This track car is ready for a road trip.
The first of the McLaren Senna supercars are just now finding their way to customers around the world. Just last month we reported a “build slot” was up for sale, giving one lucky person a chance to own one of the 500 examples the company plans to produce. Yes, there are examples out in the world, but those are prototypes and media examples for equally lucky journalists to drive, like Ollie Marriage, Top Gear Motoring Editor, who took one on a 1,500-mile trip.
Marriage’s trip begins at Estoril in Portugal where Ayrton Senna won his first Formula 1 Grand Prix. The 1,500-mile journey takes Marriage through Portugal, Spain, and France to Monaco, the place Senna called home. Marriage takes the Senna on the motorway and details how it feels driving through traffic. The Senna defaults to Sport mode, but even changing it to Comfort doesn’t make much of a difference. According to Marriage, the car feels much more at home on the track.
Don't You Wish You Were These People?:
The Senna feels most at home on the track, however, the twisting roads of the Pyrenees mountain range that separate Spain and France are a good backup. Marriage praises the Senna, saying its a joy to drive, and in the real world, it feels ridiculously fast. He does note a hint of understeer, but out on real roads, active aerodynamics aren’t doing much of the work.
When McLaren debuted the Senna, it looked ready to dominate at the race track. But Marriage’s 1,500-mile road trip proves owners can take the car on long road trips and still enjoy everything it has to offer. It may drone a bit on the highway, beat up your lower back, or make your rear end go numb after a while, but once you find those twisting mountain roads, you won’t care about any of the car’s deficiencies.
The McLaren Senna is a 789-horsepower supercar that looks at home on the track. But if you don’t want trek to your local raceway every weekend just to enjoy everything the car has to offer, you could find some twisty roads. Then again, you have to own one, and with only 500 being built, that’d be difficult. Not only do you have to find one for sale, but you also have to come up with the £750,000 (approximately $837,000 in the U.S). And if you’re being used, there will be a premium on top of that.
Source: Top Gear via YouTube