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I just spent the day at Willow Springs (big track) yesterday with my 12c. I have steel brakes and super light weight rims and corsa tires. I had my friend Tanner Foust do a few laps at the end of the day, here is his initial impression, enjoy the video.
Personally, I really did not know what to expect, as I have driven just about every street car at Willow Springs and a multitude of race cars so I was very curious about how this car would not only hold up but how the balance was, especially in light of it being 103 degrees.
First of all, my hats off to Mclaren, the motor, brakes, transmission and all mechanicals are very robust. The car never skipped a beat all day and I was especially impressed with the motor, the thing pulled like a freight train all day, tank after tank of gas, very impressive indeed.
Threshold braking was really good, very stable into turn 1 where the car saw 150 mph lap after lap. I thought this was a very good top speed number as top speed at Willow is very relevant to how you exit turn 9, and on street tires, to get to 150 means the car is doing everything really well at the exit of 9. I was recently there in a Porsche GT2rs and a 3.9 stroker motor GT3rs and did not see this number in either car. All I kept thinking is if this 12c was on Trofeo's or Michelin PSC's, the car would be ridiculous and in a whole different ball game. It really exemplifies how well the chassis does on extracting EVERYTHING from the tire patch and how well balanced it is.
I used sport on the chassis setting and track for the power setting, as the track setting for the chassis was a bit stiff and transferred weight too quickly into the tire (aka more heat), also, the ability for the chassis to be compliant but supported in turn 8 in sport mode is exactly what is needed to go through this corner the quickest, worked perfectly. In my mind, I keep thinking that this is all very Mclaren-esque and by design, as the same chassis and springs can work really well with a daily soft rain tire or a full blown race slick (pretty sure they knew this when designing the car), pretty clever indeed.
By the end of the day the front corsas were pretty much shot but the balance stayed fairly even and braking never really suffered even with the tires being abused. Willow Springs has no mercy on left front tires on any car, especially when it over a hundred degrees.
In the end, I really came away thinking that this car just kind of does it all, was amazing at the track, was very reliable, and best of all, I had a cushy ride home and got over 25 mpg.....
Can’t wait for the October updates and a set of Trofeo's.....
