The McLaren 570S GT4 is What Track Stars are Made Of

BOLD RIDE

Copyright © 2016 Bold Ride LLC.

 

Posted on 16 March 2016 by Zach Doell

                                    

Any professional race car driver will tell you that motorsport is generally not a cheap endeavor. Running a team, buying a car, and showing up to races all cost loads of money. But McLaren is at least making part of that cost calculation less painful—it has built a new, less expensive track star. And it’s a looker. 

Meet the 2017 McLaren 570S GT4.

As its 570S and GT4 designation hints, the new car will represent McLaren’s lower rung Sports Series in the wild world of racing, mounting an offensive in the FIA’s GT4 racing category.

 It has been thoroughly worked over by McLaren’s GT outfit and racing specialists CRS GT Limited, and will cost a not-so-unthinkable £159,900 (about $225,400 at today’s rates). Admit it, you want one.

While the 570S GT4 may look slightly road-going in nature, it is of course a track-only creation. McLaren says it shares its carbon fiber chassis and familiar twin-turbo 3.8-liter V8 with the rest of the Sports Series, but that’s where the similarities begin to end.

The GT4 adds to that recipe an FIA-spec roll cage, fire extinguisher system, two-way adjustable racing dampers, coilover racing springs, center-locking magnesium wheels shod in Pirelli slick tires, and an onboard air jack.

Its aerodynamics have also been fettled with too. The 570S now sports a massive GT4-spec rear wing, a larger front splitter, and a reworked cooling system with a new radiator and front-end ducting. And if pure visuals translate to performance on track, this ought to be a fast one.

Need one in your life? You’ll have to wait a few months unfortunately. A sole 570S GT4 will be fielded in the 2016 British GT Championship as a development vehicle run by the Black Bull Ecurie Ecosse team. Come next year, McLaren will begin selling these off to compete in the 2017 championship.

For those looking to just have a blast at a private track day, McLaren will rollout another 570S track-only car—the 570S Sprint—which will be unrestricted to racing regulations and be revealed in “the coming weeks.” Stay tuned.