Celebrating McLaren’s moment of magic

Thirty years ago a car never designed to race won the Le Mans 24 Hours. Everyone knows that car was the McLaren F1. If you omit the very first Le Mans in 1923, it was only the second time a constructor had won the race on its maiden attempt, Ferrari being the first back in 1949.

I think quite a few people know that too. But the fact that the people that ran it, Lanzante Motorsport, were also complete Le Mans novices is probably less widely appreciated. What’s more they won in perhaps the worst weather ever to visit the race (the other contenders being 1958, ’68, ’79 and ’80); even the very fact their car was in the race was highly controversial as we will shortly see. But win it they did. So, not unreasonably, today Lanzante is in the mood for celebration.

Some might open a bottle or two. Not these guys. Instead Lanzante is readying a whole new car to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of that most famous victory. From the people who created the roadgoing McLaren P1-GTR LM and P1 Spider, now comes a car codenamed ’95-59’ after the year of the race and the race number of its victorious F1 GTR.