Experienced the iconic Mclaren Solus GT on a race track

A Senna GTR, whose track prowess is formidable, is no match for the Solus GT, as we saw first-hand with both these cars being on the track at the same time.

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Over the last few days, I drove the McLaren Solus GT at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

To recap, this is a single-seater closed-cockpit ultra-lightweight track-only hypercar. Its naturally-aspirated 5.2 liter V10 makes roughly 850 horsepower and revs to roughly 10,000 RPM. It is ultra-rare too: only 25 units are to be made.

McLaren has created something special here. This is not a track-oriented version of an existing hypercar like the P1 GTR or the Senna GTR are. It is not a sanitized version of an existing racecar. It is also not an existing recipe presented in different clothing, like the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro, which is essentially an LMP2 car built by Multimatic. The Solus GT is quite unique in being a cross between the philosophies of an open-wheel Formula car and a prototype car (LMP2 level), without being just like or being derived from either of those things.

Some thoughts and observations:

• Quite light: around a thousand kilos. You feel the lightness right away and throughout the track.

• High downforce: besides the giant wing and the giant splitter, there are huge amounts of negative space in the car, including exposed front suspension and venturi tunnels that run all the way under the car from the front to the back.

• In addition to the usual dampers, there are heave dampers on the front and the rear that limit how much the car can squat (e.g. under downforce load). The front heave damper is clearly visible through the windshield.

• Closed-cockpit with a glass-domed canopy that slides open: jet-fighter style! (The roof has a large cut-out that can be popped off in case of an emergency.)

• Wrap-around windshield (with a "halo" bridge) with no A-pillars = awesome, unobstructed view. (The entire windshield can be dislodged and removed in case of an emergency.)

• Awesome NA V10 noise. This is an old-school racing engine made by Judd.

• 7-speed motorsport transmission by Xtrac.

• Very direct steering compared to GT racecars: tiny inputs lead to big direction changes. Open-wheel formula cars are like that too, but even if you are used to driving those cars, you still need to recalibrate your brain in the Solus GT because unlike, say, an F1 car, the Solus has a center-of-gravity that's higher, and it's larger, and a bit heavier, so relatively speaking, you feel more weight transfer. Since that transfer is so rapid, it is a bit unsettling initially, and then you get used to it.

• Carbon-carbon brakes + light weight = incredible stopping power. Unlike open-wheel formula cars, the Solus GT does have ABS, which means you can brake / trail-brake more "easily".

• A Senna GTR, whose track prowess is formidable, is no match for the Solus GT, as we saw first-hand with both these cars being on the track at the same time.

• "Looks like a spaceship" is a phrase that gets thrown around quite a lot when it comes to extreme cars, but in this case, it is totally apt.

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