McLaren P1 LM spied vying for Nurburgring lap record, shooting sparks

A MCLAREN P1 LM has been spotted at the Nurburgring Nordschleife lapping like a record-hungry weapon during an industry pool session. A new street-legal lap record could be upon us.

Those still recovering from the furore surrounding Lamborghini’s controversial Huracan Performante 6:52.01 record lap of the 20.2-kilometre German racetrack may want to sit down, because we might finally find out how the P1 officially stacks up on the great leveller of racetracks.

To refresh your memory, the P1 LM starts life at McLaren as a track-only P1 GTR, before the Lanzante skunkworks responsible for the original McLaren F1 GTR gets its hands on it, tweaking it with the necessary modifications to give it road-legal status.

Only five P1 LMs have been sold to the public, with a sixth – spotted here with number plates still on it – retained by the company as a prototype.

At its heart is a 735kW twin-turbo V8 that sounds absolutely ballistic tackling the infamous Green Hell, even shooting sparks as it bottoms out before ascending a hill.

The road-legal P1 LM was developed on the Nurburgring, but this particular outing looks more focused than ever and smacks of a lap record attempt.

This car won’t be able to officially topple Lamborghini’s time, as the limited number of cars rules it out of the production car bracket. Instead, the P1 LM will be battling the Radical SR8 LM, which set a street-legal lap record time of 6:48.28 in 2009.

In this video the P1 LM is piloted by Kenny Brack, a man whose illustrious racing career includes a win at the 1999 Indianapolis 500.

If you’re not familiar with the P1 LM or Brack, let this video of the pair hammering up the driveway at Goodwood during last year’s Festival of Speed give a quick summation of their abilities.

As mentioned, this isn’t the first time a P1 LM has been spotted on the Nordschleife, with the be-winged beast harassing mere mortals during a public event in October last year. However, the car was carrying a passenger, and heavy traffic meant an outright lap time was never going to happen.

Now we just have to hope Lanzante makes its most recent lap times public.