Published:
19 October 2018The Senna’s engine isn’t a state-of-the-art hybrid, nor is it the classic atmospheric V12 of your childhood dreams. For these reasons and others, you may be wondering whether this car will be capable of acceleration of a different order from that we’re already used to from McLaren.
The answer, in simple outright terms, seems to be no; not that, strictly speaking, it needed to be any different. The Senna narrowly missed the standing-start potency its maker claims for it during our track testing, needing 3.1sec to hit 60mph from rest where a McLaren 720S needed only 2.9sec and a P1 2.8sec.
We tried launching the car with plenty of heat in its Trofeo R tyres, and in various driving modes, to no improvement. A 3.1sec 0-60mph launch would be churlish to complain about in any modern performance car, mind you; and the Senna’s acceleration feels nothing less than savage from the driver’s seat.
But it would actually need to run on until 90mph, side by side with the 720S, before it started to claw back the deficit to its little sibling. Both cars go through a standing quarter mile in an identical 10.4sec, according to our numbers – but, by that point, the Senna is carrying almost 5mph more speed.
Then, even in Race mode, the Senna starts to run away from the 720S as it explodes onwards into three figures. A P1 remains a more potent accelerative machine at any speed; but then a P1 was a 903bhp hypercar designed to be McLaren’s last word on outright performance.
