Speed. That’s what it all boils down to in our game. Going faster than anyone else. Leaving your rivals behind.

Since wheel-spinning off the grid for the first time at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, our cars have notched up an impressive 182 victories.

No team – before or since – has gone faster for longer than we did in 1988. Who could forget our epoch-defining MP4/4? An invincible machine that remains the most dominant Formula 1 car ever built.

The stats from that season speak for themselves: 16 races; 15 pole positions; 15 victories. No need to do the maths: that’s a 93.8 per cent win rate. With Prost and Senna behind the wheel, no car was quicker. It was a tough year for our rivals.

We haven’t just had the fastest machine in Formula 1. For 13 years the McLaren F1 was the quickest production car on the planet. Dogeared posters of this legendary machine festooned bedroom walls.

Yet the supercar was never intended to be a racer. It was conceived, supposedly, as an elegant way of travelling to the South of France. The 240.1 mph top speed? Well, it wouldn’t do to be late for dinner now, would it.

But the need for speed eventually got the better of our trophy-hungry team and a race-ready version of the car was entered – hastily, might we add – into Le Mans 24 Hours in 1995. We couldn’t resist.

Just as well, really, because in the end we won. We also came third. And fourth. And fifth. In fact, the F1 GTR dominated the entire event, reaffirming McLaren as one of the fastest names in motorsport.

Our team now hopes to carry that speed into a very different field with our new partner, OnePlus, the upstart smartphone brand that has been emulating our early achievements in another fast-moving and highly-competitive industry.

OnePlus is currently having its own MP4/4 moment with its new 6T smartphone, which pushes the limits of performance, delivering as it does rapid gaming, zero-lag app experiences and a blink-and-you-miss-it screen unlock.

And don’t get us started on the uber-fast charging technology. Here the 6T has clearly taken a leaf out of the F1 ERS manual, charging the phone in almost no time at all.

So, we hear you ask, what will the new partnership between McLaren and OnePlus look like? Well, you might have heard rumours swirling around about the launch of a special OnePlus 6T McLaren Edition smartphone.

We’re keeping tight-lipped on that for now, but you won’t have to wait long for the details: all will be revealed next week at our ‘Salute to Speed’ launch event, which will be held at the McLaren Technology Centre on December 11, 2018.

Okay, so there might be a product release on the cards. But the milestone event will be so much more than that; it will also mark the official starting point of our new technology partnership with OnePlus, that will leverage the shared values that bind both our brands.

That includes our common desire to go ever quicker. So, buckle up. Things are going to start moving very fast, very soon.



