McLaren Senna

The Senna takes its name from Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian racing driver who won three Formula 1 world championships with McLaren. It sits in the company's Ultimate Series, the same line as the McLaren F1 and the P1, but it was built to a narrower purpose than either car: to lap a race circuit as quickly as possible. Its uncompromising, function-led bodywork - defined by a large active rear wing and panels shaped for downforce rather than styling - places aerodynamic performance ahead of appearance, a choice McLaren made deliberately and defended openly.

Power comes from an evolution of McLaren's twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8, sending drive to the rear wheels through a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Bespoke camshafts, revised induction, high-flow fuel pumps and a lightweight titanium-and-Inconel exhaust lift its output to 789 bhp. Every body panel is formed from carbon fibre, part of a relentless weight-saving effort that left the Senna the lightest road-legal McLaren since the original F1.

McLaren built 500 road-going examples, and every one was accounted for before the car was shown to the public. The company later produced a smaller run of track-only and special variants, but it was these homologated cars that defined the model. Stripped of pretence and organised entirely around its aerodynamics, the Senna answered a single question that road-car design usually treats as secondary: how quickly can it get around a lap?