The New McLaren Senna – from McLaren Automotives
The New McLaren Senna – from McLaren Automotives
/ / VieLuxe / Motor
Challenge The Impossible
The McLaren Senna is the personification of McLaren’s DNA at its most extreme, creating the purest connection between car and driver. It is the most track-focused road car we have ever built, and it will set the fastest lap times of any McLaren to date. That is what has driven us to build a track car that is unashamedly without compromise. One that is legalised for road use, but not sanitised to suit it. Nothing else matters but to deliver the most intense driving experience around a circuit. Inspired by one of McLaren’s greatest racing drivers, the McLaren Senna is utterly dedicated to allowing the driver to be the best they can possibly be.
The McLaren Senna is a car like no other. It is a new member of the McLaren Ultimate Series, a product family introduced with the McLaren P1™ and reserved for the rarest and most extreme McLaren cars. Unsurprisingly, there are strong echoes in the new McLaren Senna of the incredibly focused philosophy behind the McLaren P1™. Yet where the McLaren P1™ was designed to be the best driver’s car on road and track, the McLaren Senna is designed and developed with track prowess absolutely taking precedence.
The McLaren Senna will be hand-assembled in England at the McLaren Production Centre. Production will be limited to 500 vehicles, and each McLaren Senna has already been assigned to a customer. – source
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Performance
The McLaren Senna has a single-minded purpose: to be the ultimate McLaren track-concentrated car for the road. It deliberately compromises McLaren’s trademark breadth of supercar daily usability; instead it provides the purest connection between driver and car. The pioneering front and rear active aerodynamics generate unprecedented levels of downforce and work in harmony with the RaceActive Chassis Control II (RCC II) hydraulic suspension and the ultra-rigid MonoCage III monocoque to deliver an incredibly intensive experience on a circuit.
Ultra-lightweight construction, with a carbon fibre chassis and carbon fibre body panels, ensure this is the lightest vehicle we have built since the iconic McLaren F1. The 4.0-litre twin- turbocharged V8 is our most powerful road car engine to date, producing 800PS (789bhp) and 800Nm (590lb ft). This combination creates a staggering power-to-weight ratio of 688PS-per-tonne. The McLaren Senna is a new track benchmark for McLaren.
Design
The McLaren Senna is the ultimate distillation of the company’s ‘form follows function’ design mantra. The first impression is of an aggressive, unforgiving machine, organic shapes having given way to a design language that is purposely fragmented in pursuit of absolute performance. From the front splitter to the double diffuser at the rear, you cannot follow a single line from the front to the rear without it passing through a functional air intake or vent. Even the thickness of the rear lights and the angle of the unique ‘slash-cut’ exhausts make an airflow contribution to the performance of the McLaren Senna.
Downforce and aerodynamic balance are the guiding principles. To observe the detailed work that has gone into every aerodynamic element of the McLaren Senna is mesmerising. To experience it all working in unison is truly incredible; the active aerodynamics create, maintain and control the aerodynamic performance of the McLaren Senna to ensure the driver has the confidence to explore the limits such downforce unlocks.
Innovation
We think of the McLaren Senna as a race car – we have designed and built it to perform on the track first and foremost. The new generation of groundbreaking front and rear active aerodynamics raise downforce and aero control to an unprecedented level to ensure the performance potential can be fully exploited. Exhaustive, fearless engineering has led us to re-evaluate and reassess every component, no matter how small or insignificant, to maximise performance.
The carbon fibre MonoCage III chassis is the strongest monocoque ever built by McLaren for a road-legal vehicle. The track-focused Race mode introduces a lower ride height, a lower centre of gravity and significantly stiffer suspension. The carbon ceramic braking system is the most advanced ever fitted to a McLaren road car. Tyre choice is equally focused, with bespoke Pirelli P ZeroTM Trofeo R tyres developed in conjunction with McLaren technical partner Pirelli. Only one style of wheel is available: an ultra-lightweight alloy wheel with a race-inspired centre lock system.
The Ayrton Senna Institute
The indomitable spirit of Ayrton Senna has always been alive at McLaren and the car that bears his name will further amplify his link to the McLaren brand, and his global legacy. The right to use the Senna name is part of an official collaboration between McLaren Automotive and the Senna family, in which a significant contribution will be donated to the Instituto Ayrton Senna (IAS), a non-profit organisation dedicated to providing good-quality education for more than 1.6 million unprivileged children and youngsters in Brazil. The IAS is presided over by Viviane Senna, sister of Ayrton and mother of racing driver and McLaren ambassador Bruno Senna.
Envisioned by Ayrton Senna before his untimely death, the charitable work of the IAS is a remarkable legacy for the McLaren legend. On the racetrack, Ayrton Senna was one of the greatest drivers of all time, but thanks to the IAS, his off-track achievements are arguably even greater. McLaren is immensely proud to support the Instituto Ayrton Senna, and to honour Ayrton Senna’s legacy at the highest level of motorsport with our most track-focused road car ever.
