McLaren Senna Goes Up Against McLaren 650S GT3 Race Car

By Daud Gonzalez - July 2, 2019

Can a car with license plates, even a super like the McLaren Senna, really keep up with a true-bred race car?

The Senna is McLaren’s answer to a no-frills, performance-first street legal race car. With power figures around 800 HP and price somewhere in the millions, its no joke of an investment for any individual. Considering the performance and the cost, we always wondered, if this is McLaren’s idea of a race car you can bring to the supermarket, how does it stack up against an actual race car?

McLaren themselves made this claim, stating that it is as quick as their 650s GT3 around a circuit. We weren’t too sure about this claim, but we thought that maybe, just maybe, it may be possible. GT3 cars are limited by all sorts of regulations when it comes to just about everything: aero, power, brakes, weight, you name it. The Senna is far from being regulated by anything other than the imagination of what McLaren thought was possible. Would that gap in regulation allow the Senna to slip past a GT3? Thankfully Chris Harris, Top Gear presenter, long-time automotive enthusiast and racing driver would give us the answer to this question in a new episode on the Top Gear YouTube Channel.

For those unfamiliar, Harris has spent over a year racing the 650S GT3 in the Blancpain GT series, including a race in Silverstone. It is safe to say he knows his way around this track more so than 99% of us. While the 650S GT3 is on 300+ section width slicks all around, the Senna has a wimpy 245 front tire in combination with a 315 rear Pirelli road-legal rubber. Will the extra 300 horsepower it has over the GT3 be enough to overcome the lack of grip?

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The easy answer to that is not even close. The Senna is a full 7 seconds a lap slower and in racing times, that’s an eternity and a half. According to Harris, the main limiting factor of the Senna is the front end, it washes out under corning and produces a lot of understeer on corner entry. Harris further explaines that the brakes, aero, and responsiveness of the Senna just simply can’t match 650S GT3 in any aspect.

This begs the question, is it even worth it buying a Senna when you could have a 650S GT3 for less money? We would say no. This is mainly due to the fact that the Senna is hardly a reasonable or usable road car, thus, majority of owners only track them. It would only make sense to take the next step up to the real thing. Why not when it can be had for less and do what the Senna can, but only better in every aspect? We wish we were in a situation where we are ourselves deciding between both of these vehicles, but for those that are, the choice is clear.