McLaren F1 Certification

When first shown in 1988, it was just a sports car project of a Formula 1 racing team. In the 1990s, finally, the low-volume production began. With an overall victory in Le Mans 1995 and the record for the fastest street-legal production vehicle, the McLaren F1 finally captured its legendary status and keeps it until today, which is impressively underlined by certain sales prices and auction results. Now, the MSO department (McLaren Special Operations) in Woking is dedicating a factory certification program to the sports car, to provide owners with a comprehensive overview of the individual history of their car, the degree of originality (some road cars have been repainted and modified over time), the service history as well as in case of the racecars the individual racing history. All this data is complemented by an independent certification book with many illustrations of the own car from the works archive.

All 106 McLaren F1 built can undergo the new F1 Certification process. Between 1993 and 1998, 64 road cars, three longtail GTs, six LM, 28 racecars and five prototypes left the assembly lines. Some of them no longer exist today, because they were destroyed in accidents. One of the 28 racecars, a longtail GTR with chassis number 25R was now the first car to receive the F1 Certification, after it was comprehensively restored in the factory over 18 months back to the state in which it participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 1997. This process took so long due to the busy life of this particular car. It is the F1 GTR, which was raced for the longest period of time in motorsport. After it failed to finish in Le Mans because of an oil fire, it was repaired at McLaren and then sold to a Japanese racing team, which brought it into the JGTC race series for many years. Its final race was at Fuji Speedway in 2005, eight years after it was produced.

After its long racing career, this McLaren F1 GTR rolled into a private car collection in Japan, where it stayed until 2016. Then the well-known classic car dealer Kidston SA brokered the car to a new owner in Great Britain, who immediately decided for an extensive factory restoration. When he learned about the new F1 Certification program, he also had it done directly. For the work on 25R McLaren used mostly new-old-stock GTR spare parts, of which many had been stored in containers around the factory. Some of which haven’t been opened for the last 20 years.

Today, 25R again shows the colors and livery in studio lights, in which it once started the big endurance race at the river Sarthe in France: Gulf blue, black and neon orange. Next to the American oil company Gulf also the logos of Davidoff cigarettes were actually featured on the three cars from the Gulf-Davidoff-Team in FIA GT championship. However, tobacco advertising in France was banned by law in the early 1990s, leaving the side parts of the F1 GTRs without logos for Le Mans. The only pieces, McLaren didn’t develope in house or built specifically for the F1 can be found on top of the doors of 25R. Here the team shortly before the race installed small position lights from light aircrafts in different colors to distinguish the three cars easier at night. 25R was given the color blue, which can now be found there again after the restoration. Both, the fresh restored F1 GTR and the F1 Certification program were presented to the public last weekend at the Hampton Court Concours in the UK.

Images: McLaren, Tim Scott