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The McLaren Senna has been designed, engineered, and developed with single-minded purpose: to be the ultimate McLaren track-concentrated car for the road. Legalised for road use, but not sanitised to suit it, the new Ultimate Series deliberately compromises McLaren’s trademark breadth of supercar daily usability; instead, it provides the purest connection between driver and car, to deliver the most intense circuit experience of any road McLaren.
The technical recipe is a classic McLaren Automotive supercar, a pedigree established and earned in the short time elapsed since the pioneering sports and supercar company was founded in 2010, but taken to another level entirely in the McLaren Senna. Ultra-lightweight construction, with carbon fibre chassis and body panels. Mid-mounted, twin-turbocharged V8 McLaren engine. Rear wheel drive. Sophisticated race-derived suspension that delivers an unparalleled blend of control and dynamic balance. Electro-hydraulic steering that rewards accurate inputs and gives the purest feedback. And two seats – but with absolute focus on the importance of the one that the driver occupies.
The carbon fibre Monocage III chassis that forms the core of the McLaren Senna is a further development of the structure that underpins the McLaren 720S and the strongest monocoque ever built by McLaren for a road-legal vehicle. Every body panel is made from carbon fibre, in line with a relentless focus on the weight of every individual component that has resulted in the McLaren Senna being the lightest road-legal McLaren since the iconic F1 road car, at just 1,198kg*. With a maximum power of 800PS (789bhp), the McLaren Senna enjoys a power-to-weight ratio of 668PS per tonne. This statistic immediately underlines the performance credentials of the newcomer to the McLaren Ultimate Series, a product family introduced with the McLaren P1™ that is reserved for the rarest and most extreme McLaren cars.
Driver controls have been deliberately kept to a minimum to reduce ‘cockpit clutter’ and the three-spoke steering wheel is free of buttons and switches, creating a pure focus on sensory feedback. All the information the driver needs comes from the high-definition McLaren Folding Driver Display and central infotainment screen. And while McLaren designers stopped short of removing the second seat altogether, there is no contingency for excess baggage; storage space is restricted to a chamber behind the seats integral to the Monocage III with just enough room for two helmets and race suits.
Dynamic parameters are adjusted by the driver through the Active Dynamics Panel located on the centre console to select Comfort, Sport or Track modes or via a switch in a roof-mounted panel to access Race mode.