It's no secret that the McLaren 720S is even more powerful than we were initially led to believe. A recent visit to the dyno revealed that the automaker was being conservative with the supercar's performance figures. When it was first revealed, McLaren claimed that the 720S could produce 710 hp at the crank from its 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, yet the supercar sent nearly 700 horsepower to the rear wheels when hooked up to a dyno. We've since seen the 720S humiliate a Lamborghini Huracan, and now we get to see how it performs in a half-mile run.
Half-mile runs are often a good measure of performance for hypercars like the LaFerrari, McLaren P1, and Porsche 918 Spyder. The fact the 720S is in the same league as these cars is frankly unprecedented. Brook from DragTimes recently took his 720S out for a half-mile run using launch control, and the results are staggering.
In the video, the McLaren 720S managed to cross the quarter-mile mark in 10.1 seconds at 144 mph before covering the half-mile sprint in 15.8 seconds at 174 mph. Admittedly, the quarter-mile time set by the 720S isn't that impressive since Brook admitted that the conditions weren't ideal which resulted in some wheel spin off the line. The half-mile lap time, on the other hand, puts the 720S in hypercar territory. To put things in perspective, the Porsche 918 Spyder needs around 15.6 seconds to cover half a mile, while the Veyron needed over 16 seconds to do the half-mile sprint when it launched over 10 years ago.
Comparing the time to the old Veyron may seem irrelevant now, but the fact that the 720S nearly beat the 918 Spyder on a "non-prepped surface" is an astonishing achievement for a car that costs considerably less than most top-tier hypercars. Potentially, it could set an even faster time and beat the 918 Spyder's half-mile time in better conditions. The performance and value for money of the McLaren 720S never ceases to amaze us. As Brook says in the video, you're getting hypercar performance at a supercar price, making the McLaren 720S unbeatable in its class.
