McLaren P1

[FoxHound]

i think the rule is it has to be driveable on the street (street legal, able to get over speed bumps, etc). racy tires don't necessarily make it non-street-driveable.

not sure if they have any rules about the cars being strictly stock or not, but they should.

Agree it should be bone stock.

Koenigsegg upped the power on their car, allegedly, before being sent to Top Gear. The Veyron had an army of technicians and 3 different setups and tyre choices(various Michelin Pilots).
Ferrari are also masters of "prepping" a car before being sent to magazines and TV journos....ask Chris Harris.

However, I don't recall the Huayra having grooved race slicks to make it's time. I think it would be a bit pointless to do that and hold it's time up as fair and legal.

[SectorOne]

But they don´t hold it up as legal, only Wikipedia have persisted that it should stay.

Ariel Atom with a 1,15 is considered the fastest road-legal time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mj5 ... /powerlaps
http://www.topgearbox.com/power-lapboard/

Putting on slicks on a road legal car is a no no and defeats the purpose of the list.
Tinkering with a cars setup is a different matter as you could theoretically do that yourself and still have a road legal car.

Regarding the legality of the Pagani,
http://jalopnik.com/did-the-pagani-huay ... -450522444

http://jalopnik.com/pagani-admits-they- ... -450547430

It´s funny because they are still lying about the compound claiming they used Trofeo tires.
And yet when you compare the Trofeo tires to the ones seen on photos they are vastly different.



They claim those were Trofeo´s but this is how the Trofeo tire actually look. Which you can see on other roadtests with the Huayra (Like Autoblog´s test) etc but the ones above does not exist as a roadlegal tire.

[FoxHound]

Well I do believe you have inadvertently stumbled across the truth here Sector.

The tyres you have shown are not the Trofeo spec tyres as used on the Huayra. They look as if they would be better suited to a run of the mill sport sedan.
Here is the Huayra spec Trofeo's looking suitably chunky...


It is interesting also that Pagani have admitted to not using the Trofeo.... They used the Corsa P-Zero's.


http://www.zero2turbo.com/2013/02/pagan ... -gear.html


It should also be noted that The Corsa P-Zero is a road legal tyre that can be used for track use.
It's a little underhand but to be honest, I have read McLaren swapped many sets of tyres at various stages of a group test for Car Magazine for the 12C. Other publications have also cast some doubt as to how "stock" some Macca's are with the constant tinkering and changes.
And pertinently...... when was Top Gear scientific?

[NoDivergence]

I have never read a publication doubting what tires were on the MP4-12C. Not once. And I've read MANY. It's always been clear that whatever the MP4-12C was running, it was never as sticky as Michelin Pilot Sport Cups.

[FoxHound]

Ok, it is not for me to say that they "cheated". But as you point out they used Michelin Pilot sport tyres.
Pirelli are listed as sole suppliers....
http://www.pirelli.com/tyre/ww/en/news/ ... n-mp4-12c/

In the article I read from Car magazine, which I cannot find(£), it made mention of the problems McLaren had in dialing in the suspension to the point they had suspected a failure of sorts. Tyres where also changed in the process to my recollection.
McLaren engineers working on the car during a group test for Car.

I'm not saying McLaren are alone in this practice of bringing a ton of engineers with tech equipment to a test arena.
They are definitely not.

[SectorOne]

The tyres you have shown are not the Trofeo spec tyres as used on the Huayra. They look as if they would be better suited to a run of the mill sport sedan.

It´s the pattern that is key though The reason i posted that one is because it´s from Pirelli´s website.
I´m not entirely convinced they ran P Zero´s either even though the tread pattern fits somewhat.

I think it´s telling that Top Gear themselves have not acknowledged the time set.

This really is the key,

The Top Gear photos show the tires that the Huayra was wearing on the day of the test. Per Pagani's website, the Huayra comes with Pirelli P-Zero tires that measure 255/35ZR19 in the front and 335/30ZR20 out back. The Huayra on Top Gear had front tires labeled as 265/645 19, which is not a normal size for a road tire.

Another Pagani has tires that size. They are Pirelli P-Zero slicks that Pagani says were specifically designed for the Zonda R.

It would be very easy for Pagani to take the Zonda R slick, cut grooves into it making it look like it´s the original P-zero tire.
The only problem left though is the width of it which they failed to take into account.

And finally, the dotted holes.

[FoxHound]

Nicely spotted sector!

The defence rests

[SectorOne]

I really can´t take credit, it´s all there in the Jalopnik article i posted (the first of the two)

[SectorOne]

Top Gear has driven it now, some good visuals but that´s about it.

They said however that they will let the Stig drive the Porsche and the Mclaren around the track and see which is faster.
Jeremy also said that if the Porsche is faster he will change his name to Jennifer. lol.

[Morteza]

Top Gear has driven it now, some good visuals but that´s about it.

They said however that they will let the Stig drive the Porsche and the Mclaren around the track and see which is faster.
Jeremy also said that if the Porsche is faster he will change his name to Jennifer. lol.

It definitely is a great car, but 918 is both heavier (1700 kg vs. 1395 kg) and has less power output (887 bhp vs. 903 bhp) compared with P1. I really want to see how fast P1 is compared to LaFerrari which is both lighter (1255 kg) and slightly more powerful (950 bhp). That is the real competition I see for the P1 although 918 might surprise us.

[Lycoming]

I'm not saying McLaren are alone in this practice of bringing a ton of engineers with tech equipment to a test arena.
They are definitely not.

At this point, pretty much everybody does it, so you pretty much don't have a choice anymore.

[SectorOne]

It definitely is a great car, but 918 is both heavier (1700 kg vs. 1395 kg) and has less power output (887 bhp vs. 903 bhp) compared with P1. I really want to see how fast P1 is compared to LaFerrari which is both lighter (1255 kg) and slightly more powerful (950 bhp). That is the real competition I see for the P1 although 918 might surprise us.

Yea true but they 918 might have more mechanical grip and it has 4WD, i believe the P1 sends all of it to the rear wheels.

Should be interesting, Porsche tends to keep up with cars that are slightly more impressive on paper.

[Juzh]

Ariel Atom with a 1,15 is considered the fastest road-legal time.

Technically no. Caparto T1 is the fastest road legal with 1:10.6. They removed it because hydraulic nose lifting actuator didn't work on the test model, but now it does.

[SectorOne]

Ariel Atom with a 1,15 is considered the fastest road-legal time.

Technically no. Caparto T1 is the fastest road legal with 1:10.6. They removed it because hydraulic nose lifting actuator didn't work on the test model, but now it does.

Technically yes, Top Gear considers the Atom the fastest car. It´s not me who considered that.
It might not be the fastest but TG considers it to be.

[Juzh]

Ariel Atom with a 1,15 is considered the fastest road-legal time.

Technically no. Caparto T1 is the fastest road legal with 1:10.6. They removed it because hydraulic nose lifting actuator didn't work on the test model, but now it does.

Technically yes, Top Gear considers the Atom the fastest car. It´s not me who considered that.
It might not be the fastest but TG considers it to be.

Except, it doesn't. Top gear considers huayra (which is faster than atom btw) laptime to be legitimate. Not to mention webber admitted how track is now better than it used to be in his 2nd interview on top gear.