Conquering Le Mans
Le Mans is special. Other races demand huge speed and great handling, but only Le Mans demands it for 24 hours. It’s the perfect proving ground for a supercar, so when we launched the million dollar McLaren F1, our race-inspired sports car, there was an inevitability that it would become a racing car.
Built to win
After many of the car’s owners clamoured to prove its capabilities ‘in anger’, the F1 GTR made its racing debut in the 1995 BRP Karcher Global Endurance GT Series. The car promptly won 10 of that year’s 12 races, reviving a McLaren tradition of racing and winning in sports cars. In the same year came victory at the Le Mans 24 hours race, probably the most demanding on earth. This was significant for us and for motorsports in general. McLaren became the first marque in history to win Le Mans at the first attempt. Even better, we took four out of the top five positions. The feat would be later commemorated by the production of five ‘McLaren Orange’ special edition F1 LMs, one built for each of the 1995 Le Mans finishers.
An instant legend
McLaren F1s went on to win the GT series Championship again in 1996, proving they were as consistent as they were fast. We finished a close second in 1997, after being beaten in the final race of the season. After proving ourselves so comprehensively, we withdrew from the series after the last race of the 1997 season, ending another glorious period for McLaren’s race cars. We had transformed the ultimate sports car into the most successful British race car of modern times.