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McLaren just built its 20,000th car since its road car revival in 2011

Nearly two and a half years ago we wrote a story about McLaren building its 10,000th vehicle since its reentry into the road car market. Today, McLaren built its 20,000th vehicle (a 600LT Spider in Chicane Grey) since its revival. For a bit of perspective, it took the British supercar maker a little over five years to build the first 10,000 cars. Now it has managed to build the same amount of cars in half the time. This doesn't exactly come as a surprise, as McLaren has far more models now than when it started with only the MP4-12C in 2011. Even as McLaren truly takes up its place as a "high-volume" supercar manufacturer, it's still smaller than Ferrari and Lamborghini. The prancing horse managed to move 9,251 cars in 2018, while McLaren built just 4,806. Lamborghini did slightly better at 5,750 cars. This doesn't seem to bother McLaren much, as it says it plans to keep output at approximately 5,000 cars per year into the next decade. A small increase to 6,000 cars per year is expected as the company executes its "Track25" plan to introduce more models. Every one of the McLarens built since 2011 has been assembled at the company's production center in Woking, Surrey. McLaren credits part of the sharp increase in production to the addition of a second shift at the manufacturing center, implemented in 2016. We completely expect McLaren to remain lower-volume than Ferrari and Lamborghini in the coming years, especially as those two companies venture into the world of SUVs. The Urus is already out, and Ferrari's performance crossover will likely add even more volume. McLaren has repeatedly said it has no intention of getting into the SUV market.

F1's Fernando Alonso staying at McLaren in 2018

AUSTIN, Texas — Double world champion Fernando Alonso will stay with McLaren in 2018, the team said on Thursday in a long-expected announcement that finally ended one of the sagas of the Formula One season. McLaren did not say whether the new contract extended beyond next year. The Spaniard has endured a miserable three years with the British-based former world champions and had refused to commit to staying until he felt they could provide him with a competitive car. McLaren have gone some way towards answering those doubts by ending a troubled partnership with Honda and switching to Renault engines in 2018. "It's fantastic to be able to continue my relationship with everybody at McLaren. It was always where my heart was telling me to stay, and I really feel at home here," the Spaniard said in a team statement at the U.S. Grand Prix. "McLaren has the technical resource and financial strength to be able to very quickly win races and world championships in F1," added the 36-year-old, who won his two championships with Renault in 2005 and 2006. "Although the last few years have not been easy, we have never forgotten how to win, and I believe we can achieve that again soon." Alonso has not been on the podium since 2014, when he was with Ferrari. His last win was in Spain in 2013, again with the Italian team. McLaren is currently ninth overall, out of 10 teams, and the season ranks as the worst of Alonso's career with the exception of his debut year with now-defunct tail-enders Minardi. He has six retirements in 16 races so far in 2017, and failed to start in Russia while also missing Monaco to compete at the Indianapolis 500 in May. The Spaniard has scored points only twice. McLaren executive director Zak Brown said continuing with Alonso, as team mate to Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne, had always been the obvious thing to do. "His commitment will allow us to further improve the attractiveness and potential of the wider Group, and will ensure we head into 2018 feeling increasingly confident that we'll be able to take a meaningful step forward," he said. "Fernando fully understands and buys in to the direction we are taking. "Our shareholders have ambitious plans for the whole Group, and success within Formula One is a central pillar of that strategy. With Fernando, there is no doubt that we have a driver who can help us achieve our goal of winning again in F1." Reporting by Alan BaldwinRelated Video:

Race recap: 2016 Bahrain Grand Prix was everything good and bad about F1

Nothing was as it seemed heading into Bahrain. We were told team bosses had nixed the qualifying experiment that flunked every test by every measure in Australia, but that didn't happen. The FIA didn't give the teams the option of a wholesale return to the old format, the governing body only held a vote on whether to revert back to the old format in Q3 but stick with elimination gimmicks in Q1 and Q2. McLaren and Red Bull dissented, denying the chance for hybrid rounds. We're surprised none of the smaller teams voted against since elimination qualifying is hardest on them. Given the chance to fix the system again in Bahrain, Formula 1 failed again. The FIA and Bernie Ecclestone don't want to go back to the old system – because the race promoters don't want to go back to the old system – so all we know for sure is that there will be more meetings. We also thought Fernando Alonso would race in Bahrain after being given medical clearance, but a follow-up scan by the FIA showed fractured ribs and a damaged lung, ruling him out. And we thought Ferrari might have the pace to conquer Mercedes-AMG Petronas this year – and they might yet, but not on Saturday. That's why the Bahrain race began with another Mercedes one-two, Lewis Hamilton ahead of Nico Rosberg, Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen behind. The Australian outback is plagued with rabbits, which must have something to do with how Daniel Ricciardo keeps pulling them out of his helmet; the Aussie got his Red Bull up to a surprising fifth on the grid. Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas in sixth and Felipe Massa in seventh would need to get him out of the way quickly to show what the car can do after an unsatisfying race in Australia. Nico Hulkenberg lined up in eighth for Sahara Force India. As proof the qualifying format failed again with its sophomore attempt, the last five minutes of Q2 were disappointing. Hulkenberg had the track completely to himself for his quali run, the only two cars on track after him were the Williams duo who weren't setting a time, but getting a set of soft tires ready to start the race on. As for Q1, the only reason for on-track action in the last three minutes was because Hamilton flubbed his first timed run. Romain Grosjean continued Haas F1's fruitful start to the season with ninth place, ahead of Max Verstappen in the Toro Rosso closing out the top ten. At the end of a long red light to start the race, Rosberg claimed his right to victory before Turn 1.