McLaren 720S GT3X review

You’re strapped in tight to the carbonfibre racing seat, while the adjustable pedal box and steering column allow you to settle yourself just so in the recumbent driving position. Ahead of you is a yoke-style steering ‘wheel’ peppered with buttons that control everything from the traction control through to the ABS calibration and that push-to-pass function.

Once you’re settled, McLaren’s technicians drop the car off its air jacks and it lands with a thump, then the engine fires with an angry, gravelly bark. You need to use the clutch (and plenty of revs) to move off, but once under way, this is a two-pedal car. Then it’s down the pitlane and out onto the circuit for what turns out to be some of the most mind-bending, exhilarating and exhausting laps you’re ever likely to experience.

We’ve already explored the circuit in McLaren 765LT road cars but, racing lines aside, all that gained knowledge is pretty much redundant. Whereas a lift or a squeeze of the brakes was required before through the quick stuff, now you’re simply turning and going, relying on a combination of bravery (in short supply), the incredible aero and mechanical grip, plus Hankey’s surprising encouragement to keep the throttle pinned when every cell in your body is screaming at you to lift. The mid-corner adhesion is tenacious enough to squeeze you hip-crushingly hard against the seat bolsters.

It’s the same everywhere around the circuit. You find that you can never brake hard and late enough, and soon your left leg is aching from the effort of stamping on the pedal with a force that you expect to trigger the ABS but which never does. Then there’s the grip from the gumball Pirellis (a special supersoft compound not allowed in GT3 racing), which is eye-bulgingly astounding, the quick and precise steering revealing turn-in bite is as tight as a Doberman’s grip on a juicy bone. With practice, you can use it to trail the brakes and rotate the car neatly into slower corners.

Traction is incredible too, with the electronics (we’ve dialled in a pretty much halfway-house stage seven) allowing just a subtle flare of wheelspin as you get hard on the throttle as the car straightens at the corner exit.

As you would expect, the combination of more than 700bhp, a 1210kg kerb weight and closely stacked gears makes the GT3X very quick down the straights, but such is the brilliance of the rest of the car that it’s the least mind-blowing dynamic aspect (the Ferrari SF90 Stradale is likely a little faster once rolling).