The new McLaren MP4-12C->ke3514 is quite a slice of heaven if you’re into supercars. Only a handful of other supercars can stake claim to being as capable – if not more – than the MP4-12C so judging by that factor alone, there’s a piece of this McLaren machine that every gear head in the right frame of mind would want to have a piece of.

But seeing as McLaren->ke284 is a brand that doesn’t produce new models every year, the bigger and far more intriguing question is how their new bad boy stacks up against its bigger brother, the F1. Or in this particular case, how it can hold up against the racecar version of its predecessor, the F1 GTR. Steve Sutcliffe of Autocar went to the only place where you can pit the two rockets on wheels head-to-head with one another: the race track.

On sheer stats alone, the F1-GTR already has the leg-up over the MP4-12C not because both have an output of somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 horsepower, but because the former, as a pure and unadulterated race car, is about 1,000 lbs lighter than the latter.

At the end of the test, it was pretty evident that despite all the new technologies that come with the MP4-12C, it’s heavier frame still played a pivotal role in the competition – albeit barely – failing to edge the F1 GTR in a good ol’ fashioned sprint to the finish line.

Nevertheless, the MP4-12C is still one of those rare supercars that any man would be lucky to own, regardless of how it stacks up against a race version of its older brother.

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