McLaren Sets The Record Straight About Top Gear's 'Cancelled' Hypercar Battle Against The 918 And LaFerrari

On last night's TG episode, Jeremy Clarkson said that McLaren and Ferrari made it impossible to film a track battle - the British manufacturer disagrees

Darren Cassey

23 Feb 2015

McLaren Sets The Record Straight About Top Gear's 'Cancelled' Hypercar Battle Against The 918 And LaFerrari

Last night’s episode of Top Gear featured James May driving a LaFerrari in Italy. Upon returning to the studio, the other two hypercars - the Porsche 918 Spyder and McLaren P1 - had also turned up. Time to find out if Jeremy will become Jennifer, we thought. Nope. Clarkson explained that Ferrari and McLaren were being very difficult, making it impossible to take the cars around the track to find out which is fastest.

It seems McLaren isn’t happy with being cast as one of the bad guys, after it tweeted that Top Gear was responsible for the cancellation of the track time.

1/2 To clarify what you may have heard on @BBC_TopGear last night, we were ready with a McLarenP1™ for the triple track test...
— McLaren Automotive (@McLarenAuto) February 23, 2015

2/2 The track filming was due to take place this week but was cancelled by @BBC_TopGear ahead of last night’s show.
— McLaren Automotive (@McLarenAuto) February 23, 2015

Although McLaren didn’t explain the reason filming was cancelled, it seems the boys from Woking are trying to pin the blame on their friends in Maranello.

While this bickering is likely to continue for some time, the Porsche is just sitting quietly waiting for its moment to shine.