CAlexio

I will take time later to do an in-depth write up of the mclaren Senna, but in the meantime, sell your kids, house, assets. It redefines what is possible for a "road car".. let's just say that in back to back mountain runs with a P1 today, I could take turns almost 20mph faster with the Senna. it's ballistic. needs wider front rubber though.

laranja

Great stuff.
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I notice you didn't say "wife" amongst the things to sell CAlexio. Does she read RL now?

CAlexio

Haha! Good eye.

CAlexio

I had the opportunity to drive a mclaren p1 vs the mclaren senna in Mexico recently. Im not a "youtuber" so i have no equipment and we hadn't planned on filming this. This was just the opportunity of having a fantastic car available with best in the world performance (mclaren P1).. and then having something completely alien and incredible from the same car company next to it (mclaren Senna). The opportunity presented itself thanks to an incredibly generous and trusting owner, so off we went, no prep, just two dream machines. The result is a simple edit of crappy footage with iphones. i'm sharing this "privately" in this thread, god I hope I don't come to regret it, Mexican police has a long reach, and the pedantics on this forum have a way of making themselves known. It's an unlisted video which I made for my own memories/interests, for obvious reasons.

Regarding the car itself... it's hard for me to really put it into words. The senna feels like completely another level from any super/hyper/mega car i've driven (i've never driven a Bugatti or a Koenigsegg for full disclosure). I haven't gone on track with it yet, so i don't think the downforce is what I felt as much as the sheer lightweight of the thing. The takeaway message, is that there is so little weight transfer, that you get a very pure signal from the front tires as to how much grip there is... very much the same feeling as in a go-kart. the wheel is semi-hydraulic, so much better than the current electrical setups... it moves in your hands. it tells you exactly what year the pebble you just ran over was made. it feels like an open wheel racer.. razor sharp, and super-communicative. the P1 has great steering feel, but it's comparatively heavy and silent in it's communication. Comparatively.. the p1 is still better steering feel than any hypercar i've tried. (and better than any porsche including 918 and my gt3)

You need to completely recalibrate your senses to the Senna's performance.. what was a 70mph turn in the P1.. is easily, easily, a 90+ mph turn in the Senna. Where the P1 yo-yo's to keep up with the Senna, using it's crazy power to catch up, it then needs to slow down to let the suspension take a proper set. In the Senna.. i never felt like i needed to brake, ever. clearly, i wasn't going fast enough.. but the car below 100mph simply didn't care if there was a corner.. The P1 lets you know that you're driving something heavy.. no matter how great the active suspension is, you still need to let it set at speed. The Senna, below 100mph (which was my self-imposed upper limit out of respect for the owner) is talkative.. but it could hardly care what you're doing. this was the best part.. the feeling that the car was immensely fun to drive, even at "sane" speeds.. not many cars are like this.. fast cars are almost never like this. The GT3 IS like this.. happy and fun at low speeds.. but i don't want to create false equivalency here, lets not kid ourselves, . This car's steering feel, chassis, brakes, handling.. it's completely a different world from a GT3, or really, anything I've ever had the fortune to drive. In some ways it reminded me of the SCG003S.. set up to run at incredible speeds, real downforce feeling and responsiveness even at low speeds.

Downhill, off-camber, tight sweeper.. P1 needs care. The Senna just feels like it's engaged with a track underneath the cement.. there is a sense of compression, of connection.. you feel like it's not even trying yet. hard to convey to be honest.

my only critique, is that it needs more front tire patch, wider front tires maybe. i think it's set up from stock as a "safe" car for most drivers. you get little moments of tire slip, tiny ones.. it feels like this was maybe done on purpose.. the chassis can take so so much more. also, the seats are very wide in the shoulders.. i was moving all over the place. I have to imagine that on track it would be worse. that's all i got in that sector.

otherwise, i have to imagine that this is as much a move forward in performance as the F40 was in 1987, or the Mclaren F1 was in 1993.. nothing comes close to this car that i've ever tried. It's also not just fast, it offers real driving pleasure, really nice feedback through the wheel. Brakes require strong pressure like a race car, but then they haul the car down from speed so hard that you think you're on slicks or there is a cable hooked into the rear bumper. I've never felt braking like this, never. This is absolutely next-next level stuff.

If you don't have the money, find a friend who has and have him buy one. If you can pay over sticker for it, call Alessandro Ribola at Mclaren SF and get an allocation, pay him whatever he asks. . If you have a "collection".. free up funds, sell anything modern you have, and buy this.

I feel sure that this car will go down in history as a game-changing machine.. The game has moved on. it's now about lightweight, not just power. everyone has "done" power.. Mclaren is showing us that true driving enjoyment comes from the hard work of removing mass. i'm eternally grateful to the owner for letting me experience something so so special.

I'm sure someone will make a better video, but this 8 minutes will be my memory to treasure. I make no promises, it's just some footage.

Mexico has beautiful roads by the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CuYRrXCRYI&feature=youtu.be

sampelligrino

^ very cool video and write up, really enjoyed watching the video for just a small POV taste of what it might be like to drive that machine (closest I'll ever get I'm sure)....seems like the Senna name is very befitting for the car which I'm glad to see.

What are the odds of seeing a PTS .2 GT3 in Mexico on the same roads?! :

BK77

very impressive!!

vtgt

NBoost

CAlexio, many congratulations as the Euros say, and thank you for the Mexican video. This will have to hold me over until CJ and the other RL gentlemen who have Sennas in route have their cars delivered and start making threads. Wow. I can't imagine dropping a P1 like a bad habit while being completely unfamiliar with the car. Absolutely bonkers.

NBoost

https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-car...ve-track-test/

Further reading^ on the subject written by a current Indy driver after a Senna session at Silverstone.

CAlexio

CJ has already tested the Senna, he just wasnt silly like me to post a video of it.

honestly.. dropping the P1 with the Senna wasn't hard. The P1 is just a "normal" car with a lot of power, and a lot of weight.. and it feels just like that. You still have to be careful not to brake too much in turns, not to unsettle it, and at high speed on the road you have to be very aware of where the weight is shifting if you want to keep it on the road. The only area where it's better than the Senna, is during brief moments of dead-ahead full throttle acceleration.. Losing the P1 on a curvy road in the Senna was definitely not because of my mediocre driving ability... i think reading the article which NBoost posted below explains why quite well actually.

what a great article! a real driver on an actual track... this explains much better than i could how this "car" felt, how and why the Senna is so different. as much downforce as an IMSA car, and more power, not to mention adjustable aero. Makes sense how integrated all the systems in the car are, and why the senna feels so different than any other car... including a few dedicated track cars i'd tried. it's all in the movable aero which constantly adjusts the pitch and downforce at every moment. so unlike a race car which has an optimal aero profile only in certain situations, this car follows you and changes constantly in every part of each corner. fascinating, but i realize i hadn't even dipped my toe in it's potential.

this is the paragraph in the article i can relate to most: "
Eventually you reach a limit of basic adhesion to the road, but the gains in both performance and confidence were undeniable. The same gains became evident in low-speed corners as more-than-once I thought for sure I’d overestimated a braking point and was able to neatly carve down to the apex all the same. In both situations I could feel the car just begin to do what I would normally expect at precisely the moment I’d expect it, but was able to break through that perceived limit in a whole new way. It also struck me how seamlessly it did these things–the dynamic systems of the car were affording me more room to play without noticeably cutting in and impeding my driving experience unlike many of the traction and stability aids out in the world. The process I was going through in exploring what the car could really do blew my mind. It was capable in ways that modern racecars could only wish to be."

"There’s no misunderstanding the McLaren Senna. It is not a road car. It’s not for the Texas Mile or hauling *** from LA to Vegas; for Cars and Coffee or Instagram. It’s not an evolution of the P1 nor is it the big brother of the 720S. It is the beginning of something new, of something we’re seeing a fresh glimpse of in this particular car – of a breed of hyper-focused hypercar built for an excessive experience rather than just excessive performance, free of anyone’s rules and regulations."

ajag

sechsgang

Mclaren is definitely on a roll! Loved checking out the 600LT in person...and that Senna was damn cool!

hf1

So how much is this thing?

sechsgang

The Senna or 600lt?

NBoost

MSRP starts at 840 or so, lord knows what people are actually paying for them. Given the experience the car provides I would imagine there are guys out there that would pay nearly anything to get one.