McLaren’s upcoming GT3 car, the 720S GT3, has begun a “punishing” testing program ahead of its 2019 race debut.
This car is the replacement for the McLaren 650S GT3 and is the company’s first GT3 model to be developed in-house at its Woking facility.
It will be powered by a race-tuned version of the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine found in the road-going 720S, while McLaren reports that around 90% of the components of the road-legal car have been changed or optimized for the GT3 variant.
“The McLaren 720S is such a multi-talented road car that we always knew honing its pure racing talents and making a GT3 car out of it would be an entirely natural process – and so it has been,” said McLaren Automotive motorsport director Dan Walmsley.
“While a largely bespoke machine, the GT3 car is still a McLaren 720S at its core.
“Developing a race car is about optimizing every component and the lightweight MonoCage II carbon fiber chassis is the perfect base for this.”
If you want to purchase one, you will need £444,000 ex-works but as far as a race debut is concerned, no date has been announced yet.