{"id":796412,"date":"2026-07-12T04:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/796412\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T04:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T04:44:10","slug":"lando-norris-gives-mclaren-mcl-hy-public-debut-at-goodwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/796412\/","title":{"rendered":"Lando Norris gives McLaren MCL-HY public debut at Goodwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0McLaren Hypercar completed its first public laps with the reigning Formula 1 World Champion Lando Norris<\/a> at the wheel of the V6 turbo-powered\u00a0LMDh that is set to challenge for wins in the World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours from 2027 onwards.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old took on the 1.16-mile hillclimb at the Duke of Richmond\u2019s estate twice on Friday. On Saturday, McLaren development driver Gregoire Saucy<\/a> took over driving duties while Norris jumped into a 2023-spec McLaren MCL60 Formula 1 car.<\/p>\n

Both drivers didn\u2019t push too hard on their runs. With the car being brand new, any accident or damage would have caused a massive setback to the technical development program \u2013 a scenario McLaren was eager to avoid, drawing memories of Lamborghini’s early setbacks with the SC63.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first ever drive in the MCL HY, an absolute pleasure here in Goodwood \u2013 always a pleasure to be here in Goodwood in the first place \u2013 but to drive the McLaren on its debut and one of the first times is an honor,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a big project for McLaren obviously to start to try head to Le Mans, and I got to have a little taste already, which is very special. I would like to push it a little bit more, it’s a little bit daunting to do it here in Goodwood, but one day, one day, you never know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ll get to drive it on a racetrack and really see what it can do. I\u2019m so very happy, very excited for all the boys and girls that are part of the HY project and yeah, I wish them all the best. It was a lot of fun and I’ll see you soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following its official reveal in May, the McLaren MCL-HY had previously only completed private testing sessions in Italy. Goodwood marked its very first appearance in front of a massive crowd. \u201cThe Goodwood Festival of Speed is the greatest car show on Earth, so it made sense for us to have this on our radar,\u201d said Team Principal James Barclay.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the truth is, it\u2019s extremely early in our test program so it was very lightly penciled in. However, our team has done an incredible job, hitting every target on- and off-track so we made the last-minute call to divert the MCL-HY to the event for two of the four days and share it with the passionate motorsport fans that attend.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0McLaren MCL-HY is built around the LMDh spine provided by chassis partner Oreca, which is also used by Acura, Alpine, Genesis and Ford. Power comes from a V6 twin-turbo engine with the spec LMDh hybrid system on the rear axle. In accordance with the regulations, the powertrain delivers a combined maximum output of up to 520 kW.<\/p>\n

The team is preparing intensive testing over the coming months, which will include rigorous 30-hour endurance simulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to climb Mount Everest and we have made it to base camp,\u201d Barclay had previously stated during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. \u201cWe have prepared exceptionally well, but now the real hard work begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lando <\/p>\n

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL-HY<\/p>\n

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

When asked by Motorsport.com about the most challenging aspect of reaching that initial base camp, Barclay replied: \u201cI think the biggest thing is the team. You have to hire a really great group of people, not just anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting the right group around you is the biggest thing. You can have investments, you can have a race car, but you’ve got to have the people to make the most of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Development testing duties are primarily spearheaded by\u00a0Mikkel Jensen. However, the Dane missed out on the Goodwood Festival of Speed due to a scheduling clash with the IMSA SportsCar Championship round at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) in Canada.<\/p>\n

Alongside Jensen,\u00a0Laurens Vanthoor has been confirmed as a factory driver, combining his IMSA commitments with Porsche with a race seat in McLaren’s WEC campaign.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0McLaren Hypercar completed its first public laps with the reigning Formula 1 World Champion Lando Norris at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,579,591,280778,590,82,1194],"class_list":["post-796412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-goodwood-festival-of-speed","tag-lando-norris","tag-lando-norris-gives-mclaren-mcl-hy-public-debut-at-goodwood","tag-mclaren","tag-sports","tag-wec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}