The McLaren F1----Redefined Standards.

Look at it. Name a car that looks quite as good as the F1 does. I dare you. (No, wait, don’t do that) What car, with such a high top speed, is quite as exclusive, quite as good looking as the F1? The RUF CTR2 was a tad ugly, and so was the F40, the CTR Yellowbird looked…Well, like a 911, and the 959? Looked like a 911 which had been flattened by a rolling pin. The Veyron that later trumped the F1? Looked about as ugly as a Pig.

The story starts in 1988. Gordon Murray was waiting for a flight home after 1988’s Italian Grand Prix. Murray had been thinking about a 3-seater sports car since his youth. And in the end, he drew a sketch of one, and proposed it to Ron Dennis(Then Team Principal of McLaren). He pitched the idea of creating the ultimate road car, a concept that would be heavily influenced by the company’s Formula One experience and technology and thus reflect that skill and knowledge through the McLaren F1. Of course, by that time, Ron had already agreed.
Murray did manage to nab a few visits to Honda’s Tochigi Research Centre, with Ayrton Senna in tow. At first glance at the NSX’s spec sheet, the car he’d later test-drive on his first visit, Murray thought that the 3.0 V6 wasn’t going to help the car compete against higher-priced cars, but as soon as he did drive it—Literally everything he was using as a reference point for the new car(Lamborghini’s, Ferraris’, the lot) vanished from his mind. The new design target for the car was to have the NSX’s trait of having good ride comfort balanced with good handling. Later, he went there another two times to try and persuade the guys to either make a 4.5-litre V10 or V12 for the car, but sadly it never fell through.

Later, they used two Ultima Mk3 Kit cars, No.’s 12 and 13(‘Albert’ and ‘Edward’) were used as Test Mules to test various components of the cars. No.12 was outfitted with the Gearbox mated to a Chevy 7.4 V8, and 13 the test of the BMW S70/2 with the Stainless Steel Exhaust, Titanium Silencers and cooling systems.Once done with them, McLaren had both cars destroyed to keep the Specialist magazines from associating the company with Kit Cars.

Now, Murray had been particularly interested in Honda building a powerplant for the car, and had already laid out a list of requirements: It had to have at least 550 bhp, 600 mm worth of Block Length, and had to weigh 250 kilos all in. Then he demanded that it’d be derived from the engines used in the then-dominating McLaren-Honda’s. They refused, of course. But then, Isuzu, then planning a entry into F1, came along, having already made a 3.5-litre V12, shoehorned into a Lotus chassis. But the team at Woking wanted something that had both a proven design, and a racing pedigree. Which then led them to BMW.

So, having approached BMW, and in turn, BMW M’s engine expert(#NotSponsoredToSayThat) Paul Rosche(A guy Murray knew from his days at Brabham), he managed to get a 6.1-litre V12(Dubbed the S70/2) that had 627 hp at 7400 RPM, had 480 lb-ft of Torque, and weighed 266 kilos. Or around 14% More powerful than wanted, and only 16 kilos heavier, with the same block length. Using an aluminium block and heads, quad overhead camshafts with variable valve timing(Called dual-VANOS by BMW, and being a bit of a unproven technology then), and a chain drive for those cams for maximum reliability. The pistons were forged from aluminium. The cam carriers, covers, oil sump, dry sump, and housings for the camshaft control are made of magnesium castings. Every cylinder bore has a nikasil coating giving it a high degree of wear resistance. Each cylinder has its own miniature ignition coil. The engine was given a short development time, causing the BMW design team to use only trusted technology from prior design and implementation experience. The engine does not use titanium valves or connecting rods. Variable intake geometry was considered but rejected on grounds of unnecessary complication. Now, if you’re wondering why Gold Foil lined the engine bay, it was because the Carbon Fibre body panels and overall monocoque required significant heat insulation in the engine compartment, and Gold, being a rather good reflector of heat, was deemed to be the best option. 16 g’s worth of the stuff went into each and every one of the 106 F1’s ever made, which probably included the GTRs, LongTails, XP-cars(Prototypes, the most famous being XP-5, the car used to set the 240.1 mph record) and production ones. As for fuel consumption, the engine achieves on average 15.2 mpg, at worst 9.3 mpg and at best 23.4 mpg. But let’s be real here—Who on God’s Green Earth buys one for something like fuel consumption?! But to put it in context, it’d pass the famously-strict Californian emissions regulations. It is worth noting now that all this power was sent to the Rear Wheels via a 6-speed manual.

As we all know, the F1 was the first to ever use a CFRP Monocoque chassis, with aluminium and magnesium used as attachment points for the suspension, directly inserted into the CFRP Structure.

Featuring the central driving position that we all know of now, where’s the driver’s seat was just ahead of both the engine and fuel tank, and the passengers sitting both to your back, and to the sides, this’d probably have enhanced an overall Field Of View. Eminently sensible, then. I should point out that the inspiration for the dihedral doors came from the Toyota Sera. Yep, that little, weird-looking, dihedral door-equipped…Box.
Of course, not everything was made out of CFRP, and definitely not the engine bay, because it’d probably melt or something, which called for the Gold Foil…

So, some might be wondering, well, the F1 has no wings, which should mean no form of downforce(or whatever, I don’t know) whatsoever, by the time it hits anything over say…200, shouldn’t it just catch wind and fly off into the middle distance? Well, yes, it should have, but because this is McLaren we’re talking about—-People who definitely know what they’re doing, they found a way for the thing to make downforce. Do you remember the BT46B? The ‘fan car’ that was basically a refrigerator with A) Wheels, B) an engine, C) a wing as massive as Ken Block’s Cajones? Well, the things learnt from that did help in the F1’s development. ‘We had a very short, steep diffuser to get under the driveshafts, and we didn’t want the driveshafts to poke through the diffuser,’ said Murray once. ‘So I just steepened it and used fans to suck off the boundary layer, so the air still followed the surface. It was fan-assisted ground effect.’ Don’t say you wouldn’t have done the same…Assuming if you understood everything, that is.

The F1 featured, as we all know, unassisted, vented and cross-drilled brake discs made by Brembo. Front disc size is 332 mm and at the rear 305 mm. Four-pot calipers were used all around, with all being made of aluminium. The rear brake calipers do not feature any handbrake functionality, however there is a mechanically actuated, fist-type caliper which is computer controlled(Sounds like something to go wrong…) and thus serves as a handbrake.
To increase caliper stiffness, the calipers are machined from one single solid piece (in contrast to the more common being bolted together from two halves). Pedal travel is slightly over one inch. Activation of the rear spoiler will allow the air pressure generated at the back of the vehicle to force air into the cooling ducts located at either end of the spoiler which become uncovered upon application of it.
Servo-assisted ABS brakes were ruled out as they would imply increased mass, complexity and reduced brake feel; however at the cost of increasing the required skill of the driver. Basically, what this means is that, if you’re not Jenson Button, don’t drive it fast.
Murray had attempted to utilise carbon brakes for the F1, but found the technology not ‘mature’ enough at the time; one of the major culprits being that of a proportional relationship between brake disc temperature and friction—i.e. stopping power—thus resulting in a relatively poor brake performance without an initial warm-up before usage. Since carbon brakes have a more simplified application envelope in pure racing environments, this would allow for the racing edition of the machine, the F1 GTR, to feature carbon ceramics. But technology has come a long way now, so Carbon Ceramics can be used to some effect on the roads.

It’s all well and good being as light as paper mache, and having enough power to get far away from pesky tailgaters, but if the tyres don’t grip the road, then frankly, you shouldn’t be here alive… Well, I’m happy to report that because this is McLaren, they did take this into account, and had specially-made/developed 235-section and 315-section front and rear tyres respectively developed by Goodyear and Michelin. To go along with them, were 17-inch 5-spoke rims with both the thing itself, and its retention pins, made out of magnesium. The rim itself was also coated with protective paint, for some retention of self-worth if you kerbed one.

If you really think that all this obsession over every little detail wasn’t carried over to the interior, well, I’m here to prove you wrong. The metal plates fitted to the cabin to improve it’s aesthetics were claimed to be 0.5 mm thick…For saving weight. If this doesn’t tell you that they were obsessed over every single detail in the car….Well, I don’t know what will. But wait, there’s more: They’d also comissioned Kenwood, the team’s supplier of radio equipment, to make a lightweight audio system for the car, one that was tailored to an individual’s listening tastes, though radio was omitted because Murray never listened to it. And besides, who needs it when you can put your foot down and have your ears filled with the sound of German Engineering?

I would also like to mention now that even though it was meant to be a no-frills throughbred supermachine, it did actually have comfort features: It had Air-Conditioning, a thing both credited to the NSX, and also something not many cars with that price had, electric windows, remote central-locking,cabin access release for opening panels, cabin storage compartment, four-lamp high performance headlight system, rear fog and reversing lights, courtesy lights in all compartments, map reading lights and a gold-plated Facom titanium tool kit and first aid kit (both stored in the car), and tailored, proprietary luggage bags specially designed to fit the vehicle’s carpeted storage compartments, including a tailored golf bag, were also standard equipment. No airbags though, just to encourage you to not bin it. Oh yes, Each customer was also given a special edition TAG Heuer 6000 Chronometer wristwatch with its serial number scripted below the centre stem.

Now, you might be wondering, ‘Well, that’s all well and good….But what happens if something breaks? Or if it needs a service?’

‘ Every standard F1 has a modem which allows customer care to remotely fetch information from the ECU of the car in order to assist the customer in the event of a mechanical vehicle failure. There are eight authorised service centres throughout the world(Not alot…), and McLaren will on occasion fly a specialised technician to the owner of the car or the service centre. All of the technicians have undergone dedicated training in service of the McLaren F1. In cases where major structural damage has occurred, the car can be returned to McLaren directly for repair.’

Now, there have been a wonderfully large number of claims about the F1’s top speed over the years, since so many publications tested different cars, all of which were different from each other in a few ways, but it all kicked off in August 1993, with the XP-3 Prototype. XP’s 1 and 2 had been destroyed in crash tests to prove how safe it was, and XP-3, was the car that got the first claim of 231 mph at Nardo. Of course, XP-3 wasn’t exactly….A near-production-standard car, especially with its engine, with it only making 580 hp.

Autocar had been given access to XP-5, arguably the most famous prototype, in May 1994, the same month and year that Ayrton would die, and wrote that ‘Had we enough tarmac, we have no doubt that it would finally stop accelerating at its rev-limiter in top which, taking tyre growth into account, would be somewhere the far side of 230mph.’

3 months later, Car and Driver wrote that the F1 would run into the 7500 RPM rev-limiter in 6th gear, at 221 mph, but it would just keep going. Murray was convinced that with taller gearing, it’d have easily hit 230 mph.

Then, McLaren came along once again, 4 years later, to settle the record once and for all. They called up Andy Wallace, a man who’d already had a fairly considerable wealth of experience with the F1, having already driven the LM/GTR at Le Mans in ‘95 and ‘96, and having helped out with customer handovers. And being ‘younger, and a bit more stupid in those days’(that was his words), he of course, accepted.
On March the 31st, 1998, he drove the then-five-year-old XP-5 Prototype at Volkswagen’s test track at Ehra-Lessien, setting a new independently-measured two-way average speed of 240.14 mph, with the peak speed, being 242.9 mph, after having the rev-limiter increased to 8300 RPM.

But wait, that’s still not the end, since there was also the racing-bred variants. This whole idea started because McLaren had come under pressure, from customers who wanted to take the F1 racing, which was a completely brazen idea to Gordon Murray, since it was never conceived to go racing.

Of course, Murray relented and agreed to modify the F1 into a racing car, agreeing to build several chassis for competition in the 1995 season. An unused F1 chassis which was meant to become #019 was taken by McLaren and extensively modified by the company as a developmental prototype. Because of the similarity to a race car, extensive modification was not needed to actually turn the F1 into a racing car. Bodywork modification saw the addition of various cooling ducts, most noticeably a large one in the center of the nose and two placed in the location of the storage lockers on the side of the car. A large adjustable downforce wing was added to the back.Even the 1995 versions of F1 GTR generated enough downforce to run along the ceiling at 100 mph. Though I wouldn’t place my bets that it would. The interior was merely stripped of all luxuries and given a full racing cage. Carbon brakes replaced the stock units. Because of the rules at the time, the BMW S70 V12 engine was required to use an air restrictor to limit horsepower to around 600 hp, actually making the racing car less powerful than the road car, yet faster and more nimble due to a lowered overall weight. Features such as the central seating position, butterfly doors, and even the stock gearbox were retained. McLaren co-ordinated a 24-hour test at Magny-Cours to find weaknesses in the car and develop upgrades to supply to the teams.

A total of nine chassis would be built for the 1995 season, with #01R being retained by the factory as a test mule, except for a one-off use by Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing(Stealth Grey) at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. British team GTC Racing received two F1 GTRs, with a third being used to replace a destroyed car. David Price Racing, BBA Competition, Mach One Racing, and Giroix Racing Team would all receive one chassis each, while the final chassis, #09R, was sold to Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, for his car collection.(Damn, this guy’s rich.)
At Le Mans 1995, the Kokusai Kaihatsu McLaren obtained victory(The Stealth-Grey GTR) and the highest practice top speed of the year, reaching 281 km/h (174.605 MPH) on the Mulsanne Straight.

Following the success of the 1995 season, McLaren set forth to upgrade the car in an attempt to remain competitive, especially against the threat of new competitors such as the Ferrari F50 GT (which was withdrawn quickly enough) and the 911 GT1, made by you-know-who. They were assisted by BMW Motorsport, who at the time decided to use their connection to McLaren to enter sports car racing by running their own race team with F1 GTRs.
Among the modifications were an extension of the front and rear bodywork, including a larger splitter attached to the front of the car. The bodywork was also modified to allow it to be removed more quickly for easier repair. The car’s normally stock gearbox was modified to include a lighter magnesium housing and more robust mechanicals. These modifications allowed for the weight of the GTR to be lowered by 38 kg. Due to demand, nine more new GTRs were built, while two older GTRs (#03R and #06R) were also modified to the 1996-spec. Although slower on an entire lap than the 1997 long-tail version due to the significantly lower downforce (the 1997 model relied on high-speed cornering much like prototypes of the 2000s), the F1 GTR of 1996 was the fastest variant in terms of straight line speed - the car hit 330 km/h(205 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans in 1996, which is 13 km/h faster(317 km/h, or close to 200? Maybe around 204..?) than the 1997 long-tail F1 GTR and even 6 km/h faster(324 km/h, 205-ish mph) than the 1996 Porsche GT1.

And now, the F1 GTR LongTail(LT for short) of 1997. Alongside XP-5, the record-setter, this is probably the most famous iteration of the F1, probably in the Gulf…Uh…Colors? Or, to some of the Gran Turismo fans, as the BMW-Motorsport Entry.

With the BPR Global GT Series now reformed into the FIA GT Championship in 1997, rules regarding the cars used in the premier GT1 class were altered. Homologation specials like the Porsche 911 GT1 had already proven their worth in the final races of 1996, while the newcomer Mercedes-Benz was showing the potential of their new CLK-GTR in testing. McLaren was therefore forced to give the F1 extensive modification in order to be able to compete against cars which had been meant as race cars first, and not road cars like the F1.
First and foremost, the F1 required extensive modification to its bodywork in order to gain as much aerodynamic downforce as possible. Although it retained the same carbon fibre monocoque as the road car, the entire exterior of the car was pretty much purpose-built. A much longer nose and tail, as well as a wider rear wing, were designed in order to maximize the amount of aerodynamic downforce, while the wheel arches were widened in order to allow for the maximum amount of grip from the tyres allowed by the rules. Ground clearance was also changed to 70 millimetres front and rear, rather than the 60 millimetres front and 80 millimetres rear clearance of the 1996-spec car.
The engine also saw extensive modification, with the BMW S70 V12 being destroked bringing displacement down to 5,990cc in an attempt to prolong the life of the engines, while still maintaining the air restrictor-controlled 600 brake horsepower. The stock gearbox was replaced with a new X-trac 6-speed sequential.
A total of ten more GTRs were built, with none of the previous cars being upgraded to the 1997-spec. In order to be allowed to construct cars that were so radically different from the F1 road car, McLaren was forced to build production cars using the GTR ‘97’s bodywork. These cars became known as the F1 GT, of which only three were built. The 1997-spec cars are commonly referred to as the “Long Tail” version due to their stretched bodywork, most noticeably in the rear.
At Le Mans 1997, the car reached 317 kilometres per hour (196.97 mph) on the Mulsanne straight. This was still slightly slower than some of the field, including the Porsche 911 GT1 Evo - 326 kilometres per hour (202.57 mph), Nissan R390 GT1 - 319 kilometres per hour (198.22 mph), TWR Porsche Joest LMP - 320 kilometres per hour (198.84 mph).

Now, back to the road with the F1 LM. As mentioned quite a bit earlier, the LM was made to commemorate the victory of the F1 GTRs at Le Mans in 1995. Headline figures included the fact that because it had literally the same engine as the Le Mans F1, but without the mandated restrictors to limit it to 600 hp, the engine produced a monumental 680 hp at 7800 rpm, the redline at 8500, and 520 lb-ft of Torque at 4500 RPM. And because it was literally a racer for the road, having only been converted from the racer, it did away with Literally everything in the way of Luxury and/or practicality. So, between itself and the original, the LM weighed a rather body-chilling 76 kilos lighter than the standard car. Along with that, the rims grew to 18’s, and all of the Kevlar fans and dynamic wings disappeared in place of a fixed CFRP one attached to the bootlid.

Now, to what is both the very last iteration, and my personal favorite, the GT. Essentially, it was a F1 GTR LT, but without the huge wings, and being….Somewhat streetable, due to the addition of the stuff you needed to make sure that you didn’t rattle your ears to pieces, and to make sure that you could carry along both the woman, and the kid.
Mechanically, it shared the gearbox of the original, but with the LT’s V12 released from the clutches of the restrictors to produce the full 627 bhp.

Only one was meant to be built, the car for homologation, now known as XP-GT, finished in, according to McLaren, ‘Deep Bottle Green’, but of course, they made two more due to two F1 customers asking for them, and the two were finished near the end of F1 production, in 1997. XP-GT is now kept at the MTC in Woking, where famed-chairman Ron Dennis was also born, and the other two still remain with private collectors, though its unknown whether its the same 2 or not.

….And that’s about it. The McLaren F1. The car that redefined what a supercar should be(to my mind at least), something that, while looking good, actually had the performance to match those looks, which can still kind of be said with the F40, but not quite so much the 959, because it was basically a flattened 911 with a few more changes. The CTR Yellowbird that took out those two? Was basically a 911 on utter steroids. The looks of a 911, but the performance of a rocket, and also giving you the same punishment for fluffing a turn like a 911. If you want one of these, and trust me, you do, well, I hate to break it to you, but you’ll need to be as rich as Chris Evans the infamous TG presenter. A original F1 now costs somewhere over 5 million quid, and GTR’s, LTs, costing way more. No chance for you to buy a GT, either. Those things will never appear on sale. Trust me. Feel free to leave overlooked details, advice and suggestions for the next article down in the comments, and I hoped you enjoyed it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get back to my studies…

See you at the next one….

[Writers’ Note: Hey, so, as usual, if you’ve read till here again, well, Thanks. Again. This will come a day later than expected, and I sincerely hope that I’ve done well enough with this to warrant this as an addition to a list of Editors Picks, and yes, I know this will come out a day late, but I had school work and horrible internet to contend with, so..Yeah. Still got it out by the weekend though, so ‘Yay’…I guess. Anyway, to the car itself. The F1 has always had a place in many of our hearts(Well, maybe bar a select few) as one of the world’s best cars, something the market has to share with too, since these things are now worth 5 million at least, and ex-racers way more above that, especially due to the fact that it was powered by an engine with a sound so hypnotic that when give the chance, you’d probably listen to it for hours on end. Plus, even though its 25 years old now(That quick?!), it somehow still looks as wonderfully timeless as the 288 I covered earlier this…Year? But in anycase, if you’re wondering about my next plans, I might not cover anything too major as I am having tests for these next two weeks, so wish me luck with that. At most, another entry into the ‘Heroes of Racing’ series, realism would dictate the ‘Revisited’ series, and sheer fantasy, me starting the ‘50 Years of 911s’ series. Or, at worst, none at all, which is more likely than anything. In anycase, if you spot some error—-You know what to do. Feel free to add extra info in the comments, too. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to study, and take a rest. I spent so many hours doing this. Over a course…Of…Three days? I can’t even remember now, that’s how battered I am, I suppose….

Hoped you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you at the next one.

Thanks again——Joel]

P.S: There seems to be a problem with getting the ‘Top’ picture to display, I can’t solve that yet, so I’m sorry.