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McLaren won’t talk tech, so let’s go for a bit of speculation. I don’t think they’re off to chase Bugatti – that’s a dead-end street with a Chiron-sized road block in it. I think it’s going to be superb, the sensation of being sat centrally when however much horsepower kicks you into hyperspace.
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The plan is to keep all buttons off the steering wheel, to minimise distraction and concentrate on the driving. It’s by no means perfect just yet – you really notice the pedal offset when everything else is so in-line, and the windscreen still has all the sensors centre-top.
#ARE THEY EVER GONNA RELEASE PROTOTYPE 3 DRIVER#
And that’s it, as the driver you feel you’re the focus of the car, at the point of things. I barely even noticed the infotainment screen – it feels less of a distraction when your eye is drawn more to a focal point outside. Like that, this comes across as a pure and dedicated driving machine because it literally puts the driver front and centre. I’ve never driven a McLaren F1, so the only similar thing I’ve got to compare it to is a BAC Mono. Similarly you find yourself giving a wide berth to kerbs at junctions as you get used to the sensation.īut then it feels so natural, a far better place to experience the movements and sensation that driving delivers. Initially you do keep having to correct your road position and remind yourself to stay central in the lane or you find yourself subconsciously drifting right to line yourself up in the normal place. Ten minutes of crawling around the perimeter roads and car parks of Dunsfold’s industrial park and I’m happy. It’s amazing how quickly you adapt to the central position. Palmer expects they’ll end up mounting the internal screens lower. The original F1 prototype had mirrors mounted high up on the A-pillars, so I wouldn’t be surprised if BP23 went for a similar arrangement. Mounted on top of each side mirror are extra housings containing rear -view cameras – it’s a solution that would reduce drag and improve side visibility. “We will have two cupholders, and three inertia reel seatbelts”, Palmer says. I find myself wondering about sun visors, seatbelts and cupholders… Here, instead of feeling like you have three separate outward aspects (windscreen and side windows) it feels like one panoramic view. Leaving aside the butchered instruments and skeletal layout, the first thing that strikes you is the symmetry, with the steering wheel as the focal point of everything, then, perhaps oddly, it’s the shape of the side windows. The feeling once you’re in is utterly different to a 720S. BP1 was the 12C-based McLaren X-1) is likely to have electric doors. I reckon the production BP23 (it stands for Bespoke Prototype 2, with 3 seats. The open floor gives you footspace, but it still takes me half a dozen attempts before I reckon I’m happy with a technique.Īnd once settled in the seat I can only barely reach to pull the door down. My technique is to settle on the lip of the outer seat, and then using the door aperture for lift and leverage, post myself across and forwards. “We’ve got a buck and we’ve had people get in so many different ways,” Andy says, “sitting in then swinging their legs around, going in head first…” Given this is a hyper GT, I’m going for something a little more dignified. Faster, too? I’ll come back to that later. The plan is for the BP23 to be easier to use. That car had the same three-seat layout – centre forward and two flankers to convolute a couple of sports references – but also put the driver between two semi-structural spines (gearlever on the right, handbrake on the left) that carried many functions and were a pain to negotiate. The comparison and relation to the McLaren F1 is unavoidable. We know it’ll be hybrid, aimed more at road than track, have a slippery body and be McLaren’s most powerful and fastest car ever – but they haven’t defined that explicitly. The BP23 itself will use a bespoke, albeit similar, version of this carbon structure, but McLaren is coy about giving away many details at present. They now have a flat floor all the way across. McLaren had to modify the Monocage II carbon tub, as the central spine of the standard 720S carries the coolant pipes and wiring. You don’t need me to tell you that shuffling the driver into the centre of the car is a tricky job. In fact, it’s the very first mule of the BP23 McLaren has built – powertrain prototypes won’t commence testing until later this year. This car has been on the road just a couple of weeks.