A pre-production Senna and an empty Pacific Coast Highway teach us what a thrilling hypercar should be.
Our McLaren Senna First Drive Review
- "Powered by anticipation, excitement, and a dash of anxiety, I walked into the garage of the Portola Hotel in Monterey Bay, where the MSO Kyanos Blue Senna sat. It was the peak of Car Week, and a dozen young car spotters wielding supercar-hungry cameras swarmed the awaiting McLaren."
- "Despite the outpouring of attention, the Senna doesn’t stop traffic because it looks good. It is the clearest example of a car that prioritizes function over form, with its purposeful design generating a feeling of shock and awe. It’s a car you gaze upon with disbelief that it even exists."
- "In the Senna, it’s easy to settle into what seems like an entirely normal driving experience until it’s suddenly not. Try to lower a window, and you’ll encounter an opening large enough to fit a postcard. Oh, and the switch that operates it is now on the roof, as is the start button and the door release."
- "It changes direction instantly without hesitation, its steering feeling almost telepathically quick. Its electro-hydraulic setup transmits every last road feature with near-constant feedback, even while resting on center."
- "Viewed through this lens, the Senna was, in retrospect, ahead of its time. Even when new, it didn’t have the most horsepower or the quickest in a straight line. Instead, it takes the concept of the racecar for the road and focuses it to offer a memorable experience."
The McLaren Senna Gallery
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Overview
The McLaren Senna is a high-performance hypercar designed to deliver racecar-like performance while being street legal. Named after the legendary Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, the car is built with a singular focus on track dominance. Its lightweight carbon fiber structure, active aerodynamics, and powerful 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engine, producing 789 horsepower and 800 Nm of torque, give the Senna an exceptional power-to-weight ratio, enabling blistering acceleration and precise handling.
The Senna's race-inspired design includes an aggressive rear wing and an advanced suspension system, both of which help maximize downforce and stability at high speeds, making it one of the most agile and responsive cars in its class. The car features minimalistic interiors, sacrificing comfort for weight reduction and a direct connection to the driving experience.
When compared to other race-ready street cars like the Ferrari SF90 Stradale or Porsche 911 GT3 RS, the McLaren Senna distinguishes itself with its uncompromising focus on track performance. While the Ferrari and Porsche offer a balance between road comfort and track capability, the Senna leans heavily toward the latter, with a raw, visceral driving feel and technology that borrows heavily from McLaren's Formula One expertise. This makes the Senna less of a daily driver and more of a specialized tool for the enthusiast looking to experience the closest thing to a race car on public roads.
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