At the end of last year, McLaren's longtime chief test driver jumped ship to rival Aston Martin. Chris Goodwin had been with McLaren for an impressive 21 years. He was its chief pilot the entire time, so finding a replacement was not an easy task. Fortunately, McLaren just so happened to employ former Indy Car champion, Indianapolis 500 winner Kenny Brack, as a driving consultant. Brack's long career has also seen him work as a Formula 1 and NASCAR test driver. Goodwin's successor was literally right there all along, and now it's official.

"Recruiting Kenny Brack as our new Chief Test Driver is a real coup for McLaren Automotive and perfectly aligns with our determination to ensure our next generations of luxury sports cars and supercars retain the dynamic excellence for which McLaren is renowned," said Chief Operating Officer Dr. Jens Ludmann. Brack's past experience working with McLaren's engineering team has proven quite valuable, as he's already familiar with the brand. In fact, his past consulting work for McLaren saw him behind the wheel of the 720S and Senna during their respective testing phases. He's also already been quietly working on future models that McLaren refuses to name at this time.

In short, he was the perfect guy for the job. Oh, and he also set a Nurburgring lap record for road-legal cars with a time of 6:43.22 in a McLaren P1 LM last year. "It is a great gift to be able to work with your passion and break new boundaries, and to have the opportunity to work with the highly skilled and determined team at McLaren Automotive is just fantastic," said Brack. "I am driven by a desire to win, to achieve results; for me, the key dynamic traits needed to explore my own limits and those of a vehicle on a race track are predictability and consistency. These elements are also fundamental for a road car to be both safe and satisfying and as a result you'll find them integral to the McLaren 720S and the McLaren Senna."