The Story Behind The McLaren F1’s 240.1 mph Run Reading time: about 1 minute. British

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Engineering

Racing driver Andy Wallace climbed into a McLaren F1 in 1998 wearing a helmet, a button-down shirt, and a calculator watch. He then drove the British supercar to a top speed of 391 km/h (242.9 mph) on the famous banked testing track at Ehra-Lessien in Germany.

Speed records typically require that runs be made in both directions and then averaged to account for any advantages in wind direction – and his final average speed was 240.1 mph. This news spread like wildfire around the world. The McLaren F1, a 3-seat road car built by a company in southern England better known for their Formula 1 exploits, had shattered the previous speed record by a production car – and set a new benchmark that many thought impossible just a few short years before.

This film includes footage of the record run, unseen by the general public for 25 years. Total film running time is just over 7 minutes, and it’s absolutely essential viewing. If you’d like to read more about McLaren you can click here to visit their official website.

Via The Drive

Author Details Ben Branch Founder + Senior Editor Ben Branch has had his work featured on CNN, Popular Mechanics, the official Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, and many more. Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with millions of readers around the world and hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. You can follow Ben on Instagram here, Twitter here, or LinkedIn here.





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