McLaren race cars will compete at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race, 30 years after the McLaren F1 GTR secured a famous debut victory in the iconic endurance race. The #59 car that won in 1995 was one of four McLaren F1 GTRs taking the top five positions.

The 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans will see McLaren racing partner, United Autosports, run two McLaren GT3 EVO cars. Grégoire Saucy, James Cottingham and Sébastien Baud will compete in a car wearing the legendary #59, with Darren Leung, Marino Sato and Sean Gelael in car #95.

The McLaren GT3 EVO first featured at Le Mans in 2024, with one of the three cars competing for GT3 honours securing class pole position in qualifying. The United Autosports cars racing this year will be aiming to match that and go on to score points to strengthen their contention for the 2025 World Endurance Championship LMGT3 title.

McLaren’s commitment to the World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans race has recently been significantly strengthened with the announcement of entry to the Hypercar class in 2027.

• Halcyon appoints former McLaren CEO Mike Flewitt and ex-Rolls-Royce leaders Graham Biggs and Graham Lenden to its advisory board.
• The trio will support both Halcyon’s growth, and the expansion of the company’s proprietary 800-V electric architecture to broader markets through its new engineering arm, Evice Technologies.
• 2026 production of Halcyon remastered Rolls-Royce cars is fully reserved; reservations for 2027 are now open.
• Evice Technologies commences confidential electrification programme for external vehicle manufacturer.
• Capital raise in progress to expand Evice Technologies and accelerate Halcyon’s scale-up in response to strong demand.

Halcyon has named three high-profile appointments to its advisory board, former McLaren Automotive CEO Mike Flewitt and ex-Rolls-Royce directors Graham Biggs and Graham Lenden, to support the founding team.

Graham Biggs, Advisor at Halcyon & Evice Technologies, commented:
“It’s a pleasure to work with such energetic founders, and their creative and skilful team of engineers and designers. The quality of their work is exceptional and their drive to breathe new life into these pivotal classic cars is inspiring. I am delighted to be able to share my experience with them, particularly from my years at Rolls-Royce, which were some of the happiest in my working life.”

Graham Lenden held key roles at Bentley Motors and Aston Martin Lagonda before becoming Rolls-Royce’s Global CMO. He led the immensely successful Rolls-Royce Ghost launch, which quadrupled annual sales to 3,500 units. Graham plays an important role in the development of Evice Technologies as both a brand and business, supporting its expansion as a leading provider of proprietary EV tech.

Graham Lenden, Advisor at Halcyon & Evice Technologies, added:
“Matthew, Charlie and Will have selected the ideal iconic brands to showcase their high voltage electric technology. Rolls-Royce and Bentley motor cars must always be the epitome of elegance and refinement, propelled by an instantaneous tidal wave of torque, delivered without stress, in silence. Electric propulsion is the perfect fit. I am hugely enjoying bringing nearly 40 years of global commercial C-Suite experience in ‘blue chip’ supercars and a previous electric drivetrain start-up to help drive Evice Technologies’ proprietary, modular technology into multiple product categories.”

The trio’s commercial and brand-building expertise supports the founders’ vision to build the best electric cars in the world, and to unlock next-gen electrification for global automotive, marine, and defence vehicle manufacturers pursuing a zero-emission future.

With over 60 years as a leader in innovative technologies developed in Formula 1, McLaren is advantageously placed to deliver breakthrough automotive technologies that set the standards in lightweight supercar engineering.

And it is with carbon fibre that McLaren’s innovative capabilities are strongly represented. Lightweight, strong, and rigid, McLaren is now approaching half a century as a world leader in this highly technical area of materials science and continues to push the boundaries of what is possible.

Carbon fibre plays an essential part in delivering supercars with the best possible combination of attributes on road and track. Every single McLaren production car since the first, the McLaren F1, has been based on a chassis made from this composite material. The light weight and rigidity of the material is key to delivering benchmark performance and thrilling dynamics, but also class leading ride quality and the added benefits of efficiency. Its strength provides safety, assurance and durability. It is the perfect material upon which to create a platform for a supercar with incredible packaging solutions, enabling designers to create cars with incredible aesthetics and aerodynamic efficiency.

It is a technology firmly rooted in McLaren’s Formula 1 heritage, and is a core part of the McLaren DNA:

MP4/1 (1981)
The MP4/1 revolutionised Formula 1 as the first race car to use a full carbon fibre monocoque chassis. Its lightweight, rigid structure significantly improved both safety and performance. Designed by John Barnard, this pioneering chassis led to widespread carbon fibre adoption in motorsport, changing F1 car design forever.

The introduction of carbon fibre chassis cars in the sport began a modernised era in Formula 1. The superiority of carbon fibre from a safety perspective was demonstrated in spectacular fashion at the 1981 Italian Grand Prix. McLaren driver John Watson sustained and walked away from a huge 140mph accident unharmed. It was a major moment in convincing the wider Formula 1 paddock that carbon fibre chassis technology was the future of safety in Formula 1. The performance potential of a carbon chassis was made clear only three races later, as Watson won that year’s British Grand Prix by more than 40 seconds.

McLaren F1 (1993)
Of the many groundbreaking design features of the McLaren F1, the utilisation of a carbon fibre monocoque chassis and a full carbon fibre body, emphasizing minimal weight and maximum structural rigidity, were among the most important. Pioneering the use of carbon fibre in road cars, the F1 boasted unmatched performance because of its light weight of only 1,140kg and its immense power of 627PS from its 6.1-litre V12 engine. The carbon fibre monocoque – engineered using at the time cutting-edge computer aided design and analysis – allowed the F1 to achieve a significant power-to-weight ratio previously unheard of in road cars, becoming an icon of supercar engineering.

It was the platform upon which not only the world’s fastest road car was built, achieving a top speed of 240.1mph at the Ehra-Lessien proving ground in Germany, but it also embarked carbon fibre technology on a complete circle of track, to road, and back again, after the F1 GTR won the 1995 Le Mans 24 Hours.

McLaren 12C (2011)
The McLaren 12C, the first road car to be produced by McLaren Automotive at the state-of-the-art McLaren Production Centre, introduced the MonoCell; a single-piece carbon fibre tub that provided unprecedented stiffness and lightness in a road car at the time. The development of the chassis took the McLaren carbon fibre story into the 21^st century. MonoCell was the backbone of the world’s first truly mass-produced full carbon fibre tub supercar range, delivering the benefits of this type of chassis construction on a scale never seen in the automotive industry before.

The MonoCell was one of several revolutionary new technologies introduced by 12C to the supercar segment, while also being one of the core elements in the creation of McLaren’s modern supercar DNA, laying the foundations for the future. Its advantages over the Aluminium designs still popular at the time ranged not only from incredible light weight of only 75kg for the tub itself, but tortional rigidity so great that the Spider variant of the 12C required no additional chassis strengthening – a no compromise solution true of all McLaren spiders created to date.

McLaren P1 (2013)
Only two years on from launching the 12C, McLaren would once again revolutionise carbon fibre supercar technology with the launch of the McLaren P1 in 2013. This second instalment in McLaren’s ‘1’ car linage took another step forward from its groundbreaking forebearer, the McLaren F1, through the use of a full carbon fibre body structure incorporating not only the roof and lower structures, roof snorkel, engine air intake cavity, but also the battery and power electronics housing that were integral to the P1’s high performance hybrid powertrain, in a structure known as MonoCage.

The entire structure weighed only 90kgs – a masterpiece in supercar engineering and packaging that proved to the world that electrification needn’t mean compromises on overall vehicle weight and can play an integral role in delivering performance in a true lightweight Ultimate supercar.

McLaren 720S (2017)
The 720S introduced the Monocage II carbon fibre structure that is still employed by the McLaren 750S today, further enhancing rigidity and reducing weight compared to its predecessor, the MonoCell. The lightweight structure comprises the entire passenger cell, combining a carbon fibre tub with an upper structure in carbon fibre to further enhance lightweight attributes. This significant step forward in carbon monocoque technology in series production supercars delivered not only multiple-award winning performance and dynamics, but vastly improved ergonomics, visibility and design.

The incredibly slim roof pillars of the Monocage II result in outstanding visibility through the windscreen, and combined with B-pillars that are positioned rearwards on the cab-forward cockpit, the Monocage II contributes to a sensation of exceptional space. The sills of the Monocage II drop down towards where the occupants’ feet are, for easier ingress and egress. The dramatic double-skinned dihedral doors hinge forwards and upwards as they open, taking a portion of roof in the process. The carbon cell had delivered a supercar as easy to get in and out of as easy is it was to extract maximum performance from.

And like the advantages introduced by MonoCell, the Spider version of 720S and subsequently 750S features a bespoke upper rear structure in carbon fibre, without the need for additional strengthening or reinforcement to go with it, ensuring thrilling dynamics and minimal weight increase. 

The McLaren Composites Technology Centre opens (2018)
The opening of the McLaren Composites Technology Centre (MCTC) in Sheffield, UK, in 2018 marked a £50m investment in the first standalone McLaren production facility outside Woking. This world-class facility, formed through a partnership between McLaren Automotive, the University of Sheffield’s AMRC and Sheffield City Council, aims to be a centre-of-excellence in both composites engineering and research, but also in production of new-generation carbon fibre tubs that can directly integrate with future powertrain technologies.

The first production carbon fibre parts to be manufactured at MCTC would be for the incredible, ultra-lightweight McLaren 765LT, the car’s active rear wing, rear bumper and front floor designed, engineered and manufactured at the centre. 

McLaren Artura (2021)
The McLaren Artura introduced the McLaren Carbon Lightweight Architecture (MCLA), designed specifically to integrate a new generation of high-performance hybrid powertrains. Lighter and stronger than previous chassis, the MCLA supports the Artura’s hybrid V6 powertrain, while continuing to optimise and develop further the structural advantages of using a carbon fibre monocoque. Manufactured at McLaren’s first ever major facility outside of its Woking HQ, the MCLA is made at the McLaren Composites Technology Centre in Sheffield. The MCLA marks a revolutionary moment in carbon fibre monocoque technology, enhancing not only the lightweight and rigidity benefits previously developed into the MonoCell and MonoCage II structures, but incorporating a safety cell for the battery of the hybrid system used by the Artura and integrating further crash and load-bearing functionality into the tub.

McLaren’s revolutionary technologies also allowed the Artura’s MCLA carbon fibre monocoque to be productionised in volumes never before achievable. And with the launch of the Artura Spider, McLaren continues its lightweight spider DNA with no further strengthening or reinforcement for the chassis of the Artura Spider required over its coupe variant – McLaren’s first convertible high performance hybrid supercar delivered without compromise.

 McLaren W1 (2024)
The McLaren W1 continues McLaren’s lightweight carbon fibre DNA evolution with the arrival of the Aerocell, our most radical and technologically advanced carbon fibre tub ever designed for a road car. Constructed using pre-preg carbon fibre, this technology – as used on the hyper exclusive, track-only Solus GT – uses composite that is pre-impregnated with a resin system that simplifies the curing process. Pressure treatment is then applied in the mould, which gives the Aerocell higher structural strength than comparable tubs.

Pound for pound, it results in a lighter tub that negates the need for additional bodywork in places on the car’s exterior – a lightweight benefit explored in the design of the W1. The Aerocell has also been designed as a key element of the W1’s extreme aerodynamic package making use of true ground effect, achieved by raising the floor of the monocoque by 65mm, which has lifted the footwell position and rising to 80mm towards the front of the Aerocell. At the same time, to reduce the length of the Aerocell – and of the overall vehicle – the decision was taken to fix the seat position and incorporate seating into the monocoque. Reducing the wheelbase by almost 70mm, this also has the added benefit of saving further weight.

The McLaren W1 also sees the introduction of McLaren’s next-generation carbon fibre technology; McLaren ART carbon fibre. Made possible via the development of McLaren’s breakthrough Automated Rapid Tape (ART) ‘high rate’ deposition manufacturing technique, McLaren ART carbon fibre unlocks new possibilities for engineers. Lighter and stiffer, produced with fewer waste materials, and enabling the rapid creation of optimised carbon fibre parts with specialised properties, the active front wing of the McLaren W1 debuts this new technology.

“Carbon fibre is integral to the McLaren story and a core part of our DNA. It enables us to deliver super-lightweight supercars with the very best dynamic attributes and it remains an area of technical exploration with much to discover, and many more gains to be realised.”
Michael Leiters, Chief Executive Officer, McLaren Automotive

McLaren Automotive closed out its inaugural season in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) with a front row lockout in Bahrain and once again demonstrating race-winning pace.

The final round of the 2024 WEC season at the Bahrain International Circuit yielded a dominant performance for the United Autosport McLaren GT3 EVO cars. The #95 car of Josh Caygill set a time of 1:02.201 in the Hyperpole qualifying session to secure McLaren’s second pole position of the season. The sister #59 car of James Cottingham lapped just 0.002 seconds behind, making history as the first manufacturer to lock out the front row grid slots in the LMGT3 class.

The two black and papaya GT3 EVOs led the field for the first forty minutes of the eight-hour race running nose to tail before James made a successful move for the lead in the #95 car.

The field then shuffled around as the pit stop strategies played out around several Full Course Yellows and a Safety Car period in the second half of the race, setting up a thrilling final hour of racing. Seven cars battled for the lead, including the #59 car, before the last pit stops were made.

Gregoire Saucy took over #59 with fresh tyres and set about catching his rivals. Despite gaining a place as he closed on the leaders, he had to settle for a fighting sixth at the flag. Teammate Marino Sato meanwhile put in a superb drive from nearly a lap down to gain five places and finish eighth to round out a strong first year in the championship for McLaren.

Having demonstrated the speed and reliability of the McLaren GT3 EVO in the most gruelling endurance challenge in motorsport, the United Autosport cars finished in the top ten in both Drivers’ and Teams’ standings.

“At the end of our first full LMGT3 season in the WEC as racing partners of McLaren, we should be very proud. I’d argue that we are one of, if not the team that has made the most progress from the season opener in Qatar to the finale in Bahrain, with high points along the way including the podium finish in Sao Paulo and pole position in Bahrain, proving our ultimate pace with the 1-2 finish in Hyperpole.

“I cannot thank the team enough. We are lucky to have so many passionate and talented people dedicating hour upon hour of time, effort and skill into driving this project forward – and I will never take that for granted. I also want to recognise the efforts of our drivers who have played a key role in the development of the programme both on and off track. They’ve been working hard behind the scenes, which, once again, demonstrates the very real belief in this project and our potential on the world stage. I for one am excited to see what the future holds.”
Richard Dean, CEO, United Autosports

“Once again we’ve demonstrated the speed of our car and made a bit of WEC history along the way. My thanks to every single member of the United Autosports team for all their hard work this season, and to our internal team for helping to bring this project to fruition in such a short timeframe. Together we’ve more than proved we can be competitive on this grid.

“We’ve had a really positive first year in the championship, taking two pole positions and a podium finish but the job isn’t done, and we will continue to work towards achieving the goal we all have of winning.”
Mick McDonagh, Director – McLaren Special Operations (MSO) & Motorsport, McLaren Automotive

McLaren will celebrate how more than six decades of motorsport success continues to inspire its supercars today at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Headlining McLaren’s presence, the McLaren Senna with Senna Sempre livery will take centre stage at McLaren House, paying tribute to Ayrton Senna’s legacy while also providing a public viewing of the craftsmanship delivered by McLaren Special Operations (MSO) that is displayed on this unique McLaren Senna from McLaren’s heritage collection.

The 30-year legacy of Ayrton Senna, who won three Formula 1 World Championships with McLaren before his passing in 1994, has been a significant milestone within the 2024 Formula 1 calendar. At the Monaco Grand Prix, McLaren revealed the McLaren Senna with Senna Sempre livery alongside a unique livery for the MCL38 Formula 1 cars raced by Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The MCL38 with its unique Monaco Grand Prix livery will also be showcased, giving McLaren fans a chance to see the two cars together.  

In association with the Ayrton Senna Institute, the McLaren Senna with Senna Sempre livery is the result of months of tenacious work by experienced designers and paint technicians at MSO. The same team that delivers incredible bespoke commissions for customer cars, and groundbreaking projects such as the 750S with 3-7-59 Theme has created an emotive tribute. Bright colours that visually represent Ayrton’s vibrant personality and outlook on life combine with newly developed paint techniques and exquisite artworks of Senna, along with references to his three Formula 1 World Championship titles and five Monaco Grand Prix victories with McLaren.

Joining the centrepiece, a spectacular array of cars will be on display at McLaren House and in action on the famous Goodwood hillclimb, while a line-up of drivers and representatives channelling McLaren’s illustrious Formula 1 history will take part in proceedings over the weekend, both behind the wheel and on stage.

Ayrton’s nephew, former Formula 1 driver and McLaren Automotive brand ambassador, Bruno Senna, will be at the wheel of his uncle’s 1991 title winning McLaren MP4/6 – the only title winning Formula 1 car powered by a V12 engine and the final championship winning chassis to use a manual gearbox. The car was driven by Ayrton Senna to seven Grand Prix victories, as he claimed his third and final Formula 1 title.

Double McLaren Formula 1 world champion Mika Häkkinen will drive a remarkable Solus GT up the hill on Saturday in a demonstration run. One of 25 customer cars that will be delivered as part of the Solus GT programme, the bespoke commission which bears Mika Häkkinen’s name, has been painted to match the McLaren MP4/13 that the Finn drove to the Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship in 1998. This process has been overseen by a technician at MSO who was responsible for painting the original racing car. The F1 car’s livery has been recreated expertly and applied on the lightweight body and extreme aero of the Solus GT – even the paint colours used have been mixed to match the ageing process that has taken place on the original Formula 1 car’s bodywork.

The Solus GT returns to the Goodwood Festival of Speed following Timed Shootout victory at the 2023 event. McLaren Factory Driver Marvin Kirchhöfer stormed to the top of the timesheet with a run of 45.342 seconds, as the Solus GT made its global dynamic debut over the weekend.

2024 marks the 50^th anniversary of McLaren’s first Formula 1 World Championship victories, sealing both the World Driver’s and Constructor’s titles in 1974 with Emerson Fittipaldi and the McLaren M23. Celebrating the half century milestone of this landmark moment in McLaren history, the Brazilian double World Champion will return to the wheel of his 1974 title winning car. Continuing the 50th anniversary celebrations, the 1974 Indy 500 winning M16C/D will be on display in the McLaren garage in the Formula 1 paddock, recognising Johnny Rutherford’s achievement in sealing the first leg of the prestigious ‘Triple Crown of Motorsport’ for McLaren.

McLaren’s first ever High-Performance Hybrid convertible supercar, the Artura Spider, will make its UK dynamic debut and will be joined on the hill by the 750S, McLaren’s lightest and most powerful series production supercar, plus the new McLaren GTS, and Ultimate Series vehicles from McLaren’s heritage collection including a McLaren Senna and a McLaren P1.^TM 

“This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed will see McLaren deliver another milestone event that will delight our fans and bring to life our immense racing heritage, through not only the cars that have delivered race wins and championships, but the drivers that took them there. These iconic cars, and incredible drivers, continue to inspire us and drive us to deliver supercars that push the boundaries of performance on road and track.”
Michael Leiters, Chief Executive Officer, McLaren Automotive