McLaren

INSIGHT: Why McLaren is right to be worried about 2023

INSIGHT: Why McLaren is right to be worried about 2023

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, 2023-03-02 02:00:00,

This was always going to be a transitional year for McLaren. Its investment in major infrastructure projects such as a new state-of-the-art windtunnel and driver-in-loop simulator at its Woking base, which were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, won’t truly start paying off until 2024 and beyond. But while that will significantly increase McLaren’s potential, there are concerning signs that it hasn’t reached the level it needs to in its current form as a jumping off point.

While pre-season testing is always inconclusive, it’s clear things haven’t gone as hoped for McLaren. While Aston Martin looks to be snapping at the heels of at least the lower reaches of F1’s big three, and even below-the-radar Alpine looks to have made gains, McLaren has gone backwards. Having finished third, then fourth, then fifth in the constructors’ championship over the previous three seasons, it could be even worse off this year.

There is potential light at the end of the tunnel and the target is still fourth, but first it’s important to establish that it genuinely is on the back foot. At the launch of the McLaren MCL60, named to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the team by eponymous founder Bruce McLaren, the tone was downbeat. That continued at testing, with a car that looked somewhat limited, but not terrible, on track and hardly set the world alight in terms of pace. At best, it looked like perhaps the eighth-quickest car. Although things could be…

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Rivian Chief Engineer Leaves, Goes Back to McLaren

Rivian Chief Engineer Leaves, Goes Back to McLaren

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, 2023-03-13 02:00:00,

Charles Sanderson is one of the reasons why many people claimed Rivian’s R1-series vehicles will handle like supercars. One thing that Sanderson championed during his tenure at the American EV maker is the suspension system which replaced the mechanical anti-roll bar with an electro-hydraulic roll control system. Anti-roll (or anti-sway) bars are used to make the car feel more leveled during sharp turns. But Rivian’s sophisticated system allowed for more body control on-road and off-road without needing this part.

So, the R1T was touted by many as handling like a McLaren 720S even though it weighs almost 7,000 lb (3,175 kg). That is an impressive feat for a pickup truck, especially for one that is completely electric and must deal with a heavy battery pack. Managing the weight shift in tight scenarios is paramount for vehicles that are presented as being the next best thing, so the implementation of the Tenneco hydraulic damper at Rivian was a success for both the automaker and Sanderson as a professional.

The man has also been heard on multiple occasions talking fondly of the R1T and R1S. He liked Rivian’s CEO’s vision of making a pickup truck that will rival even the best of what legacy automakers have currently on sale. But he went even further than that by setting the ambition to build a vehicle that can beat all the other benchmarks set by other similar units (or not!) as a top priority. Given Rivian’s current reputation and demand, one could argue that…

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Rivian’s Chief Engineer Is Going Back to McLaren

Rivian’s Chief Engineer Is Going Back to McLaren

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, 2023-03-17 09:50:00,

Rivian’s chief engineer has gone back to building British supercars, GM’s CEO is making a case for robotaxis in Washington, and things are getting desperate for Volkswagen in China. All that and more in this edition of The Morning Shift for Friday, March 17, 2023.

1st Gear: Back to Mac

The chief engineer Rivian poached from McLaren in 2018 has returned to Woking. Charles Sanderson will serve as chief technical officer at McLaren, after previously spearheading software at the British supercar maker. From Automotive News:

“Mr. Sanderson will now spearhead McLaren Automotive’s new technology roadmap and product innovation strategy,” McLaren said. Sanderson’s previous role at McLaren was head of software development.

Rivian said Sanderson had chosen to return to McLaren.

A Rivian spokesperson said Sanderson was part of the product development team reporting to Nick Kalayjian, chief product development officer, who has a strong leadership team and deep bench of talent.

According to his LinkedIn page, Sanderson started with Rivian in June 2018 as vice president of vehicle integration and development, a role he held for 15 months before moving to the chief engineer job in August 2019.

Sanderson’s exit marks the latest in a string of executive departures from Rivian, which has faced challenges in ramping up production of its R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV. The startup fell just short of its 25,000-vehicle production target last year, and many analysts found its…

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All-Carbon Fiber, Exposed McLaren Senna Shows Everything, and Then Some

All-Carbon Fiber, Exposed McLaren Senna Shows Everything, and Then Some

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, 2023-03-14 17:04:01,

As such, the genius New Zealand-born racing car driver, designer, engineer, and inventor founded the Formula One team bearing his name, which is one of the most successful endeavors in the sport to date, solely behind the Italians at Ferrari. To achieve glory, the McLaren F1 team surrounded itself with other genius folks, and chief among them was – back during the late 1980s and early 1990s – also Ayrton Senna da Silva. The triple-world champion Brazilian racing car driver had some epic battles with a certain Frenchman (Alain Prost) and would remain a legend even after moving on to Williams.

Thus, is it surprising how McLaren Automotive topped the Ultimate series not just with the F1, P1 (which just celebrated its tenth anniversary, yay), Solus GT, Elva, and Speedtail, but also with a Senna? The latter is a limited-production mid-engine sports car that has been in production since 2018 with some bonkers specifications – including GTR, LM, and GTR LM versions. But even the ‘normal’ Senna, which is motivated by the 789-hp 4.0-liter M840TR twin-turbocharged V8 to rock any track and give proper tribute to the one-and-only Ayrton Senna, can easily blow away anyone’s mind after seeing it just for a couple of seconds.

So, how about checking it out with delivery miles and fully dressed entirely in exposed carbon fiber?! That could certainly unsettle some people, even if we are talking about the good folks over at Hollywood, California-based RDB LA, who are typically…

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McLaren MCL36 car suited Daniel Ricciardo more than me : PlanetF1

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, 2022-08-24 02:00:00,
F1 TV

Having said recently he feels the MCL36 gives him “the opposite” of what he wants, Lando Norris believes the car originally suited Daniel Ricciardo “a lot more” than him.

And yet the Briton is 57 points ahead of his McLaren team-mate in the World Championship standings.

Despite his struggles with the car, and the fact McLaren are four points behind fourth-placed Alpine in the Constructors’ table, Norris is still the highest-ranked driver outside of the Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes teams.

That was also a status he held last year, when Ricciardo finished 45 points behind him over the course of the 22-race campaign.

Now, with the 2022 campaign about to resume after the summer break, the disparity is even more marked – and that is despite Norris claiming the McLaren MCL36 was a better fit for the Australian than himself when it first appeared on track.

“We drive in different ways,” said the 22-year-old during the latest edition of the Beyond the Grid podcast. “And therefore what we request on the car is quite different.

“There have been things saying ‘well he (Ricciardo) doesn’t suit the car’ and all of that stuff. And everyone thinks I do suit the car and the car’s made around me and all of that stuff. But it couldn’t be more untrue.

“Not that I hate driving the car I’m driving now. But it’s very unsuited to my driving style.

“And I’ll say in the beginning of the year it suited Daniel a lot more than me in terms of how you had to…

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Lando Norris says McLaren car “suited Daniel Ricciardo a lot more than it suited me” | F1

Lando Norris says McLaren car “suited Daniel Ricciardo a lot more than it suited me” | F1

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, 2022-09-25 02:00:00,

Ricciardo will exit the team at the end of this season and is fighting to retain a spot in the 2023 F1 driver line-up, after being replaced by Oscar Piastri.

Norris has constantly outperformed Ricciardo this season but insists he has done so in machinery that is unfavourable.

“There have been things said that he doesn’t suit the car, and everyone thinks that I do suit the car and the car is made around me and all of that stuff, but it couldn’t be more untrue,” he said on Beyond the Grid podcast. 

“Not that I hate driving the car I am driving now, but it’s very unsuited to my driving style.

“I would say at the beginning of the year it suited Daniel a lot more than it suited me in terms of how you had to drive it. 

“That’s something I really struggled with at the beginning of the season and I’m coping with or have adapted to it a lot more now. 

“I would say [I’ve become] more well suited to it.”

“But it is far from a car that I would want in an ideal world. If I wanted to go and do the best lap possible and you give me that car to go and do so, it is definitely not the car that I have now.

“We do drive in different ways, and therefore what we request from the car is quite different. But by no means is it anywhere near more adapted to me than to him.

“I’ve had to adapt a lot more to the car. There’s not a lot that the team can do for me in terms of car. They just make it as quick as possible all round. 

“It’s not like,…

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How McLaren Managed to Keep the Artura Light and Compact

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, 2022-12-15 02:00:00,

Exterior front-quarter view of McLaren Artura in Burnt Orange

Photo: Adam Ismail

Sports cars are supposed to be light; electric cars are heavy. Changing regulations have chimed the slow death of exclusively internal-combustion engine-powered machines, and the first casualties are those marvels of engineering that prioritize performance above all else: supercars.

If you’re a company like McLaren, it’s in your best interest to keep making cars; pivoting to something else after 60 years is hard, and Bruce McLaren seemed to have few other hobbies besides driving, wrenching and water-skiing. To continue selling them, McLaren needed to introduce batteries and an electric motor. Of course, that presented a dilemma — one that the engineering team behind the new McLaren Artura was determined to solve from the beginning.

See, the 94-horsepower axial-flux electric motor and 7.4 kWh of batteries, plus all the ancillary equipment to support the Artura’s electrical system, weighs 284 pounds. McLaren could’ve turned up with a 3,500-pound supercar, but that’s not really something it or many of its customers want. Instead, it went on a tear, eliminating as much mass as possible from the front to the back of its first comprehensively new car in 12 years.

The campaign touched every system — from the chassis to the powertrain, the suspension and even the seats. In isolation, none of the gains are earth-shattering. Together, they’re dramatic. The Artura weighs only about 100 more pounds than the 570S it replaces in the marque’s lineup.

Press image of the McLaren Lightweight Carbon Architecture from the McLaren Artura

The…

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Behind the scenes at the McLaren Technology Centre : PlanetF1

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, 2022-12-15 00:58:23,

Have you ever looked at a painting and the colours have been so bright, the images so vivid, that your eyes seem almost unable to compute what it is you are looking at?

You feel obliged to take a step back in order to truly take it all in.

It is that kind of feeling that walking into the McLaren Technology Centre elicits.

While the UK hub of Formula 1 is based in the Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire regions of England, it is Surrey and Woking where McLaren’s commitment to excellence resides.

The McLaren Technology Centre, or MTC for short, took six years to build before being opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 and for one of the most storied and decorated teams in Formula 1, it signalled the dawn of a new era.

PlanetF1.com was given a behind-the-scenes look of McLaren HQ to get a glimpse behind the curtain of one Formula 1’s most famous names…

The result of their building endeavours was a blend of stainless steel and spotless glass that has been carved to form one half of the yin-yang symbol with the large body of calm water representing the other.

The drive onto the base loops around the lake – which is used to power the wind tunnel, just one of many examples of the team’s ‘no fashion without function’ mantra – before arriving at a reception that has greeted the likes of Prince William and the Princess of Wales in the past.

For a team whose slogan is ‘Fearlessly Forward’, it is clear that the MTC serves as the building block for progress but the…

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Supercar Maker McLaren Under Further Financial Pressure, Despite $279 Million Support From Bahrain

Supercar Maker McLaren Under Further Financial Pressure, Despite $279 Million Support From Bahrain

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, 2022-12-13 10:37:39,

Luxury sports car manufacturer McLaren Group is facing further financial pressures, as a result of slow sales and supply chain bottlenecks, with a recapitalization of the business now likely in early 2023.

In a report issued on December 13, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said that the auto group’s majority shareholder, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, had provided some £224 million ($279 million) in support since the summer.

That came in two tranches, with £125 million of support in July / August and a further £100 million in November. Despite the injection of capital, S&P said McLaren’s “liquidity remains strained”, amid lower-than-expected sales.

The November support came after the sale by Mumtalakat of some of its heritage cars to support the group.

S&P predicted that the sports car group’s sales volumes would decrease in 2022 compared to 2021, due to delays in the delivery of its Artura model and supply chain bottlenecks for semiconductor chips and batteries which has been holding up production. The latter issue has been affecting the entire auto industry.

McLaren’s vehicles sell for an average of around £300,000 each. It said in late November that it had orders for more than 2,200 cars at the end of September, more than half of which are for the Artura model.

Sales in the first nine months of the year amounted to 1,359…

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2023 McLaren Artura Is a Phenomenal Plug-In Hybrid Supercar

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, 2022-12-13 08:00:00,

A black McLaren Artura being driven on a racetrack.

Image: McLaren/Jalopnik

Sometimes when an automaker introduces a new vehicle, the word “new” does some seriously heavy lifting. In spite of its recognizable exterior, the McLaren Artura is about as new as a car can be. I’d wager the dichotomy of the familiar styling and all the newness it conceals isn’t coincidental.

While the Artura is far from McLaren’s first hybrid — that’d be the P1 — it is the brand’s first hybrid designed for series production. It’s also the Woking-based manufacturer’s first modern vehicle without the familiar twin-turbo V8 that traces its inception back to Nissan’s late-’90s GT racing program. The Artura heralds so many changes, even its very moniker marks a new precedent. Real names with vowels were previously only given to the company’s most exclusive, Ultimate-series creations.

Had I known none of this, I’d probably glance at the Artura and chalk it up as another refinement of the same formula that’s guided every McLaren from the MP4-12C to the 765LT. I was actually a little worried about that when we got our first peek at the supercar’s silhouette two years ago. Having now driven it, I find the familiarity comforting — a reminder that, while plenty has changed, McLaren hasn’t lost the plot.

Full disclosure: McLaren flew me to Las Vegas, put me up at the Wynn for two nights and treated me to some very nice meals before giving me the keys to an orange Artura to cruise around lower Nevada. Between you and me, that…

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