only by its rear electric engine.

All in all though, even as we don't know yet exactly how much electricity the regenerative breaking in the Porsche produces compared to the "engine breaking" mechanic (but, considering it utilizes the kinetic energy of the whole car I think it's a safe bet to say it's at least as good), it's hard for me to imagine how the Mclaren could have anywhere near the same power recovery ability as the Porsche. So the only way I can see it complete a Nordschleife lap and still have some charge left is by hardly ever using its full power at all. Which is sort of collaborated by Mclaren at times saying the electric engine will only give it its all if you press the IPAS button.

 

[klier]

I don't understand the reasoning behind the marketing of this car. I honestly can't get my head around it...

Marketing? For the P1? I don't think there is much or any. 1.000.000 euro cars sell themselves.

 

[Monster]

Marketing? For the P1? I don't think there is much or any. 1.000.000 euro cars sell themselves.

Probbably the marketing for the Mclaren brand.

 

[Mark ANTAR]

A great video from McLaren Birmingham. There's a pretty epic footage of the P1 on the 'Ring at 2:53. Enjoy!

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[Soup]

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