2022 Mclaren 720s Spider Performance on 2040-cars

Auto blog

McLaren vows to learn from their Indy blunders and return stronger

McLaren boss Zak Brown shouldered the blame on Thursday for the team's failure to qualify Fernando Alonso for this weekend's Indianapolis 500 and said he would do things very differently next time. Speaking to reporters at the Monaco Grand Prix, the American was confident there would be a return to The Brickyard but the post-mortem into what went wrong this year was still being carried out. Brown said the reasons why McLaren felt they should be at Indianapolis had not changed and highs and lows were part of the sport. "I think you have to dust yourself off, learn by your mistakes and come back fighting. So that's what we intend to do," he said. "To not do something is easy but that's not what winners do. "There's very good reasons why McLaren should be in Indianapolis, it's a big market and partners want to be there. Our motor business is strong there." Spaniard Alonso, a double Formula One champion and Le Mans 24 Hours winner who is chasing the so-called 'Triple Crown of Motorsport', failed in regular qualifying and then finished fourth in a shootout for the last three grid positions. A list of errors made by the team emerged subsequently, from having to scrounge a steering wheel at short notice to missing vital track time because the spare car was the wrong shade of orange and was elsewhere being resprayed. Mechanics even confused inches with centimeters. Brown said there had been "a lot of mistakes that snowballed". Bob Fernley, the man in charge of the McLaren Indy program, left immediately after the failure but Brown said that "ultimately it was a people issue, starting with myself, of not having all the bases covered and we just were unprepared. "I got a variety of my decisions wrong. I think it would be unfair to blame Bob for us not qualifying. I put that on me because I put the team together." He said he had not wanted to cover anything up but some context was needed. "It's not like we showed up to the test and went 'someone forgot the steering wheel'," he said. "We were going to do our own steering wheel and we didn't get it done in time. And you need a steering wheel. "At Cosworth you can buy them off the shelf, they didn't have any on the shelf. And so I had to pull some favors and (partners) Carlin helped to get us a steering wheel." After qualifying was over, there was talk about possibly buying Alonso a place with another team but that was not felt to be the right thing to do.

Here's the chassis for McLaren's 650S replacement, full car coming soon

McLaren announced today that the replacement for its 650S supercar will make its debut on March 7 at the Geneva auto show. It also unveiled the underpinnings of the new car, which it calls the Monocage II. The chassis is clearly something the company is proud of – it will offer an option called "Visible Monocage" that will leave the interior side of the A-pillars exposed. McLaren does have reason to be proud of the new chassis, as it brings a number of improvements. The company says the door openings are wider, and the sills have been lowered, which should make it much easier to climb into the new car. The company also claims a lower center of gravity, and a lighter dry weight than a comparable 650S. Specifically, the new car will have a dry weight of 2829 pounds, which McLaren says is 40 pounds less than that comparable 650S. That's a pretty sizable reduction. This new Super Series McLaren is also the first of what will be 15 new models the company will release by 2022. Since the Monocage chassis is shared among today's McLarens, expect Monocage II to be used in most if not all of those new vehicles. McLaren hasn't provided many details on what the other 14 models will be, but expect a number of convertible and ultra high-performance variants, many of which will replace current offerings in the Sports, Super, and Ultimate Series. Hybrids will be a big part of the product rollout, too. McLaren has said that its next hybrid will appear sometime closer to 2022, with half of the lineup using hybrid tech by that date. (Currently, only the range-topping P1 features a gas-electric powertrain.) In the meantime, though, we'll be looking forward to seeing the complete 650S replacement this March. Related Video:

McLaren releases new Senna GTR footage and explains that giant wing

McLaren launched the McLaren Tech Club last week with a brief episode about the aerodynamic magic of the open-top McLaren Elva. In part two of the video series, McLaren continues to explain how air and wind affect a car's design, but this time it's in a very different way. McLaren Principal Designer Esteban Palazzo dives into how the massive wing on the McLaren Senna GTR came to be and what purpose it serves. Three extra videos also show new footage of the Senna GTR testing in Bahrain. Like the McLaren F1 GTR and McLaren P1 GTR that preceded it, the Senna GTR's most prominent feature is its multi-tiered, multi-layered, carbon fiber pedestal wing. Palazzo says it was not only inspired by high-performance cars of the past and aircraft design, but also by the likes and tastes of the intended customers. In the case of the Senna GTR, Palazzo mentions science fiction and architecture. The wing, which creates about 2,204 pounds of downforce and aids vehicle stabilization, has a few features that might not be immediately noticeable from photos or video. The shape takes design cues such as the endplates from LMP1 cars. In addition to connecting to the posts, the wing is further integrated into the car's shape with attachments to the rear diffuser. The last piece mentioned is the automatic drag reduction system (DRS), a new piece of moving technology that helps with, well, minimizing drag. After releasing episode two of the McLaren Tech Club, the Brits followed up with three videos of the Senna GTR testing on the Bahrain International Circuit, on which the Senna GTR holds the fastest race lap in the circuit's current configurations. The first video offers an interactive 360-degree interior view, the second video shows the driver's point of view, and the third video is shot from the Senna's front splitter. McLaren does not say who is in the driver's seat. Episode three of the McLaren Tech Club should arrive at a similar time next week. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.