You have to hand it to them...

It's definitely an and car.....

Just completed a 1600 mile bottom of Europe to blighty trip.. Including paul ricard, a double stop at the ring and then a day at Spa... Car was just sensational I have to admit...better than I imagined in fact and I knew it would do well... Whilst I have to admit to not pushing too hard on the ring (i was in a gt3 rs to learn the circuit) as I didn't really want to push the margins there.. Car got an enormous amount of attention as you'd imagine.... Didn't get the impression that had been that many there as yet.. Not wholly surprising I guess... we had a full on day at spa where I suppose you might argue that it showed that mclaren race there regularly.. Only things quicker were a couple of radicals and a 458 challenge, and that was only marginal.. He was on full slicks and I had p zeros so I thought we had a moral victory. I took a number of passengers and it's fair to say at spa it needs harnesses for the passengers otherwise they are all over the cabin... I have always wanted them myself although am still sceptical taht i want to shell out the mso price...As the day wore on we went quicker and quicker of course, but the most surprising thing was the car performed better and better... I have the steels and they were if anything better at the end of day .. Sure we scrubbed a bit off the tires but not as much as I thought we would... Last tank of gas lasted 66 miles... Sure we were taking care to cool down and so forth, but even so it was impressive... We were doing 4- 6 laps in a clip on average I would say..

Then you take your helmet off, set the (iPhone) stanav for the coast and cruise home... Unbelievable really.. Watching the sun go down approaching calais with tunes on the stereo after a few days like that in the same car was astounding.. actually the stereo was equally improved .. I didn't use it much as we mainly use the car for between 100 and 300 mile 'spirited' drives.. But with quality files have to say I was very impressed with that also...

Couple of small issues... Inevitable windscreen seal on the autobahn... And also a blockage in the exit pipe from the aircon dumped the condensate into the interior which took a call to Ben and a suggestion how to cure it which was easy, but needed a hundred miles or so of windows down and heating on full to dry out the interior.. It's a frustratingly simple fault but also easy to fix..

I loved my car before but think its other world now.. Still tryng to shift the 458 ...

Didn't get it on the track at paul ricard as we were with lotus f1.. Taking the right hander at the end of the mistral straight was truly eyepopping even in an 8 year old car... We were on some kinda test circuit and only using half the straight, but we were still close to 270 kph before turn in... Even the guys there wanted to have a good look at the mclaren!

Also just want to say tough luck to grip force... Horrified to see what happened there when we were having so much fun doing a similar thing..

Other memorable moments... Being a 430 and noble m400 sandwich up from Adenau to the ring entrance... Even hardened ring watchers would have enjoyed us three going line astern up that road...shame the 430 was in front if we were honest... Kinda kept things sane though I guess...

What a piece of kit we have...