650S - McLaren's new GT3 racecar

December 14, 2014
Story By
John Brooks

An invitation to Old Woking to the former HQ of McLaren F1, now home to McLaren GT, is one that is eagerly accepted. The object of the exercise is to see the new McLaren 650S GT3, now in production for the 2015 season. The car is scheduled to make its racing début in December at the Gulf 12 Hours held in Abu Dhabi on the Yas Marina circuit, home to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The 650S GT3 is a very important car for the future of McLaren GT, being their second racecar that is built for the highly competitive GT3 class. The MP4-12C, their first GT racer, was certainly very fast in the hands of the professional drivers but less forgiving to the gentlemen drivers who make up the main element of McLaren's potential customer base. There were other issues as well, the resolution to which is vital to the success of the company going forward.

I spoke with Ian Morgan, Chief Engineer for McLaren GT, his background combines racing with road car development - amongst other places he has worked was in a senior position at Red Bull when a certain Mr. Vettel won several World Championships. It is Mr. Morgan who is responsible for ensuring that the final result answers the concerns of the customers - he was completely candid about the issues raised through the first car and how McLaren have solved them with the 650S GT3. DL: After a career in top line single seaters a GT3 programme represents a major shift in focus? IM: “It does, accommodating the range of adjustments inherent in a performance balanced class is hugely important, but more important still for these cars, designed as they are as customer vehicles, is driveability. The balance we need to strike is getting the best possible performance from the cars when in the hands of the professional drivers without affecting the potential for the gentleman drivers to get performance out of the car within their own abilities and comfort zones. The key is to narrow the gap between the two!"

IM: "I think I’d express the results we have achieved like this. We have looked at the earlier car and have listened to feedback from the teams, and from both the professional and gentleman drivers. The 650S GT3 addresses all of the issues we had feedback on and gives a more capable car without affecting the driveability. The car is a big step forward. We have made some simple mechanical changes, we changed the geometry of the car and, as you have seen, there is a new aero package. Throughout the development process, as soon as we had the development car available, we have put customer drivers in it as well as the professionals.”

DL: It has been far from a ‘money no object’ programme though? IM: “Absolutely not, the GT3 market is very competitive indeed and, whilst having the brand that we do helps enormously, the market is very cost conscious. Purchase price is one aspect of course, the new car has to be priced both realistically and sensibly, but the running costs too have been looked at carefully. It is an area where there has, in part, been some fair criticism of the earlier car and there are big changes here. The new car is more easily serviceable and user friendly for the teams as well as the drivers."

IM: "We have looked very carefully at the powertrain, we have made some key changes (the new car moves from a Ricardo to an X-Trac gearbox) and put in more controls here, and we’re looking to make major improvements in the mileage of several key components. As one example of this, is that the new gearbox will see a mileage life of close to double the item it has replaced. That clearly has a very significant positive impact on running costs.”

DL: The McLaren is unusual, but not unique, in having a turbocharged engine which has, in certain conditions, sometimes proved tricky for some gentleman drivers. A. “Again it's an area we have been working on to find real improvements and the feedback from testing is that we have made significant strides. Turbocharged engines have some real advantages too, of course, so it’s a matter of finding the best balance we can whilst still presenting a car for Balance of Performance that retains the improvements we have built-in across a range of potential adjustments. The 650 GT3 has a bigger front tyre than the MP4/12C GT3 (The year one MP4/12 had a 650 sized front moving to 660 in year two, the 650S has a 680) and there have been changes too in the weight distribution and balance of the car - key areas for that all important target, driveability."

DL: Your thoughts on the GT3 rules and regulations? IM: “It allows us quite a lot of freedom, but the commercial realities keep our feet on the ground. We have been testing and developing the car from the moment we had a test car available. That original car has now completed 9,500 testing kilometres, there is a second car now also available to the test team." “That is a big mileage, but the reality is that compared to the other players in this market we have a very strong base package. That pays off in several ways. There is very, very little drop off in performance as a car ages compared to the performance degradation you can see from our major competitors, the (Carbon fibre monocell) chassis is very stiff and very, very strong so it retains it's rigidity fantastically well, and it’s crashworthiness is exceptional too. The test drivers tell us that they can really feel even very minor changes in development, a sure sign that the basic chassis is a very stable component." “As a marker to that we have test cars here from the original car that have completed more than 50,000km but have still been competitive when they have been raced for customers recently."

IM: “We’ve also lost very few cars to accident damage, again in no small part due to the strength of the chassis (just two cars have been full write-offs in the MP4/12C’s competition history, the K-Pax car damaged in Alex Figge’s huge shunt at Road America and the Clearwater Racing car damaged in practice last month). “There is a new rollcage for the 650SGT3 too and we have tested the car extensively on Pirelli, Michelin and Avon tyres to cover all the bases for the major Championships that the car will likely be seen in next year."

Andrew Kirkaldy, Managing Director of McLaren GT joined this discussion. “We’re out doing two to three days testing every week at the moment but the response from customers has been fantastic. We have 15 confirmed sales of new cars with enough further interest to say that I would be confident of 18 sales very soon. That’s for entirely new 650S GT3 cars, but in addition there will be 10 to 12 current cars updated to the new specification too. Our current production plan is for the first 10 customer cars to be delivered before Christmas and, as you already know, we will début the car at the Gulf 12 Hours with two cars. The cars for Abu Dhabi will race in the form which the car is being presented for homologation. We expect to have full FIA homologation by 1 January.”

There are now 108 employees on the McLaren GT part of the business and the factory floor was a hive of activity. In addition to the GT3 production run there were also examples of the 650S Sprint on hand, the clubman racer gaining popularity.

In one section of the factory were a pair of carbon monocell chassis, one a brand new and the other was the MP4-12C GT3 of Von Ryan Racing that crashed at the Spa 24 Hours when tyre failure sent Tim Mullen head on into the barriers at Blanchimont. Kirkaldy explains: "At the time of the accident we were all worried about Tim, it was a huge hit, whilst the car was badly damaged the chassis is repairable, it’s just waiting here for space in the workshop, it just goes to show how tough the basic structure of the car is, most other cars would be scrap after a hit like that." I looked at the 2014 Spa 24 Hours earlier HERE.

Once the base tub is received, all the other essential components required to go racing such as the full roll cage, the fuel tank and provision for all the wiring looms have to be fitted and installed.

The biggest change between the new car and the old is the gearbox, Kirkaldy explained other aspects of the change. “The change here goes far wider than just the box itself, the alternator is now directly attached to the box and the oil pump drive has been changed for serviceability too with the new set-up causing less strain on the pump than previously, again helping the life of the components."

“The key tasks in hand now are production of the first customer cars, this is happening in batches of four at a time at a rate of four per month for the next three months."

“We have scheduled build for cars going to Asia, where demand is healthy, the UK, Australia, and North America. As for mainland Europe, there is strong demand from current customers for the upgrade, that in itself shows that they have confidence in the basic structure of the earlier car."

DL: What about GTE, Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship? AK: “We’d love to but while the vast majority of manufacturers were in support of GT rules convergence, some of the biggest players eventually killed it. We were a way down the road towards putting a real car on track, the engine was ready for the dyno and we’d done some chassis and aero work too. Realistically now it won’t happen until the new rule set is defined in 2017 and that’s a shame. For the moment though we have plenty to keep us busy!”

That is really unfortunate as the logical progression is to have a unified set of regulations to cover all the GT racing internationally. It would be great to see #59 on a McLaren and back at La Sarthe. I looked at that famous combination a bit earlier HERE.

After the visit to Woking we made our way to Brooklands to see how this most modern car looked in context with the birthplace of British Motorsport.

And we could not resist posing the 650S with Concorde.

The McLaren 650S GT3 should be a hard car to beat in the highly competitive world of GT3 racing, the opposition is pretty strong too, just consider the list: Aston Martin, Audi, Bentley, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Porsche, it is a who's who of performance motoring brands. I am really looking forward to seeing how all this pans out in 2015 and then bringing you all the full story.

650S - McLaren's new GT3 racecar

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