McLaren plans to return to Le Mans in 2016

The last victory of McLaren Asked 24 Hours of Le Mans dates back to 1995 with the F1 GTR entered by Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing and driven by Yannick Dalmas, JJ Lehto and Masanori Sekiya. 20 years later, the Woking manufacturer is considering making a return to the Sarthe event in the GT category by 2016. Martin Whitmarsh recognized in Racing Engineering that the British brand had started a development program to produce an MP4- 12C in GTE configuration in order to comply with the ACO regulations. However, McLaren had to backtrack when the Automobile Club de l'Ouest published the new regulations concerning the mixing between GTEs and GT3s even though the British manufacturer had already spent more than a million pounds (nearly 1 euros) only in the development of the engine.

The CEO of McLaren Racing, who also heads the F1 team, explained that the structure was now waiting to assess the success of the convergence between GTE and GT3 to decide whether or not to relaunch the development of a car in accordance with the new regulations established by the ACO. “We wondered why people would buy GTEs with GT convergence”, explained Martin Whitmarsh. “We will wait to see how the convergence of GT will take place and we hope to be present in 2016. We believe that GT is important for our pedigree and our image and we love this discipline. »