Button and Hamilton sign-off new McLaren

By Tom Phillips

18th March 2010

The MP4-12C will come with two champions' seals of approval! The two most recent Formula 1 champions, and current McLaren F1 team drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, have both driven the most recent MP4-12C prototypes at a special test session held at the Goodwood racing circuit.

And as you’d expect, the duo were full of praise for McLaren’s new challenger and their potential new company cars:

Jenson Button said, “The 12C is so easy to drive. Its cockpit is a nice place to be and really makes you feel at one with the car. Its dynamic capability is fantastic at both high and low speeds. Within just a few seconds, I felt really comfortable with the car – and after only a couple of laps I was able to begin to push it hard through the corners”

While Lewis Hamilton said, “The 12C is a real driver’s car; it delivered on all my expectations. The visibility is great from the driver’s seat. You really appreciate that in tight corners. I loved the McLaren F1 when I drove it and, like that car, the huge front windscreen of the 12C allows you to take in all the information needed for perfect lines through apex turns.”

The F1 stars were tasked specifically with analysing the 12C’s launch control, Brake-Steer application and setting the threshold levels of the electronic stability control. But their input is just a tiny part of the exhaustive sign off process which has seen the engineering team clock up almost 1,000,000 miles in some of the most extreme environments on the planet.

Testing began in 2007, and now over 40 test mules have been thrashed in locations ranging from the cold of Arctic, where temperatures averaged -50 degrees, to the deserts of Bahrain, where the temperature hit +50 degrees.

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