Jeremy Clarkson McLaren Senna Review | The Grand Tour Seizoen 3

This is the car in question. And let's begin by giving you some of the headlines. There's no hybrid drive like there was in the P1. But even so, the 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 produces 789 horsepower. And that means it's still pretty fast. Okay, right. Left foot on brake. Push launch. Full throttle. Boost building. Boost ready. We're going. More to 60. 6.7 seconds. That's 120. 186. In 18 seconds and flat out it's 200 late. That's really alarming. I'm going to be sick now. Whoa. The thing is, though, that lots of supercars are as fast as the McLaren these days. Some are even more powerful and even more dramatic to behold. But this is called the Senna. It's named after Ayrton Senna, and Ayrton was not a man who spent his evenings cruising around Harrods at nine miles an hour. And nor was he a man who spent much time at drag strips doing the standing quarter. No, Ayrton was a man who made his name at places like this. Racetracks. This is what the Senna was built to do. Get round any track anywhere faster than any other road car ever made. To do this, they had to make it light, and they have. The doors, for example, even though they have windows in them here so passers-by can see the driver's trousers, they only weigh nine kilograms, and that's less than one of Kate Moss's arms. And then there's the seats. They only weigh eight kilograms. I've eaten puddings that weigh more than that. Having got the weight out, the Senna's nearly a quarter of a ton lighter than the P1. They had to think about grip. They started with a new type of Pirelli tyre that clings on like a panicky child on a fairground ride. And then there's this moving rear wing, which is somehow road legal. It actually hangs from these pylons rather than sits on top of them because that improves downforce. I asked James May to explain why, but I'm afraid after three hours, I went into a deep sleep. The next most important thing when it comes to lap times is how well it slows down. I was once in a 24-hour race at Silverstone, driving a terrible old diesel BMW, and yet I could keep up with a supercharged Jaguar XKR because I had better brakes. And look at him getting to the end of the hangar straight, thinking, why are you braking now, you idiot? You don't need to. And that is this car's party piece. To show you how well this car stops, I've organised a little test. Right, I'm currently driving alongside a Jaguar F-Type at 100 miles an hour, and when we get to that cone down there, we're both going to brake. Ready? How can he stop from 100 miles an hour to nothing in that distance? So, it stops like it's run into a wall. It's pressed into the road by witchcraft. It weighs the same as a bag of whippets. And it has nearly 800 horsepower on tap. Put all that together, and, um, well... Bloody hell! It doesn't have the savagery of the P1. The P1 was so scary, it took me two months to get used to it, to discover its little foibles. This, though, even though I'm now in, hunkered-down, tightened-up, vicious race mode, with the traction control wound right back, I'm not frightened at all. I'm starting to push the envelope after 20 minutes. You see, through there, the P1 would have understeered. This just doesn't because there's no weight to push it out of line. It's like you're driving using nothing but telepathy. In the past, I've described various Ferraris as feeling beautifully delicate, but compared to this, they're like elephants. Criticisms? Not many. I mean, the usual McLaren stuff, when you try to change it from comfort to track to sport to race, it's all far too complicated. And I know they saved 15 kilograms not fitting air conditioning, but on a hot day like today, it's quite sweaty. But who cares? Honestly, this thing is rewriting the supercar rulebook in my mind.