This McLaren 650S GT3’s Lost Wheel Tries to Return Home

Wayward tire smashes into McLaren 650S race car after big crash.

Wrecking a big-dollar race car like a McLaren 650S GT3 sucks, but sometimes the universe wants to pour salt in the wound. While driving the Strakka Racing McLaren, Jonny Kane lost the left-rear wheel at the worst part of the Silverstone Circuit during the Blancpain Endurance Series race last weekend. If that wasn’t enough, the Le Mans class winner hit the barriers hard, coming to rest just in time to see the wheel catch up and smack the GT3 car hard.

Kane checked out fine after the crash at the extremely high-speed Maggots-Becketts complex at Silverstone. Cars carry tremendous speed through the esses there, making it one of the worst places to lose a wheel. The crash crumpled the 650S everywhere except the left-rear corner initially. We find it extra ironic that not only did the tire smash the exact part of the car it had just left—it must have found independence frightening—but it also demolished the only undamaged fender left of the car.

Strakka Racing switched to McLaren 650S GT3s in the Blancpain series after years running an LMP2 car in the World Endurance Championship. Kane won that class in 2010 with Strakka in a Honda-powered car. This year finds the team as the de facto McLaren-backed team in Blancpain GT. The team’s second 650S led the race after two hours but settled for eighth place overall. Expectations remain high for the Strakka in 2017 since Garage 59 Racing won the Blancpain Endurance Series title last year with a McLaren 650S GT3 driven by Rob Bell, Come Ledogar, and Supercars champion Shane Van Gisbergen.

GRT Grasser Racing Team won their third consecutive round in the Blancpain GT Series with their bright-green Lamborghini Huracan GT3. The next Blancpain Round is a two-race Sprint Series event at the Zolder Circuit in Belgium on June 2 through June 4.