superquant

Top Gear review of the 12C from yesterday. Sounds like McLaren has been tinkering with the car since the initial scathing reviews ..

Carrera GT

It's sad to see Jeremy Clarkson has had his leash pulled tight. The usual hyperbole and preposterous exaggerations followed by a conclusion of gentlemanly opprobrium with some silly metaphor (in this case, comparing women's underwear) to take the edge off.

Still, the car does drive itself astonishingly quickly around their abandoned airport even with the dead weight of a driver behind the wheel. That's interesting. And it goes over bumps really well. Gosh.

Well, McLaren can fix the wet suspension and tweak the throttle pedal map to make it feel quicker (ask any pro driver and they'll tell you they prefer a long pedal travel, not an artificially accentuated response) but it still won't have an LSD, so it comes back to driving state of the art electronics in the guise of a car. Great for winning an F1 race.

I don't expect the 4.0 RS to get down to 1:16 at their runway -- it doesn't carry the same horsepower, it doesn't have a robot making the gear shifts and it's a tad heavy still. Any further driving comparisons will be pretty much redundant, the new McLaren is nothing to do with the old McLaren -- the MP4-12C is conclusively "boring, but very fast" ... there's plenty of cars out there already that meet that definition.

Here's to the 4.0 RS for winning this comparison between Ferrari and McLaren!

Nordschleife

Honestly, the pile of guano posted above gives Porsche fans in general and seagull fans in particular a bad name.

You belittle the presenter, the location and the driver. Then you dismiss the car's ability to handle bumps.

Have you checked to see that you still have your full complements of eyes recently, perhaps one fell out over said bumps.

By the way, you are mistaken in thinking the latest Mclaren has little in common with the old Mclaren, in reality the old car was on the boring side and not an outstanding handling car. So the DNA is still there.

In all likelihood, PAG will have produced more development 997s than the video player's entire production.

R+C

Carrera GT

Your reading comprehension is as pitiful as your attempt at scathing rhetoric. **** off.

Terrence

Looks like a big Tesla, and I don't mean that in a good way!

Terrence

[QUOTE=Carrera GT;8703119]It's sad to see Jeremy Clarkson has had his leash pulled tight. The usual hyperbole and preposterous exaggerations followed by a conclusion of gentlemanly opprobrium with some silly metaphor (in this case, comparing women's underwear) to take the edge off.

Still, the car does drive itself astonishingly quickly around their abandoned airport even with the dead weight of a driver behind the wheel. That's interesting. And it goes over bumps really well. Gosh.

Well, McLaren can fix the wet suspension and tweak the throttle pedal map to make it feel quicker (ask any pro driver and they'll tell you they prefer a long pedal travel, not an artificially accentuated response) but it still won't have an LSD, so it comes back to driving state of the art electronics in the guise of a car. Great for winning an F1 race.

I don't expect the 4.0 RS to get down to 1:16 at their runway -- it doesn't carry the same horsepower, it doesn't have a robot making the gear shifts and it's a tad heavy still. Any further driving comparisons will be pretty much redundant, the new McLaren is nothing to do with the old McLaren -- the MP4-12C is conclusively

"boring, but very fast" ... there's plenty of cars out there already that meet that definition."

Yep. Like a Nissan GTR. I had one. Fits that description quite well. However, the GTR is a great bang for the buck. Not sure I can say that about the 12C, escpecially the ones who can afford that price tag, "great bang for the buck" is not typically what they are looking for.

NJ-GT

The lap time posted by the new Stig in the MP4-12C was sick fast.

1:16.2

compared to 1:19.8 for the Carrera GT, 1:19.0 for the Enzo, 1:19.7 for the Scudera, 1:19.1 for the F458 Italia, that's a sick fast lap.

McLaren will have to fix the bugs on the suspension as found by other testers. I had a hard time believing that the F458 Italia was faster, being that the Italia is a pig (3,500+ lbs) compared to the GT3 RS or the MP4-12C.

The McLaren with a 3.8 V8 TT should be running in the same level as the GT2 RS and Viper ACR, two of the fastest street cars out there.

On my end, I have no interest in the MP4-12C until they make it lighter, put a LSD, add a rear fixed wing, add a deeper front bumper with splitter, add adjustable sway bars and a conventional coil-over kit with manual or electronically adjustable shocks.

fbirch

SQ - Thanks for posting the video review. I’m not sure when this episode was shot, but as recently as the end of May, the Mac still had unresolved handling gremlins at the Nordschleife. It was visibly struggling in the hands of Maclaren’s test driver (rumored to be an F1 backup), particularly through the slower corners. The car appeared to be out of sorts, the tail wagging dramatically, tires howling loudly in protest, as the driver pushed it right to the edge of its limits. Despite all the drama, the pace through the corners appeared slow, especially the lower speed corners. Toward the end of Maclaren’s private session, they crashed the car and it was hauled off on a flatbed. My observations were admittedly without the benefit of a stopwatch, but it appeared that quite a number of cars immediately following in the public session were noticeably faster in those same slower corners.

So how does one account for this declaration of “mathematical” superiority to the 458 in the TG test? It could be that Maclaren has sorted out the handling problems in the last 1.5 months, assuming this TG episode was shot during that time. It could be that this car favors the long, high-speed sweepers of the TG “track,” especially if that’s where its designers set up the suspension, but not so much a tighter track with no run off, such as the Nordschleife. Or it could be that TG and Clarkson are trying their British best to include something positive in their review of the home team’s product. I honestly don’t put a whole lot of stock in their reviews, including their published lap times, but they are entertaining to watch.

Nordschleife

It never takes you long to resort to arguing ad hominem.

Perhaps its some anger management technique?

R+C

cgomez

Different Stig at a different time of the year. Wish they would have re-tested the 458.

Tiff and Plato tested both cars the SAME day at the SAME Top Gear test track, but used a shorter version of it with shorter straights but almost same amount of corners. Plato was 0.1s faster in the 458.
I wish the Stig could talk, as that's the feedback I care about; just like Tiff's and Plato. I trust Harris's feedback too, but he has been awefully quite and excluded himself from the EVO Mc vs. 458 test. Too big of a foot in his mouth after his major tantrum against Ferrari's test car's policies.

Nizer

Bit of a joke if you ask me. Take a look at this video by Chris Harris verses the Top Gear video. Clearly Top Gear ran the Ferrari without the systems on.

Devils Advocate

A little off topic, but I like that they matched the Tron: Legacy soundtrack to the review, it fits the car well I think. I think the Mac would be a little more "stealthy" going around town, which depending on your outlook could be a nice or bad thing.

enduro911

- I agree with the traction control comment above...you have to have an apples to apples comparison. If the Ferrari is quicker using TC and it was turned off, that's not really fair. However, I think Rad has mentioned that, at least in the last generation of mid-engine F-cars, the TC was not the faster way to go.

- The car may be very difficult to set-up or dial-in (possibly because it's more cutting edge?). I remember what was said about the 599 GTO - that because the traction control could send the car around the track faster, Ferrari made it so that it was as nimble as possible but that meant that without the TC, it was extraordinarily tough to drive. Maybe Mclaren have done the same thing?

- Kudos to Mclaren for getting their hands wet in a new project and for taking on the added risk of implementing some incredible technology. Not to downplay their success, but if the driver isn't going to be involved your car better be the "best" in some other way and if that means numbers, that means you gotta make it quick.

Nordschleife

In my experience "Driver Aids", be they Traction Control or ESP type systems intervene in inverse proportion to the informed experience of the pilot.

Once an experienced driver understands how and why the systems intervene, they activate less and less. Generally, what triggers these systems is a prolonged state of instability or static correction.

Anybody filming is going to want to drive in a way that is the complete antithisis to the principals of stability control. Holding big long slides and lots of tail wagging.

There are many excellent track drivers who are most uncomfortable with TC/ESP and positively rate them as dangerous. most of the time conversation reveals that they are unaware of the possibility of operating within the parameters of the systems they disparage. On the other hand guys like WR are totally indifferent to the issue of whether these systems are turned on or not. Small correctons for small periods of time, or half a hand for half a second. Its not dramatic but it is fast.

Very very few motoring drivers might be termed pilots (as opposed to drivers), driving licences are easier to come by than writing and presenting skills. Similarly there are a number of successful racers who are a disaster on the street. One friend, who has won at both Daytona and Indianapolis, I will not drive with in town, anything is safer as he has never learned how wide his car is.

So driving skill doesn't have a strong positive correlation to either (GT) racing or journalism.

Most of the time, journos and presenters are going to set their systems to make themselves look heroic. However when their Stig avatar is driving, the time is what matters.

There is zero point in bigging up the McLaren at the expense of Ferrari or Porsche, there is no upside, only downside in that direction. Because of the local connection quite the opposite is more likely.

As to the enjoyability of the cars, that is a different matter. Almost all the sensationally fast cars feel rather dull, if not downright unpleasant if not being hussled along (the technical term is ear 'owled). Most of the delightfully fast cars that are a joy to drive are fastest when driven as smoothly as possible. The best combination of speed and enjoyment is epitomised by the Maserati F250, a truely epic drive, fast and fun.

At times this thread as got bogged down by confusions between fast and fun, prejudice and fair-comment, along with unhealthy doses of xenophobia and wishful thinking.

I don't mean to cast rocks into anybody's pool but to describe the Nordschleife as a 'tight' track is unfortunate, its full of big fast corners with little or no run-off (perhaps that makes it tight). Indeed there are only about six or seven places where you really need to do any serious braking. As far as testing the Mclaren there goes, are you sure the lairy driving wasn't for the benefit of camera crews?

As far as the comparisons between the 997 RSR and the racing 458 goes, the 458 is clearly faster, according to one of my connections who has driven both in testing and on the track. And the 997 chassis is rated inferior to that of the R8/Gallardo by many of the 997s best known proponents.

There is little direct comparison between the 997 world and that of Mclaren - different cars, different customers, there is room for both of these cars and the 458 to co-exist. McLaren has been a British operation for many years so the real development will be spread out over the lifetime of production, not great but its less expensive.

Am I biased, NO - do I look biased, possibly, I'm spending some time in Woking later this month.

R+C

superquant

The Top Gear run was filmed literally last week. The review was supposed to appear on episode two of July 3rd but was pulled at the
last minute (this is per the TG website) because mclaren wanted to provide a more sorted out sample after the pummeling in the initial reviews. As JC mentions the sorted included various tweaks like throttle response, exhaust loudness and who knows what else.

Make of that what you will