Ride on board as the McLaren F1 is driven to its very limit. Reaching a maximum speed of 391km/h (243mph), the F1 proves it's still one of the world's fastest cars
Naturally aspirated. 6,0 liters (370cui). V12. No turbos. No superchargers. Designed by Gordon Murray in 1992. Almost a quarter of a century later still the fastest NA car. Won the 24 Hours of LeMans outright first time trying in 1995. Need I say more?
+Cassius Chaerea I know dude its crazy how can a car built over 20 years ago still be so technologically advanced even by todays standards the shamefull thing is if the Veyron had never been built this would still be the worlds fastest production car lol
this is the reason the car is worth the price and also why it increases in value and you forgot to mention the gold plated engine bay. everything about this car is awesome
***** And the other thing I can't understand is Le Mans car's top speed. 30 years ago they hit 400km/h, today is 340km/h (same hp and torque, same downforce). This is not cause of the Mulsanne chicanes.
Ha ha! He's a Le Mans winner. He came in 3rd place in the 1995 Le Mans with the F1 GTR in it's debut showing. Andy Wallace is also now Volkswagen's test driver for the Chiron -- check out the video on Shmee150's channel.
Andy Wallace went 491 km/h with the Bugatti Chiron Longtail 21 years after his 391km/h record with the McLaren F1. Though considering the Chiron has another 1000hp on the F1 this makes the F1's record in 1998 even more remarkable.
The F1 probably made around 670 HP due to the ram air effect at this speed, but it's still remarkable how fast it went (still the fastest NA car) or how ridiculous the acceleration from 270 to 385 was. Actually it does take a lot more power to go faster, it's proportional to the cube of the speed. But, a car as small and sleek as the F1 could have reached it with 1400 HP.
@@srinitaaigaura Yeah, that high speed acceleration was cool, if you look at modern sport cars with around the same power and torque, they struggle to reach 330 or 340 km/h top speed which is a shame. Many of them are a lot heavier than the F1 and perhaps create more downforce too.
@@srinitaaigaura Is there footage of that car reaching that speed yet? If not, I remain skeptical. I looked at that the Chiron SS looks like and I don't see where it would be getting enough downforce to stay stable at that speed. Unless it's all super high tech stuff under the car. Also maybe a spoiler automatically deploys at a certain speed, like the Bugatti Veyron.
@@srinitaaigaura The Chiron SS has many stability control and electronic systems including power steering. This doesnt and I could imagine that makes a huge difference.
@@michaelnemm1316 The engineers were scared because the F1 was super high off the ground and bumps could upset the balance of the car because it made little to no downforce at all. Just look at how much the soft suspension heaves and dives when he lifts off! These days hypercars lower themselves down and set up active aero and rake and suspension stiffness to do these vmax runs. The F1 was never really designed to go that fast, but it did.
@@Bm95565Ok BMW gave the engine, but BMW has nothing to do with McLaren, they only gave the engine McLaren modified the engine to be able to put it in the F1, why if that were the case, why did BMW never create a supercar? and Mercedes has supercars
I think Aby was referring to this specific car, the McLaren F1 and not the brand in whole. But back in 93 when this car was launched the best Porsche and Ferrari could muster was the 959 and F40/F50 which did not come close in terms of performance to the F1. Still all brilliant cars though.
@@miljororforsprakpartiet290 Yea... When James May did the top speed run in the Veyron back in the day he said he thought he was about to stop and open the door but he was still doing 200 kph
Mario Andretti drove one and said:"This car could easily have pulled another gear." So it seems it was at least theoretically capable of reaching the magical 400km/h, with no turbos or supercharger, in 1998. Ahead of its time? You bet.
+Paul Allen well stands to reason if some modern racing company tuned one of these today they could get 1000bhp from this engine and probably 270mph but yeah it could have used an extra gear then it would have been a little faster
Let this sink in our heads for a moment...390 km/h... - In a car from the 90s. - which had only 620 horsepower. - which was powered by a V12. - which was naturally aspirated. - And it relied only on its light weight and aerodynamics. When you compare this to the Bugatti veyron which had 4 more cylinders and was forcefully induced by 4 turbos and had to meet the right weather conditions. You begin to realise how insane technology was back at the time.
@@theflanman420420 dammit guys this is why Americans lose online arguments! Am I the only American who knows that you should not have your argument about car engines be "well you Brits have fucked up teeth"?! It's a simple concept god damn!
Scary to think that this car won an overall victory at LeMans without it s production undertray/splitter. They had to run a flat bottom and a bigger rear wing to meet ACO/FIA specs. it also managed to finihs 4th overall twice and 2nd once competing against prototypes and GT1 class cars like the Porsche GT1 98 and the Walkinshaw Porsche WSC95 in the three years after its overall win. Hell of a machine.
+Joe M Yes, and it wasn't even designed to be raced at all in the first place. Originally Gordon Murray intended to make the ultimate roadcar. When not enough of them were sold in the mid 90's and requests came for a racing version he gave in to demand and modified it for racing. The GTR version has a weaker engine though due to the mandatory air intake restrictions.
AND this was also before Porsche discovered that anti-lock brakes were not actually against he ACO rules. There are some videos out there of the F1 locking up the fronts coming into curves hard.
Love when the driver says "But anyway, 391 is quite fast, isn't it?" It is 2021 and this car is still the fastest NA road car and for me, this is the greatest car ever built and still looks amazing, not dated.
horse power is one thing, but aero drag is the real deal... you can propel a flat box to 300mph, but probably would need 3000-4000hp to overcome the drag!
@@mytester6208 Id say even more than that, drag does go up by v^2 (velocity squared) as well as frontal area which in of itself is a square of the sizes if we're talking about a square area.
+Mohammed Monabbir 253 in the Veyron required over 1,000 HP in a Quad-Turbocharged W16 engine. 243 in the F1 simply required a 627 HP 6.0 litre naturally aspirated V12. The fact that it's only 10 MPH off is truly outstanding.
+HGCentral while you're at it, another one is the dodge m4s turbo interceptor, which managed, with just a 2.2L twin turbo 4 cylinder engine, a speed of 195 mph
How about BMW's M12/13 4 pot 1.5 liter MONSTER? 1350hp in qualifying! They used to seal the wastegate and force in around 5.4 BAR(85 PSI) of vacuum pressure!
The acceleration numbers on that last run from 250 kmph coming out of the banking are ridiculous even by hypercar standards. Reproducing the timestamps below : @1:51 - 250 kmph @1:54 - 270 kmph (250-270 in 3 sec) @1:58 - 300 kmph (250 - 300 kmph in 7 sec in 6th gear mind you. Ideally 5th would have been suitable from 250 up to 300 kmph, but Andy Wallace did not want to lose time upshifting and went flat out on the main straight. @2:01 - 320 kmph (200 mph) -- 300-320 in 3 sec. even the hypercar trio start to get speed limited here & can't go from 300-320 in 3 sec dead. @2:03 - 330 kmph - 300-330 in 5 sec. @2:08 - 350 kmph - 300-350 in just 10 sec ! @2:12 - 360 kmph - 350-360 in 4 sec @2:16 - 370 kmph - 360-370 in 4 sec @2:19 - 375 kmph (rev limited top speed) @2:23 - 380 kmph - 370-380 in 7 sec (now past the rev limiter, the acceleration starts to decline) @2:28 - 385 kmph (up to this point the acceleration has been so relentless, the car could definitely have pulled a 7th gear). @2:42 - 390 kmph (only now does the acceleration begin to taper off) -- it took just 50 sec to get here. @2:45 - 391 kmph (unsteady) -- it took less than 1 min from 250 kmph !! @2:53 - 391 kmph (STILL the record speed for fastest naturally aspirated production car 14 years on, unbelievable to think that it might have been even faster with a 7th gear)
+srinitaaigaura what really makes this car impressive is it's so scary fast at only 625 hp... I mean.... what other car at in that power range can ever come at least close to this kind of performance... the ferrari enzo is 660 and gets seriously smoked in acceleration and top speed is only about 350, and it's accelerating power dies out pretty quick, by the time which the mclaren is just warming up and has still a long stretch of power to tap into... lamborghini aventador has got way more power than that and and does what, 350 km/h... lastly, the la ferrari has got 950 hp and shamefully won't beat a 625 hp from more than 20 years ago... the bugatti veyron has got double its power, 16 cylinders four turbos and still is only 20 km faster than the mclaren f1... honestly, man none of these new cars is nearly as impressive as the f1... they are all big power figures, fancy stuff but, compared to the F1, will perform poorly... they might as well just relaunch the f1 with minor updates, same chassis, engine and gear ratios, and kick competition right in the ass... when mclaren announced a new supercar after 20 years everybody thought it would me a proper replacement for the f1, like it would be faster... what they turned out though fell far short from what everybody expected.. and so the f1 has become the fastest non turbo road car ever, since mclaren failed to deliver a proper replacement for it.. and the more companies come up with newer, more computer packed, more ridiculously powered, cars that, depite having way more power, will get their sorry ass wooped by the f1 down the stretch, the more tehy contribute to make the f1 a timeless legend and benchmark in auto industry, and people will always say the F1 is better because they are just stating the truth... unless someone comes up with a car that makes every horse power in its trim count, that converts every hp it's got into more km/h... that has got the elasticity to keep on building up speed long after other supercars have already toped out... I'm telling you, new age supercars don't impress with their muscular numbers and modern looks... because they still get beat by the f1 any day...
+eddie scythe Top speed is no longer the performance metric as track times and super sticky tires are what electronically limit supercars. Also the aero. The F1 is actually a surprisingly tiny car, with a very low drag coefficient and almost nothing in the way of drag inducing aerodynamic devices -- it is as sleek and smooth and slippery as you can get. It weights 350 kg less than any modern supercar with no driving aids, no front boot but still can store much more in the side compartments than other supercars, and no electronic speed limiter past 180 mph, all it has for downforce are the diffuser, ground effect and two fans to produce fan assisted downforce -- and the roar of that engine. That's why it could get so fast, but XP5 is still a road car, not a track car. But as you can see, overreving beyond what the rev limiter restrains the engine to can overheat the gearbox. Still the acceleration clearly shows it can pull one more gear.
riKringkast that you on the photo? if so you're pretty and likes cars which double your chances of being a serious hearththrob... well thanks for the comment
The really impressive part IMO is not just the crazy top speed, but the way it picks up in 6th gear, out of those banked corners. You'll notice he is in 6th gear the entire time, and yet when he floors it at 240-250km/h out of those corners, it hits 300km/h+ in the blink of an eye. And that's with "only" 627hp, much less than most of the supercars today, yet they can't match this.
It doesn't matter what gear really, it's about gearing. Could also be possible to reach 400 km/h with 4-speed transmission but inefficient in acceleration
MrTURBOJOHN ummmmm yea, All cars by that time needed to use fuel injection because of emission reasons of Fucking up your Catalytic converter with carburetors. :)
+TheBlackdragon936 I know BMW produce insane engines for example the old M5 V10 engine unlimited would hit 208 mph that's a 4 door family saloon that will out accelerate a Ferrari its insane
I did a small calculation with the Cd and HP and found that 627 HP is exactly enough to reach 391 kmph. Now if the LM engine producing 680 HP was fitted to this car, it would have equalled the Veyron's top speed! Can you believe that?
This is a true sports car. Probably the most honest raw example sports car made. The Bugatti is an amazing luxury car that goes really fast. It doesn't have the heritage of the F1.
No traction control. No launch control. No Power steering. No Poncey DSG gearbox. No turbocharging. And no 4WD, yet the Mclaren F1 could do about 240mph. A standard Veyron has all the technology and FOUR turbos and its only 13mph quicker?? Bugatti / Volkswagen should be ashamed of themselves.
In 1992, this car went 243 MPH, a speed that wouldn't be matched for 15 years. All engine, no turbo, no BS. Just a brick of a car, very little aerodynamics. This same car, same engine with slightly better aerodynamics could have gone 260. None the less, the greatest sports car ever produced...
+umaxen01 Brick of a car! Not at all -- It is incredibly aerodynamic with almost nothing in the way of wings or active aero that increase drag. It's frontal area is incredibly low and it has no front boot to beef up it's front side either.
It also helps when you have Paul Rosche of BMW designing it. Another one of his claims to fame was the BMW F1 4 cyl turbo in the 1980s (Brabham-BMW) that put out about 1400 bhp. The dyno only went up to about 1100 to 1200. Paul guessed it was around 1400 bhp.
Its true to an extent and if you were to debate it the Mclaren F1 would still be the fastest N/A car in the world BUT all of the cars that have come since, with the exception of the Koenigsegg that set the record a few years ago have all been over 7 liters but required forced induction despite that. (Ultimate Aero, Hennessy Venom, Bugatti Veyron, etc)
Best super cars ever been made imo: 1. Ferrari F40 2. McLaren F1 3. Ferrari Enzo 4. Pagani Zonda Cinque 5. Porsche Carrera GT I'd take any of them over modern super/hyper cars, including the holy trinity: P1, LaFerrari and 918
Let this sink in for a second, the veyron were created to beat this by 10mph at the top end. To do that, they needed double the horsepower that this had!! Bonkers! The Mclaren F1 is the ultimate king of cars far far ahead of its time..
I'd like to see what the F1 GTR with a modern gearbox, suspension and tires would do. It would destroy, thats what it would do. Still the best car ever made.
The GTR would actually have a much lower top speed i believe. Its gear ratios are made for going around a track in the fastest manner possible not top speed. It wouldn't surprise me if the GTR wouldn't go past 200 MPH
@@MrInfernalStorm It woulnt. Several options exist with 8-9 gear boxes which allow for quick acceleration around the track and have the two final gears all there for top speed. Example in F1 and the hybrids series, where the DRS boost kicks the car suddenly to the max of its engine's output, its neccecary to have these final two gears designed for maximum speed.
Can we talk about how GOOD that BMW V12 sounds?? With V12s it’s usually Ferrari and Lamborghini that come to mind but man this engine has a really pure sound to it, it’s amazing 🤩
Incredible, especially taking into account the F1 is an old car now. I actually thought it could " only " do 371 km/h. Still among the fastests cars in the world today and faster than many new supercars with more modern technology. No wonder it´s even more exspensive now than when it was new.
For the very few people who are wondering how long it took him to cover the 5.4 mile straight, it took him at least 70 seconds to get to the square thingy (I don’t know what it really is called so correct if me if you want) and then it took him at least 88 seconds to get to the near end where the bridge is so driving down that straight at them speeds doesn’t really take you that long to cover 5 miles of track, maybe someday we will get a 10 mile straight track so that we can really determine the top speed of super cars, who knows, what an astonishing video though
The first complete car for sure. F40 and 959 has used heavily this material as well in some parts. Yamaha OX99-11 has all carbon fibre chassis but it was a prototype.
The F1 is still the top of the tree for me....you can keep your veyrons and Ferraris the like because the F1 weighs 1100kg. I did read a piece by Gordon Murray about the power to weight ratios of the F1 and the Veryon and how the F1 is still quicker in a in gear real world scenario than the veryon because of weight and power delivery vs 2 tons and turbo lag, ultimately the Veryon is faster but not as cool and sounds no where near as good as the V12. It would be interesting to see some of the F1's that have been modernised by McLaren for their owners, against the veryon for ingear times, some of these F1's have supposedly 800hp... The purple one Richard Hammond used has 680hp and didnt lose by to much, even with hammond letting off the gas in the Veryon for a second to make it look better on TV.
no you would have an uncontrollable rocket that doesnt have abs tcs or dsc with no power steering and all power going to the rear wheels and im assuming to achieve that power you would have a turbo or two or three or four which would introduce a sudden boost when the turbos would reach maximum psi which would completely go out of control even more than it already would have been but it would still be awesome :D
You just have to modernize all of that stuff and make it awd. And give it more grippier tires. Although I would rather have the F1 LM have 1200+ hp with this stuff too, that would be the ultimate car.
This car was a huge leap forward. The Veyron and that Aero thingy are not. This car DESTROYED the speed record for production cars by what is probably the biggest margin ever. And how long did the veyron keep the record? A year maybe? And the Aero? Even less.
Even today it's record stands as the Fastest Naturally Aspirated production car in the World :) ! So yeah the Bugatti and Venom are faster but are Turbocharged where the F1 is not and has only 627hp and weight nothing :p
+FicaGTI Those had better acceleration, but shorter gearing to make them better suited to track work. I believe one was tested at 0-100 in 2.9s (vs. 3.2) but could only reach 360km/h.
+justcarcrazy Actually they had identical gear ratios - from wiki "gear ratios are identical to the standard F1, i.e. 3.23:1, 2.19:1, 1.71:1, 1.39:1, 1.16:1, 0.93:1, with a final drive of 2.37:1" GTR version had shorter gearing. LM version has lower top speed due to high-downforce kit which produces lot of drag...All LM-s have that aero kit, but it would be interesting to see car with LM engine with no downforce kit, like car chassis nr:073 which is upgraded to "lm-spec" engine(680hp) but also LM aero kit is added...now imagine that car with no downforce kit...400km/h + possible?? :) cheers
I would sell my soul and my neighbors house to have been on the guardrail and been able to hear the Doppler effect on that V12 flat-out at 391kmh when he passed by the pit lane
Why is everybody claiming the Bugatti is more practical. McLaren F1 was a drivers car and it was a road car with out any intention of being a race car. Veyron may be very fast and stuff but you have to put in a special key to lower the car in order to go to topspeed. McLaren also has a boot the size of a for fiesta, can seat 3 people, has better over all visibility and has a modem to tell the company of any problems.
MelegattiWorks I don't agree with that, test driver for F1 told that car has enough power for the 7 gear, besides they would try make 6th gear like 5th gear in ratios, and seven like 6th. Car would do for sure 400 km/h mark.
The veyron at 250 mph needed a 65% hp bump to 1650 hp for the chiron to go 300 mph. The mclaren F1 would do 300 mph with only 1000 hp. They'd only need aero tweaks and abs upgrade to make it safe. However the 1500+ hp agera RS would do 300 mph if they removed the rear wing. With the chiron record, they disabled wing for optimum drag. The verdict is that the mclaren F1 still has the most efficient formula out of all the three in terms of top speed.
I can't believe that car can pull so hard all the way up to its top speed with "only" 627 horsepower and yet it's not even geared for top speed because it always pulls throughout its entire rev range in any gear. There are so many cars now with way more horsepower that can't even come close to this car's top speed. And it's naturally aspirated to boot! What kind of black magic did Gordon Murray use to make this car
Anyone who doesnt appreciate this car for its value and for its legendary record is completely a non car fan,this car is one of the automotive nirvanas.
In the mid-90's this supercar achieved a whopping 243mph on sheer motor power alone. 10-12 years later Bugatti can squirt a meager 10 miles per hour faster only at the expense of several more cylinders, Four freaking gnarly turbos, double the horsepower and a load of technology. Imagine if McLaren revisited the F1 with fresh tech and a few extra turbos and maybe a widebody aero kit. In terms of capability the F1 is still a monster compared to the Veyron, it might shame Bugatti once again
Ehra-Lessein (I think that's how it's spelled). This is VW's private test track. The straight at the end of the video, which the 291KM/H run was done is 5.5 Miles long. Because VW owns the track, they won't let Koenigsegg or any other competitors test their vehicles on it. For the Veyron's sake.
@ebradahusla The reason it needs so much more power is because it is not nearly as focused as the F1. It's much much heavier, has a lot more luxury, and could be daily driven in supreme comfort. They're both legendary vehicles and always will be, but I do agree the F1 was ahead of its time. It's epic
my Favourite car of all time and still hold the record of fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world. Would love to see what i could do with turbo's strapped to it.
He stayed at or above 390kmph for about 23seconds so, traveled about 2.5km or 1.6miles in 23 seconds! Try traveling that distance in a normal sedan or SUV in the same conditions to visualize those numbers
One naturally aspirated engine, no power steering or any good electronics, one best hyper sports legend of its time ❤❤. I made a time 11m22sec in NFS hot pursuit only with this car in the longest race. Idk reality as never driven it in real, but by so far, if modded, can beat down many beasts these days 😘❤️
Yo gané todo con ese mismo auto en NFS. La velocidad y aceleración que tenía era casi inimaginable. Tenías que mover tanto el volante y pensar tan rápido que ponía a prueba todos tus reflejos. Manejarlo en la vida real entre Ferraris, Lamborghini y Porsches...sería como un caso que vi en un documental. En el programa Monstruos de Rio con Jeremy Wade, en un rio del Amazonas, de noche..., salía un pez a cazar que era tan asesino que las pirañas se escondían. Así ocurría con McLaren F1 y los demás superdeportivos. Supremacía semejante a la del helicóptero Apache.
