Ferrari LaFerrari vs Mclaren P1 vs Porsche 918

Congratulations Mark! The car looks great and the cockpit very purposeful. I drove a 650S lat week and so I can only imagine what the P1 must feel like! Look forward to more review, analysis and your opinions as well as many more photos!

 

Congrats mark hope you enjoy it in good health, what blue is that?

 

It's a custom color we cooked up.

 

Hi Mark,

thank you for sharing the lovely pictures of your P1
I hope you will have many safe miles with that hypercar.

What thrill does the hybrid part of the car give you?

Denny

 

Congrats!

 

I know the interior layout is different, but what I meant was actually dimension wise, same tub so the passenger volume is about the same, except just missing the rear shelf on the 12C and 650S as the battery took over that spot. P1 has more head room from the glass cut out also. I definitely find the P1 seat to be more comfortable.

Headroom in the 918 is lacking that's for sure. I know at least one prospective 918 client canceled his order because at 6'5" he can't fit inside with a helmet on.

Good for you to get your P1!

 

Thanks!

In the P1 you can drive the car and just never think about it being a hybrid (that's the default operation) or you can press the e-mode button and scoot through your neighborhood or town (up to 6 miles) like you're in an exotic golf cart. It's fun. You can also run on gas engine only if you like and add press a button on the wheel for electric boost when you want it. You can decide when to use the engine to charge the hybrid battery or just let the car decide.

McLaren seems to like giving it's drivers access to the gadgets and let them decide what to do with them. The P1, like the 650S, has normal, sport and track settings both for handling (suspension & level of traction control indulgence) and performance (transmission response) and you can mix and match them to suit your driving pleasure. The P1 adds an amazing "race mode" which reconfigures the car by drastically tightening up on the suspension (300% stiffer than normal mode!), raising the rear wing (up to 12 inches!) and lowering the car (2 inches) to massively increase the effects of aerodynamic downforce.

So in essence it's a car then lets you play with all of it's tricks or not as you decide. As a combination gadget guy / car geek I really enjoy that aspect of it. ]

But what the hybrid system does best is fill in the power right when you need it the most. At times when the turbo engine is still building up boost for it's 727HP rocket effect, the 176HP electric engine is already at full bore. So in essence it feels like you have full boost even when you don't. The electric engine fills in the torque at times the turbo can't. The turbo engine however returns the favor by automatically recharging the hybrid battery when it has more power than it can use (any time you're decelerating for example, lots of times when you're coasting and almost any time you're not asking the engines for full power). A really cool thing I noticed last night is that when I drive the engine on "Range extended e-mode" the gas engine is running but ONLY as a generator and the petrol fuel range goes way, way up as I drive. While the hybrid system of the P1 is primarily designed for performance over economy it really is fun to see it helping out in that mode.

I saw some article pointing out something that had never occurred to me before. The P1 in gas engine only is roughly the same horsepower as the Ferrari F12 and the two cars also weigh roughly the same. The advantage in aero and downforce obviously goes to the P1. So think of the already amazingly fast F12 with another 176HP with the instant-on torque that goes with it. That's the P1.

 

man i love that color mark. reminds me of my old world rally blue wrx. congrats and i cant wait for more updates about the car from you

 

Thanks! Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

 

Mark, nicest looking P1 I have seen. Beautiful.

 

I would like to thank you personally for your great attitude. With all the mud slinging and the cool aid drinking on this thread your posts are a delight to read. Hats off to you for being a true enthusiast.

 

Mark, gorgeous gorgeous color. I have seen many P1s but I think yours is the best. Enjoy it in good health and I hope someday soon to see your beautiful car in person at one of the car events this year.

 

Actually it feels like the P1 cockpit is a little larger inside. This is probably due to the dash being a little shorter front-to-back, the seats being thinner & less padded and the console being more vertical so it isn't as close to you.

I think 6'5" would be a challenge for any of the three hypercars (918, LaF and P1) and most supercars too - especially with a helmet. At least in the 918 you can take the roof panels off

Thanks! I'm really enjoying it.

 

Thanks so much. Showing it to you would be enjoyable for me too.

 

Thanks so much for that. I try not to get sucked into the b.s, to allow others to get away with b.s., and more importantly not to provide any b.s. of my own . Plus I just love all these cars and think they've all earned the right to have the truth told about them.

 

Thanks so much. The funny part is that it looks so much better in person than pictures can show. I find the iPhone 6 camera either fails to capture the coarse-edge metallic flakes (think about how the facets on diamond reflect light) making it look darker than it really is in darker/shadowed areas within photos or it gets totally overpowered by them (washing out the color) making it look lighter than it is in bright areas within photos. I've yet to take a picture that even closely matches the actual color of the car.

Folks from McLaren, the dealer, and others who had seen the car in person before I had all warned me about this. I thought it looked just fine in photos so I didn't really give it a second thought. But the moment the car rolled off the truck I completely understood what they were talking about and agreed.

So it really needs to be seen in person to be appreciated. But I'll get a proper camera on it and see if I can capture the true color when we get the right light. Until then just imagine it's even prettier than it looks in these photos

 

See you in Carmel this August? I am one of the people involved in the Concours on the Avenue in Carmel. I would love to see you attend. Would that be interesting for you?

 

next time im passing through north carolina on my way to georgia I will definitely make sure to send you a message! Id love to see it in person.

 

Great description. The F12 is a brute (in a good way) and its difficult to manage the acceleration comfortably on many roads. Your description of the P1 with all that additional torque is quite vivid! Good luck with it.

 

Beautiful, love the custom additions you got.

This colour will look even better in the sun!

 

I'm only 130 miles in but (it has been cold and rainy both days since I last drove it) but so far my P1 has shown me massive amounts of confidence-inspiring grip (way more than my 458 for example) so it feels like it has zero problem getting the power down in useful ways. And, that's on a chilly winter day with maximum tire temperatures that never got higher than the low 70s (rears) and high 60s (fronts) Fahrenheit degrees.

My memory of driving P1 on track (McLaren invited those with deposits down to test drive P1 as hard as they dared on the Top Gear track at Dunsfold) this past summer was that I felt there was so much instant power available I could easily (over) steer the car around corners at-will using the throttle pedal. But I never did it because it never lost grip on its own and I was going so fast on that track that I never wanted to do it.

When the instructor (British GT champion Bradley Ellis) took his turn to do hot laps he never did it either because he wanted to show me how fast the P1 could lap the track and going sideways would never be the fastest way. At the end of my laps when I commented to him that the car gave me so much detailed feedback that I really felt confident even I, a total hack amateur fun-time coward driver, could do the throttle-induced perfectly-controlled oversteer (I.e. power slides) in the most Chris Harris-inspired way he said absolutely I could have on any turn on track and I likely never would have lost control of it even with all the nannies turned off. That's how balanced the P1 is. I'm sure he would have volunteered to show me but I wanted to keep my lunch down

Now that was in summer (UK summer) on a 75 degrees F gorgeous sunny dry day working the tires up to proper temps and blasting it around a track lap after lap after lap with an instructor helping teach you to go faster than you normally would on your own. But it felt just as confident on cold country roads here in the North Carolina winter with (what I consider) cold tires and some bumps on the road.

So bottom line, the P1 definitely isn't giving the scary feeling I'd expect trying to control an F12 under the same conditions and I think that's the best way to explain to someone how hypercars separate themselves from mere supercars. It's not just pure speed itself (which they have) but also incredible levels of grip and control at much higher speeds.

I've not driven LaFerrari yet but everything I've seen review-wise suggests it handles power delivery just as well, or better, than P1. I also got to drive 918 on track this summer. My recollection is that 918 would also stay in check but it had a strangely unnatural way of keeping itself together. Around one really hairy corner the instructor said something along the lines of "now you can really feel how heavy it is", which wasn't a particularly great sales job for me buying one (I didn't), but was totally honest and accurate. Most reviewers seem to have avoided talking about that but you can't escape it behind the wheel.

Your mind feels the 918's extra weight and tells you it's going to break lose and slide but it somehow doesn't and you never really understand how it didn't. With the P1 you would know exactly when it was going to break the back end free (and because it has so much grip and balance that it likely only did it when you forced it to) and you'd know exactly how to manage it. With 918 it feels like once it brakes loose you'd have no idea how to reel it in. Maybe you would if you're Chris Harris (although he says he spun it a few times trying to learn how) but the average joe driver would probably get burned by it. But again this is only happening at speeds so high that mere supercars would have already skidded off the track.

Special fun note.... Unique among the three hypercars the P1 has an extra special "Race Mode" that drops the car down 2 inches, raises the wing up to 12 inches and tightens the suspension to 300% stiffer than its normal road use setting. These changes move P1 up the ladder one notch from hypercar levels performance and grip to near-race-car levels of performance and grip. I got to try that at Dunsfold and at full speed it sticks to the ground like nothing I've ever driven before. That day we were on the normal road going Corsa tires that come with the car but this fall McLaren certified the much stickier Trofeo R track-oriented (but still road legal) tires and the folks I know who have been using them say they improve lap times significantly. I bought a second set of wheels with those mounted and I can't wait for spring when I plan to try them in Race Mode on my home track (VIR) once I've had a session or two on the normal tires to learn the car.

 

It would be a lot of fun but summer is an especially busy time for year for me so I've never been able to make it. McLaren invited me to their hospitality tent there last year but I wasn't able to attend. I did manage to see the beautiful P1 they prepared for that event while at the factory, during a business trip to the UK a few weeks before it, and that car showed me why I wanted the the body-colored stripe inside the door (I'll get a picture of it up soon) that I have on my car.

 

I understand. Let us know if there is chance for you to make it. I am trying to get one each of the hypercars at the show this August.

 

Thanks for the comments Mark! Sounds incredible.

 

I don't think you'll have any problem finding a P1 to come to your event. McLaren hosted an event in LA for a bunch of P1 owners and at dinner several of them were telling me about how they go to Pebble every year and take their best cars with them.