McLaren celebrates Le Mans victory
Five unique Senna GTRs have been created by McLaren Special Operations (MSO) in celebration of the McLaren F1 GTR race cars that dominated the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans including overall victory.
The five customer-commissioned cars have been designed and crafted as an homage to one of the five McLaren F1 GTRs that finished the race, crossing the line in 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 13th positions – an incredible achievement given that this was the first time McLaren had raced at Le Mans.
The cars each wear a bespoke, hand-painted livery that either replicates or pays tribute to the design of each of the 1995 cars. The attention to detail is such that every McLaren Senna GTR LM took at least 800 hours to paint, with individual cars far exceeding that. Special permissions were granted by brand owners such as Gulf and Harrods and by Le Mans organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), to recreate logos and trademarks. The roof of each car even features an authentically recreated scrutineering sticker, which is the only piece of vinyl in the livery.
The Ueno Clinic car and the outright winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995, bearing race number 59 was driven in 1995 by two-time Le Mans winner Yannick Dalmas, Japanese veteran Masanori Sekiya and former Formula One driver, JJ Lehto.
The Harrods car, number 51, driven by an all-British line up of Andy Wallace, Derek Bell and Justin Bell, might well have won had it not suffered a transmission glitch two hours from the flag that saw Wallace have to nurse the car home in third place.
The Gulf car, Brazilian Maurizio Sandro Sala joined Brits Mark Blundell and Ray Bellm behind the wheel of the McLaren F1 GTR for 291 rain-lashed laps of La Sarthe in 1995, eventually finishing in fourth place.
The Jacadi car, number 50 was run by French-based customer team Giroix Racing. Two French drivers, Fabien Giroix and Olivier Grouillard, joined Swiss pilot Jean-Denis Deletraz to bring the car home in fifth place, just a lap down on the Gulf car.
Finally, the Cesar car, displaying the most intricate livery design of all the McLaren F1 GTRs that raced in 1995, car number 42 finished 13th position, completing the McLaren roll of honour of finishers. Run by French team Société BBA, the striking car was driven by an all-French line-up of Jean-Luc Maury-Laribiere, Marc Sourd and Hervé Poulin. Maury-Laribiere and Poulin were pioneers of ‘art cars’ and asked renowned artist Cesar Baldaccini to envisage a livery for the F1 GTR they would be racing at Le Mans.