Tested: 2014 McLaren P1 Is About Speed and Drama (2024)

From the August 2014 issue of Car and Driver.

Here is a rough transcript of what I uttered when I first unleashed the full 903 horsepower of the McLaren P1: “[Cackle, cackle] Holy [bleep]! That’s . . . [cackle]. I, uh . . . wow. [cackle].”

It was about then that my co-driver reminded me of the pending terminus of the airport runway on which we were driving and the imminent braking zone, which I was now crowding at something like 135 mph. I would tell you our exact speed but, honestly, I haven’t a clue what it was. I never thought to look down at the speedometer. I was by then a speed-drunk sack of cortisol and adrenaline with what I’m guessing were wildly dilated pupils. It wasn’t until much later that remorse would overwhelm me for having used hyperbole in describing other fast cars I’ve driven. I’d wasted all the superlatives on cars that I now know were unworthy.

My exposure to the P1, McLaren’s successor to the storied F1 supercar, is four laps of the Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, England, a collection of airport runways and taxiways that’s perhaps better known as the track the British Top Gear television program uses. Four laps to not commit a vehicular and career embarrassment. There was a second P1 circling the track with another Duns­fold virgin behind the wheel. Oh, and the course is configured as a figure eight. Right then, no worries.

Testing confirms the P1 will sprint to 60 mph in 2.7 seconds and continue pulling hard until it reaches its governed top speed of 217 mph. But as impressive as those numbers are, they are not unprecedented in the world of supercars. Hell, a Porsche 911 Turbo S will get to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds, and McLaren’s own F1 achieved a top speed about 20 mph higher back in the ’90s. What is so remarkable about the P1, of which 375 will be made, is its ability to corral a 727-hp twin-turbo V-8, a 177-hp electric motor fed by a lithium-ion battery pack, and a mass of power electronics into a cohesive whole that manages to smoothly and easily deliver a uniquely extreme speed experience.

Do not take that to mean that the car is without drama. It is all drama. Lift off the throttle on corner turn-in and the turbo boost relieves itself with an initially shocking “woof!” You hear air howling as it’s sucked into the roof snorkel, en route to meet its fate in the eight combustion chambers. You hear the low-register rage of the engine, which, even at idle, is incomparably loud for a street car. Pebbles kicked up from the surface ping when they hit the carbon-fiber wheel wells and underside with the crack and clarity of a rifle report. Even when left in automatic mode, the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission pounds through the gears, firm and certain, a couple of milliseconds before you think about shifting.

But there is no perceptible change of pace when the big turbos get spinning in ­earnest. You do not notice the electric motor at work. There is just smooth, seamless, seemingly inexhaustible thrust. Any fears that a hybrid system would diminish the enjoyment of the hypercar have been proven, in our minds, to be unfounded—at least in the cases of the McLaren P1 and its fellow mega-hybrids, the Ferrari LaFerrari and Porsche 918 Spyder.

While you can drive the P1 for a claimed six or so miles solely on electricity, the real purpose of the engine-mounted motor is to smooth the power-delivery characteristics of the gasoline engine. McLaren started with a reengineered version of the 3.8-liter V-8 that powers the 650S. With bigger turbos strapped on, and running a healthy 20.3 pounds of boost, the P1’s gas engine is plenty enough propulsion. Each of the engine’s 727 horses is tasked with moving only 4.5 of the P1’s 3300 pounds. And that’s before you add the electric motor’s power to the mix. Meanwhile, a Lamborghini Aventador saddles each of its horses with 5.9 pounds.

In addition to myriad driver-selectable programs (e-mode, normal, sport, track, and race), there’s a “boost” button that allows you to drive using just the power from the gas engine. In boost mode, the electric motor only contributes its torque when you press the IPAS (Instant Power Assist System) button on the right spoke of the steering wheel. And then it’s all-in, right away. Mind you, the powertrain provides no more than the 903 horsepower that would be at the driver’s disposal under normal conditions. McLaren doesn’t pretend that this IPAS capability is any more than a bit of powerful theater to wow passengers. But it never hurts for a supercar maker to do all it can to allow owners to impress (or scare) the hell out of their friends.

The setting that is of greatest interest, though, is race mode. When selected, it drops the body down two inches on the car’s trick hydro-pneumatic suspension and powers the big scoop-shaped rear wing up almost a foot above the body. Slammed to the ground, the P1 looks like some sort of sinister, radioactive outcropping that’s just burned its way up through the Earth’s crust. In this form, the P1 is not street legal and nowhere close to street sensible. It is in this mode that McLaren says the P1 makes 1323 pounds of downforce at 161 mph and can brake from high speed at 2.0 g’s.

The brake rotors, made specifically for McLaren by its Formula 1 partner Akebono, are coated with silicon carbide and have a gorgeous mirror finish, unmarred by slots or holes. Those discs are pinched by six-piston front and four-piston rear monoblock calipers and provide stellar stopping force and none of the low-speed squealing common to carbon-ceramic brakes. They are commanded by a brake pedal that is perfectly linear in operation, neither too soft nor too hard, and unsullied by any regenerative function to recharge the battery. Instead the battery is charged by the motor serving as the generator.

The steering offers no particular technical marvel. It is an electro-hydraulically boosted system that is so beautifully tuned you simply don’t ever think about the steering. It feels as if it’s plugged directly into your lizard brain. That is as high a compliment as we can give.

Ensconced in the beast, you are surrounded by the expected orgy of carbon fiber (McLaren being a long-standing expert in the ways of the magic composite). It’s a serious place of business. If you are expecting something as self-consciously styled as the art-deco cabin of a Bugatti Veyron, you’ve got the wrong company. Instead, you get rotary knobs and buttons and a big digital readout in place of gauges. It has a stereo and a nav system, but you’ll forgive us for not turning them on, nor even finding their controls. The firm-but-not-constraining seats are manually adjusted. And no, there are no seat heaters. The view out the rear is by way of a carbon-fiber tunnel roughly the dimensions of a tissue box, but we weren’t looking behind us.

The P1 doesn’t feel treacherous or demanding on the track. In other words, it doesn’t have the raucous, streetified-racer feel you might expect of a 900-hp hypercar. Neither does it feel like a weighty speed sled in the manner of the Bugatti. And it surely doesn’t feel like your typical hybrid. It feels lithe and alert and well mannered and entirely cackle-worthy. It is every bit as great to drive as you might hope it to be.

Still, we wondered aloud, how many people who can afford a P1 also have the skills to exploit its staggering performance? A McLaren test driver piped up, “Well, Jenson Button’s getting one.”

Observing the Beast in its Natural Habitat

McLaren took a refreshingly relaxed approach to our request to drive the P1 on the road. Getting time in a car like this normally involves the sort of negotiations that end wars, and the resulting access is often measured in minutes rather than hours. Not so here. McLaren sent this “validation phase” P1 prototype the 200 miles out to our chosen location in Wales under its own steam. No trailer, no support crew, and, most uncommonly, no restrictions.

We’ve come to the A4069 in the Brecon Beacons National Park, unofficially known among British gearheads as Black Mountain Road. This is no flowing alpine pass, but rather one of the toughest driving challenges that Europe can offer. It’s well-sighted but also narrow, twisty, and often bumpy. It crosses moorland so barren and desolate that Britain’s special air service uses it for candidate-selection tests. And although we are here in early May, a gale-force wind is blowing the frequent squalls of rain pretty much horizontally. If a 903-hp megacar can handle this, it can handle anything.

Not that the huge combined power output is going to be called upon frequently today. When it is, the gasoline and electric sides of the powertrain work together seamlessly, and the P1 pulls strongly and without hesitation, even with less than 2000 rpm showing on the tach. The motor fills in any gaps as the turbochargers spool, but even the top inch of the long-travel throttle pedal produces a shocking level of acceleration.

On a road like this, where the biggest gap between corners is about a quarter-mile, the idea of pushing harder seems ludicrous. Upshifting at 6000 rpm feels daring, though it’s a full 2250 rpm shy of the limiter.

As you’d expect, traction in this soggy, quintessentially British weather is an issue. Passing showers give us a chance to experience the P1 in wet, damp, and almost-dry conditions, and it’s clear that the car is predictably sensitive to moisture under its rear wheels. Even on cold tires, it finds impressive grip, but if you ask for too much (even with the powertrain switch in its safest “normal” mode and every safeguard in play), you can feel the back end squirming. In the dry and with confidence levels high, full throttle is something P1 owners will probably rarely experience on the road. We worked up the nerve to try it twice in five hours, equal to the number of extra pairs of undies we brought along.

The P1's ride quality is uncannily good. An interlinked hydro-pneumatic suspension deals with the ragged asphalt better than our photographer’s Saab station wagon does. With the “handling” switch in either normal or sport mode, the car rides out bumps and fills in compressions with utter disdain. Track mode miters more of an edge into the damping, but it still doesn’t feel harsh or even particularly hard, and it is perfectly suited to street use. The transmission is similarly effortless, the dual-clutch gearbox swapping ratios as quickly as you can frame the thought. The steering is as thrilling on the road as it is on a track, and the carbon-ceramic brakes are progressive and instantly responsive, even with the minimal heat they get from road use.

Does this description of perfection make the P1 seem a bit cold and clinical? Rest assured, thrill-seeking billionaires: it’s not. The engine is never short on commentary, from its bass-heavy idle to the raspy deep breathing of the induction system under hard use. And you’d have to have lived a life in either Top Fuel dragsters or carrier-based fighter planes to grow blasé about this level of acceleration. It’s never terrifying but always scary enough to remind you what an amazing car the McLaren P1 is. —Mike Duff