Rare McLaren F1 GTR Crashing At Goodwood Is A Painful Sight

McLaren had a strong outingat the 2023 Goodwood Festival of Speed as theSolus GTtook the overall victory, but it wasn't all sunshine and roses, as a very rare and special McLaren F1 GTR wiped out and ate hay on one of its runs up the hill.

The video below shows the Lark #60 McLaren F1 GTR hitting the haystack barriers at the event, damaging the front right corner. Damaging any car hurts, but when the car in question is one of only 106 ever built (including road cars, race cars, and development prototypes) and one of only 28 GTR-spec cars, it hurts a little more. Fortunately, crashes don't seem to impact the value of these special icons, as Rowan Atkinsonmanaged to sell his F1 for eight million pounds($12 million at the time) despite crashing it twice, but that doesn't make the impact feel any less painful.

The GTR is the race-spec version of the brand's first purpose-built road car, and the #60 car that crashed at FOS was chassis #13R, one of the early 1996 cars. It debuted at the GT500 class of the 1996 All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC), which we know today as the Super GT in Japan. The #60 car ran alongside the Lark #61 McLaren F1 GTR; Naoki Hattori and Ralf Schumacher piloted the former, while the latter had David Brabham and John Nielsen at the helm.

What makes the model extra special was it brought Team Lark a 1-2 finish in the 1996 JGTC championship and sealed the championship victory - making it the only non-Japanese car to win the overall championship in the GT500 class. The #60 car that ran the 1.16-mile track at Goodwood scored the most race wins in the season with three victories.