McLaren ‘Project Endurance’ Supplements Hypercar Effort

Image: McLaren

McLaren’s ‘Project Endurance’ program that will see the sale of a track derivative model to its upcoming LMDh-based Hypercar, is part of the “business case” for racing according to McLaren Endurance Racing executive director James Barclay.

The British manufacturer, which will enter the top class of the FIA World Endurance Championship next year, has created several commercial opportunities involving the track-only cars, as well as pre-selling its initial batch of actual LMDh cars.

Project Endurance, aimed to bridge the gap between track day enthusiasts and pro drivers, is packaged as a two-car program, including the purchase of the Dallara-chassied car, professional coaching and crew support.

“We at McLaren Racing, we’re a racing organization,” said Barclay. “It’s not like we have a huge fixed marketing budget that’s just paying for the racing activity as a marketing expense.

“We have to be sustainable, driven by a fantastic partnership team we have at McLaren Racing with our incredible commercial partners we’re bringing on board.

“The track car program is part of our business case for racing, so it’s an important element to us.

“It’s a really cool element as well and it’s not very often you can have a world championship-winning track car to go and enjoy driving.

“The fact that you have the likes of us and others doing that, it’s a rare opportunity to drive fundamentally a world championship car.

“There’s a lot of similarities so it’s not like we’re engineering two different cars.

“The way that car will be operated will be separate from our racing activity, to not have that distraction.

“Once we’ve validated and finalized ad then into production, that will have a different approach in terms of people running the race team and the race cars will be separate from the track cars.

“But obviously still from a management point of view, we’ll be across both.”

Barclay said the initial batch of Project Endurance cars will be delivered to customers in late 2027/early 2028.

“We haven’t put a defined number on that limit,” he said. “It’s fair to say we’re, as always, it’s about demand and supply.

“I think it’s fair to say with the excitement around Hypercar at the moment, it will be nice to be in a place where we have demand outstripping supply and a real value associated to these cars.”

“We auctioned one of our race cars off, as you know, which is amazing to see what that car achieved.

“It wasn’t until this program that the last McLaren car that’s capable of winning outright, to buy was a McLaren F1 GTR. That car has an incredible heritage and incredible value now.

“In many ways, this track car will be the successor to that. I think for collectors, for people who enjoy driving an incredible racing car, it will be a unique opportunity.”

Its first Hypercar race car, which has even yet to hit the ground for testing, sold for $7,598,750 USD in a recent auction at RM Sotheby’s auction in Abu Dhabi.

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown revealed that all six LMDh cars have been pre-sold to collectors, something that Ferrari has also done with its 499Ps.

“They were acquired by the biggest collectors in the world,” said Brown of McLaren’s LMDh cars. “It took about eight phone calls to sell six cars.”

Brown, however, said the revenue from the track day program and pre-sales of LMDh race cars is only a small percentage in the overall capital needed for the factory WEC Hypercar effort.

“The commercial partnerships is the strong majority of the revenue needed,” he said.

McLaren Has Opportunity to Market ‘Triple Crown’ to Partners

With McLaren being the only team active in Formula 1, the NTT IndyCar Series and soon-to-be FIA World Endurance Championship, Brown said they have the ability to sell the allure of the ‘Triple Crown’ to partners.

“We’ve got four properties to commercialize: Formula 1, IndyCar, WEC and when you wrap them all together, the ‘Triple Crown’ which we’re the only team to have ever won,” explained Brown.

“We have partners now that are signed up for all three and then they kind of tip into the Triple Crown property. Then we’ve got partners that are F1 and IndyCar and cut across.

“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised or we wouldn’t have gone into it, but I’m very happy with the progress the commercial team’s made on where we are on corporate partnerships today in anticipation of where we need to be in 2027.

“We have the ability to bundle different packages together. I think sports car racing is very sellable, if you’d like. A lot of that will ultimately lead to the question around IMSA.”

When asked if the McLaren Hypercar will have the brand’s iconic papaya orange color on it, Brown responded: “There’s always going to be a high degree of Papaya and our partners like that.

“The red guys are always going to be red and I think that’s what you’re buying into.

“I think our marketing team has done an outstanding job. When you see Papaya, you think McLaren. That’s what the fans want to see and even our sponsors, even if their colors are different.

“We’ll do a good job giving them what they need without compromising that when you see McLaren, you’re going to say that’s the Papaya car.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John