Report: McLaren outsourcing GT2/GT3-spec MP4-12C racers

McLaren MP4-12C GTR renderings by Jon Sibal - Click above for high-res image gallery

Could you imagine McLaren making a supercar and not racing it? Of course not. Even though the Woking, England-based outfit might have envisioned the original McLaren F1 purely as a road car, history naturally had different plans for it – and with spectacular results. So we were hardly surprised back in March when reports began coming in that The House That Bruce Built was planning a competition version of the new MP4-12C.

As was the case with the F1 and indicated by those earlier reports, McLaren's plans, according to AutoWeek, involves teaming up with independent racing garages to turn its road car into a racer. In this case, that firm is said to be CRS, a British outfit that's racked up a considerable number of victories in GT and open-wheel racing. But CRS will hardly be going it alone. Reports have McLaren's own people working on the design to be implemented by the outfit.

Lest you think there will only be a handful of MP4-12C competition cars on select tracks, reports have CRS building a fleet of some fifteen GT3-spec versions and another batch of GT2 machines that could find their way to Le Mans by 2013.