When The McLaren F1 Conquered Japan

When The McLaren F1 Conquered Japan

Now is as good a time as any to remember when the McLaren F1 went to Japan in 1996 and ran the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship. Unsurprisingly, it cleaned up.

Screenshot from BOSSCARS on YouTube

The season went to none other than Ralf Schumacher and Naoki Hattori in their Lark-branded F1, back before it went to its long-tail configuration. McLaren F1 race cars still looked just like McLaren F1 road cars at that point.

Ralf and Naoki made McLaren the first and only non-Japanese manufacturer to win the top GT500 class. That’s impressive, sure, but really it’s just a pleasure to listen to that naturally-aspirated V12 howl through the gears, blipping on the manual shifts, getting pole at Suzuka.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.