McLaren MP4-12C vs Honda Civic BTCC racer vs Honda Fireblade British Superbike

So here's this week's key question - which is faster around the tight and twisty infield track at Rockingham Motor Speedway, a works Honda BTCC car, a works Honda British Superbike, or a McLaren MP4-12C Spider? I guess it must seem slightly mad to be comparing a road car with a full-on British Touring Car and a full-on British Superbike. But actually if you do the maths, the old McLaren could actually stand a bit of a chance here because it doesn't weigh that much more than a touring car. It weighs just under 1500kg whereas the minimum weight for the touring car is 1280. Okay, there's a difference there but it's not gigantic. And the trade-off for that is that the McLaren, of course, has 630 odd horsepower whereas the touring car, they've just told me, only has about 350 maybe 360 if they run a little bit more boost. So really, in a straight line, the McLaren should absolutely demolish the touring car. The bike, however, is another matter. That weighs about 160kg before you stick a rider on it. And yet it's got very nearly 200bhp. It has got 200bhp so when you do the maths with that, the bike in a straight line should just be incredible. And it is. I've already seen him having a little practice run on it. He just goes from over there to over there in one blink of one eye. It's extraordinary how fast it looks. So I don't know. We'll try a lap time in the McLaren and we'll do a bit of data crunching and see where we end up. To drive a BTCC car, we enlisted the services of Gordon Shedden, aka Flash, who very nearly won the championship this year driving this very car. To ride the bike we persuaded 23-year-old wonder boy Alex Lowes to don the exact same Samsung Honda overalls in which he clinched the British Superbike Championship this year at Brands Hatch. And, of course, Muggins here got to drive the McLaren. You cannot complain about the poke of the McLaren. It feels, I would suggest, a lot quicker than the touring car purely, in a straight line. The trouble is though that it doesn't develop the middle corner grip. I'm having to break miles earlier than I suspect Gordon is in the touring car. And even the traction, actually, now that the rear tyres are starting to go off, isn't that great. I mean there's no wheelspin there but I'm not really getting as much as I need from the back end of this car and now the brakes have just started to go a little bit as well. It is a very hot day though. It's just the difference between an absolutely bespoke competition car and something that you can drive home in at night and then down to Sainsbury's in the next day. Okay, what do I think? I reckon if the McLaren can get within 4 seconds of the touring car it will be doing incredibly well considering it's got number plates on. If it can get within 8 seconds of the bike I'll be amazed because the bike just looks outrageous. Let's see. Let's have a look at some data. But before we do that, have a look at this. We just went out and did a few warm-up laps for the cameras here basically. We put Alex on the superbike upfront so that he could set the pace. I asked him to go nice and slowly so that us chaps in the cars could keep up. Shedden was just about okay with that in the BTCC car but I got dropped in the McLaren after about 3 corners and after that, they just disappeared. What surprised me most when I was trying and failing to follow them, apart from the fact that the bike was in a different league and on the main pit straight, was the extra corner speeds they could cap. I mean you drive the McLaren in isolation and you think, "Nothing in the universe could stay with this." But in reality there is a massive difference between them. And the biggest difference of all was at turn seven which you can see here. At the apex, the BTCC car was doing 94mph whereas the McLaren was understeering all over the place at just 78mph. I guess you can thank the BTCC car's aero and it's slick tyres for that, plain and simple. What was really spooky though was finding out how fast the bike could get through the corners. In most cases it could carry at least as much corner speed as the McLaren. And in the faster, steady state bends it could almost stay with the BTCC car. And then down the straights it just murdered them both. So in the end, and despite the gallant efforts of Flash and his Honda BTCC team, Alex Lowes and his British Superbike were undisputed king of the day. They beat the Honda BTCC car by 2.3 seconds and thumped the McLaren by 7 seconds. Even when Shedden climbed in and had a go to verify the lap time. This time two wheels rule. If you need proof, take a look at this. And if you're a car driver, weep.