Official Driving Experences - Pure McLaren
Discussion
Has anybody completed either the Experience or Performance Academy offered as part of the Pure McLaren offering? I usually do an experience every birthday and I rather fancy driving a McLaren, but I'm not paying that much if they excessively rev limit the car or you get little actual track time.
johnnyreggae said:
Can't find it on the website - how much is the non-owner experience ?
The Experience is ~£2k, the Academy starts at ~£4.7k rising to ~£8.6k and depends on your driving ability/level of training desired. Not cheap but then if you actually get to drive the car it would be worth it to me. I've done the official Merc driving experiences in the Black Series C class and they let you thrash it, but other experiences they rev limit you far too much (~60% of max revs in all gears) and frankly I regretted paying for them.
Overview:
http://cars.mclaren.com/home/experiences/pure-mcla...
Costs:
https://r1.dotmailer-surveys.com/d01ws378-bb1n2k66
Not sure about the experience but the performance academy is like the Ferrari pilota course. You can and do drive plenty (half hour intervals driving alternating with data analysis and believe me it's enough driving time) and the instructor assigned to you is meant to push you as far as your ability allows.
That looks like an amazing passenger lap Ian 100!
isaldiri said:
Not sure about the experience but the performance academy is like the Ferrari pilota course. You can and do drive plenty (half hour intervals driving alternating with data analysis and believe me it's enough driving time) and the instructor assigned to you is meant to push you as far as your ability allows.
Do they let you really push the car hard? tankplanker said:
Has anybody completed either the Experience or Performance Academy offered as part of the Pure McLaren offering? I usually do an experience every birthday and I rather fancy driving a McLaren, but I'm not paying that much if they excessively rev limit the car or you get little actual track time.
Yes I just did my fourth Pure McLaren course (the "Performance Academy" course) this week at Brands Hatch GP circuit and it was absolutely awesome driving that circuit in a 650S with a professional instructor at my side and V-Box sessions after each track run. I couldn't recommend it enough! They do an amazing job on the hospitality side as well. The night before we had an absolutely wonderful dinner with the CEO of McLaren Automotive in attendance at the very nice luxury hotel that was included in the price. Bruno Senna was in attendance on the track day and he took some folks on hot laps around the track. The first course I did at Spa Francorchamps they had Emerson Fittipaldi as their guest and I got sit across from him at dinner - a very delightful man full of amazing stories! Emmerson gave hot laps in a P1 (which was just before they went into production). At Circuit of the Americas this year they had Indianapolis 500 winner (and McLaren test driver) Kenny Brack giving hot laps in the P1 GTR as well. McLaren goes out of their way to make it a safe and enjoyable experience.As for rev limiting - the only rev limit is the car's rev limit. In fact the one thing you'll learn about McLarens is their quite happy to sit on the rev limiter without violently cutting power like other cars. The way you'll know you're on the rev limit in the 650S is that the gear indicator will have turned red and you'll be wondering why your foot is planted and you're not gathering more speed
. I've found sometimes in the heat of trying to get a great lap time I'm forgetting to shift before the redline - total rookie mistake! In a McLaren 650S the red line is somewhere around 8,500 rpm. In terms of track time you generally share a car with another driver who also has his own dedicated instructor. When you're not in the car you're going over your V-Box data at a PC with your instructor, grabbing some water, refreshments or a bathroom break and plotting your strategy to get faster on the next run. You get PLENTY of track time at these events. Your mileage may vary but in my case I find I get about the same amount of track time when I take my own cars to my home track for a track day or maybe even a little more. You'll be out long enough that, as your times are improving, you're going to find each stint long enough that you need to come in and cool down the tires by the time you're doing the last two laps anyway. On each in-lap they check (and adjust if needed) tire pressures and they have plenty of spare tires if needed. They also changed our brake pads at lunch time so I did two good brake pad bedding-in laps right after lunch which were the perfect to get back in the swing of things after a really nice meal.
I can't stress enough how much fun these events are. With the performance academy they will give as advanced a course as your talents allow or dial it back to build your confidence if that's needed.
I've done Porsche and Ferrari courses and I find the Pure McLaren events to be the best course and, by far, the best value. I've done their "Track" level and "Performance Academy" level. The big difference for the "Track" (and now "Club") courses is there's classroom instruction and a track walk on the day before. Whereas with the Performance Academy you're just doing the dinner the night before (awesome BTW!) and then you're straight out on the track with your instructor the next morning. I have not done their "experience" course so I have no idea what that format is. They did it on a different day at Brands Hatch this week so I didn't see how it was done.
tankplanker said:
That sounds awesome, I better get saving, thanks for taking the time to reply!
My pleasure! Here's a picture I took during the lunch break on Wednesday at Brands Hatch. This is looking down the pit from where the owners' cars were parked. There was a good mix of 570S, 12C, 650S, and 675LT with a 675LT Spider as well. Not pictured here were the Pure McLaren course cars were all either 650S (coupes & spiders varying left and right hand drive) or 650S Sprint cars for those taking the Sprint course. I was surprised nobody brought a P1. In Austin there were a few P1s. The second picture is from Austin - these are all owners' cars, there are no course cars in this picture. I did a single stint in the 650S Sprint car last year at Spa and it was incredible. At brands it was good for about 10 seconds faster than the 650S because it's got more downforce, less weight, modified suspension and way more grip (slick tires). I would have loved to have done a full day Sprint course but I decided to spend the extra money on some MSO goodies on the 675LT Spider I have on order instead. Maybe next year!
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