Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

+1000

BTW McLaren is not a passenger car manufacturer in the sense of Toyota, GM or Honda. They are a RACING company that happens to build ultra fast street cars. Proving their cars ability against their main competitors is ALL IMPORTANT

 

look if McLaren don't put up a time this year I don't see the big deal. They can put up a time next year. Or somebody else can. Or just forget the ring and let owners post up their own times at other tracks. The P1 will be at the very least, extremely competitive. Even if it might not win 24 hours of lemans (stock), who really cares about that. If I was going to race the 24 it wouldn't be in any of these cars. I realize a lot of folks hate mclaren, hate RD, hate the p1, just hate everything. personally I think all these cars are are phenomenal in their own way.

 

But then they wouldn't be RACE cars, would they? No 'rules' means you have 'by design', dedicated track machines..ala Zonda R, Radical, etc.

The BMW Z4 at the NB 24..Jim posted a vid of it...that's a ridiculous race car. ~2900lbs, 'only' ~560hp, and a lap time in the 6:30's. Phenomenal grip.

 

except that it IS a big deal, but now being made into a non-issue by Mac...until they are good and ready to make it a big deal again.

 

980, why do you say it IS a big deal? sorry I don't understand. are you getting a car, do you hate RD, mclaren or ? sorry if that come across wrong I'm just trying to understand why it is such a big deal to you.

 

That wasn't the point. The point was that there are probably a lot of cars that can run under 7 minutes quite easily. Road cars would need a lot of work, but I have no doubt in my mind that you could purchase one of many race cars (12C Can Am, 458 GT3, R8 LMS, 911 Cup, etc,) make them unrestricted, and run under 7 minutes.

If the Z4 could do it, I'm sure tons of other ones could too.

 

Well, now that it's a road car company, it's goal is to sell cars and make money. History has shown that you don't have to compare favorably performance-wise to sell cars. Especially not as far as $1M cars are concerned.

They proved themselves with the 12C, but you wouldn't know that based on what you read on Fchat. As of right now, it is either the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd best road car in the world. That's good enough to sell some. After all, I don't think any of the current Ferraris rank that high in terms of all out performance, but no one seems to mind.

I do however believe the P1 will prove to be the quickest on every other track in the world, and that eventually they will release the time for it that could be the quickest. My thoughts are that the 918 was designed for the Ring, whereas the P1 was designed for everywhere else. The 918 will be a jack of all trades and master of one, whereas the P1 will be a master of all trades and jack of one, if you know what I mean.

 

Oh, nothing wrong, relax, I´m not a dangerous socialist or something like that, it´s just that I don´t see car industry as something so... "romantic" as you do. They don´t make cars, they make money, they don´t pretend to build the better car, but the cheaper and of the lowest possible quality car that they can sell. As Luca Montezemolo said: we are like General Motors, just on a different scale.

I also think that for luxury stuff manufacturers it´s more important to make the product that customers desire instead of the product that customers really need, and that this desirability can be faked with ingenious PR stunts, like timed laps.

But this is off topic.

 

I wonder who's gonna buy a € 1 M pig in a poke?

The F1 circus is all about being fastest on various circuits throughout the year in order to become driver's and constructors world champions, so why should that winning approach no longer be important when it comes to street legal supersports cars, especially when built by a most experienced F1 team player?

Unfortunately its quite telling that McLaren doesn't have the guts to publish the truth, as the P1 obviously was slower than the substantial heavier, technical superior, less costly and eco-friendly-3-liter Porsche 918 Spyder around Nurburgring, despite McLaren's most promising PR announcements ...

At the end, its not about Nurburgring lap times at all, second fastest or third fastest is still a very good thing on this supersports car level, but what is worse is the incapability to communicate the truth, in Formula 1 terms this would have been impossible anyway, cause if your car doesn't perform, you're out, or you need to fix it, so that it does pick up again with your competitors performance, simple as that ...

The same goes for the LaFerrari myth and current Nurburgring testing, there is rumors that Ferrari still fights with busting tires, as it seems that their "brilliant" drive train even outperforms its own tires ... again the LaFerrari must be tremendously fast - on paper ...

Only Porsche did an excellent job so far!!!

Mclaren lost big time here, i am afraid, the only way out for McLaren is, in order to prevent a real P1(R) disaster, to deliver an official ring time - at least sub 6:57 - as promised!!!

Go Chris Go and no excuses, please, i know you can do it, if you really, really want, otherwise give your baby to most capable hands of german locals like Marc "Nurburgringer" Lieb, Timo "Hot Lap" Glock, Timo "Grip Hero" Kluck, Marc "Lord of the ring" Basseng, or straight to Sebastian "Master Driver" Loeb, if the P1 is a hyper car he will be THE ONE capable to turn green hell into orange heaven the same way he mastered Pikes Peak in a Peugeot ...

Otherwise the P1 hype seems to me a tiger on paper designed by Ron's hot air only ... and the only world novelty from McLaren is, they have chosen to put looks over performance to compete with Batmobiles of this world ...

 

The new EVO magazine ( Issue 190) has a full insider article about the P1's recent 'Ring attempts. It says that Mclaren will never reveal the P1's laptime achieved.

 

Haven't checked on this thread in a while but now I'm all caught up. A few thoughts:

McLaren's claim that it won't reveal its NS time for "safety reasons" just smacks of unadulterated horse ****. If they had a whopping time, they'd reveal it. If they could beat the 918 time "comfortably" then it shouldn't be a "safety issue" right? [Rolls eyes]

While McLaren apparently didn't build the fastest road car (it looks like Porsche very may well have, with its AWD and monster torque numbers), I think the McLaren will still be the fastest, with LF not too far behind, on "real" racetracks, where it can take advantage of its alleged big downforce numbers at its sub-3" ride height. Go back a couple hundred posts and see that I had my doubts about McLaren's ability to do what it claimed in anything like "streetable" form - with particular doubt about its ride height.

Bill S has sort of lost the plot with a few of his comments (I generally really like his point of view) but I agree with him that building a sub 7 min NS car can be done fairly simply and cheaply. Make a light, strong chassis, bolt huge slicks and huge wings on it, and put a twin turbo 8 liter V8 in the back and it can be done for low 6 figures, if you have a driver brave enough. The real trick is getting under 7 while sticking to some sanctioning body's arbitrary rule book and/or doing it with a car that is quasi-realistic to drive on the road, and that meets crash and emissions standards. You can have it cheap, fast, or by the applicable rules. Pick any two.

 

I think that's a wise business decision (again, for street cars). Maybe Porsche will follow next.

Ferrari, Porsche and McLaren have been selling cars the "old" way for years. This Ring time thing it pretty new and most buyers don't care about it. Too much politics, safety concerns, variables, lack of rules, etc that McLaren already enumerated.

For example, the MC4-12C did 7:28 at the Ring and the Porsche CGT the same. But on the street, the MC4-12C accelerates significantly faster than the CGT (in my own personal experience). That's not shown in the Ring time, but is shown in the "old" acceleration data from the OEMs, magazines, and owner tests.

I prefer the old way, it's more fun. As owners, we're not going to try and kill ourselves at the Ring in our street cars. We can go to safe places, have fun, and publish the results for all to enjoy. The magazines can help supplement that, as they always have.

I think the acceleration thread we have going here is great. Yes, it's acceleration only, but it's from real owners. Hope to see more owner contributions.

 

Agreed 100%. Sorry for losing the plot. But I think the plot will start fleshing out as time goes on. McLaren's comments (and mine) are reflected from some pretty smart marketing folks. Sales may actually increase as a result.

 

It's good that you feel it is horse **** because that isn't what McLaren have said at all.

Don't confuse the comments and opinions expressed by EVO magazine editor, Nick Trott, with a statement made by McLaren. Their statement was only that they had achieved their goal of completing a lap in less than 7:00. They offered no explanation as to why they don't intend to release their actual lap time.

>8^)
ER

 

Whether the secrecy is due to the lame excuse of "safety" or some other undisclosed reason (what could that be I wonder?), it's equally horse****. They talked the talk. If the car walks the walk, out with it. Otherwise all indicators point to one conclusion.

And for the record I'd like to be wrong - McLaren's approach, while aesthetically not to my taste, is closer to what I think hypercars should be than Porsche's technical overkill.

 

Feel free to be upset that they haven't released a time. I get that a lot of people will have that reaction despite these times being largely irrelevant.

I don't care much about the numbers but would love to see the P1 on a flyer around the Ring and would guess we might not get that either. McLaren have not explained their reasoning but we may discover more tomorrow when the P1 appears at the Dubai Motor Show with Chris Goodwin on the stand.

 

It's not for ME personally. in this day and age, how in the world do you not notice the significance of the NB? Endless marketing derived from 'The Ring'...even ordinary passenger cars use it. Perception. Cache. Yardstick. Whatever. If it wasn't important to Mac, what have they been doing there? Giving rides to Joe Schmoe's? I have no doubt the P1 has done a super lap...even cracked 7 min. BUT, Porsche has messed with everyone's heads with their 'unexpected' performance. after A Lot of talk, Mac has done an about face. Curious what they will say soon-ish. I don't hate at any level. I'm not deeply/personally invested like that. I just call it like I see it.

 

All this talk about ring times just seems to going around in circles. Many have theorised about what effect it actually has on the people in a position to buy these cars. Well now we have the answer.

This months EVO magazine not only has a huge article about the P1 and its recent Ring adventure's but more interesting has spoken to an owner and future owner.

As some of you may have seen Paul Bailey has taken possession of his orange P1 and his opinon is that the Ring times are irrelevant. In his own words, "The Ring times are only important to people who spend their time on the internet"

The other buyer who writes for EVO on his super car collection agrees, he said "In terms of it affecting a purchase decision, he could not care less" And found the whole internet speculation rather amusing.

Paul Bailey has said that he wants to use his as much as possible and was disappointed that McLaren did not offer winter tyres yet. He sounds like my kind of guy. As a side note he also has a LaFerrari and a 918 on order.

So in conclusion, as amusing as it might be for us internet warriors to speculate on these things, to the guys buying these cars they don’t seem to care. Now a straw pole of only two is a very small sample but to be honest I would expect others in their positions to say the same

 

To be perfectly fair, all of this talk about drivers risking their lives for the sake of marketing is complete and utter bull****. EVO were going to run a cover story based entirely on the P1's record-breaking Nurburgring lap time, but then, when they failed to achieve it, McLaren announced that they will never disclose the time and EVO have a sudden change of heart and scrapped the P1 lap time article in favor of a new article condemning manufacturers that use Nurburgring lap times for marketing purposes. Absolutely pathetic.

They never said a bad word about the Nurburgring before McLaren failed to deliver on their promise. Now, Nick Trott says that the Nurburgring should not be used as the benchmark because it's not worth the risk to the drivers lives - why didn't he say that before McLaren sent their team of drivers around the track with orders to push the P1 to it's absolute limits, risking their lives in the process? Would his 'Editors Note' have been any different if McLaren did succeed? Would Paul Bailey contribution to this months issue still focus on how lap times are of little importance to him?

Both McLaren and EVO have well and truly disappointed this week.

 

While i never really cared for absolute lap time at the ring and always said as long as the car is fast enough and in the same ball park as the competition, then it's enough. The ring is such a particular place that you can never really compare times unless the driver/weather/day/tires are the same.

However, Mclaren not wanting to disclose their lap time is strange. They should have just kept quiet even after the P1 was seen there. But saying they will not disclose it means that they do have a laptime but will not disclose it.

Either they are being very cautious and want to end this lap time war because they fear that it will never end otherwise or are afraid someone gets hurt (hard to believe but you never know) or the laptime is disappointing. If they do not share it, i fear most people will chose to believe the laptime was not fast enough...

 

+1

 

They still ran their P1 at the Ring article - it's really quite a good read. It just doesn't include a time.

The words from Nick Trott aren't really an article - it's his Editor's Note at the front of the magazine.

>8^)
ER

 

OK. Regardless, very bad form from both McLaren and Nick Trott. McLaren couldn't perform at the Ring so Ring times aren't important now? Should we forget about the immensely impressive time Porsche achieved with the 918? The P1's failure has really taken the shine off their victory.

 

I love the false concern for the team mfg test drivers... The are professionals. This is what they do. They know the risks and accept it.

One notable member's position is clearly:
Let the owners do it.
Let the magazines do it

I can't get my head around the lack of similar concern for these individuals.

I fail to see the difference.

The logical conclusion to this line of thinking is no road tests above legal speeds. I don't see how any other position is consistent with the argument of unnecessary risk.

 

Times might not matter to the mayority of buyers of this car threesome, but enthusiasts that buy the apparel, scale cars, videogames, etc care. Just ask Ferrari how important merchandising is to them.

If Ferrari doesn't post a better time, Porsche is gonna make millions with their ring record.

Future exotic buyer kids and teenagers care about this numbers, hell, the Mc F1 made a lot of it's reputation thanks to the 239 mph record. Non car enthusiasts that are able to buy an MP4, 911, or 458 care about this numbers, it's about the brand marketing. Just ask Jim how his still-unproved and nonexistent P4/5 C Nürburgring "record" has brought sponsors.

"The P1 is a smooth track murderer" - "Yeah but the 918 is faster at the Ring", "LaFerrari has soul" - "Yeah but the 918 is faster at the Ring". kid discussions that still do happen in one way or the other in the "gentleman" forums filled with "cognoscenti".

And then all the braggers and supporters do a 180 and say, "nah, it isn't that big of a deal", pathetic. Stand up for what you said.

If McLaren had said they did a 6:4X the McFans would be oozing and laughing at the Ferraristi, but it didn't happen, and now they are supporting Woking's silence because "they don't need to play this game" or some other excuse.

"sore losers, obnoxious winners"