Check out the McLaren W1 doing big skids (sorry, important testing) on ice

Cold weather testing is a very important part of new car development. Well, we assume that’s what the engineers keep telling the bean counters, because it looks like a heck of a lot of fun.

Just look at how thorough McLaren is being with the new, 1,258bhp rear-wheel drive W1 hypercar. Perhaps one more lap of the ice circuit is necessary? Only for “optimisation of the chassis, traction control, torque vectoring and electronic stability programme systems on ultra-low grip surfaces”, of course. This is serious business.

McLaren says that it has also been stress-testing the high voltage battery, the gearbox and the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 “in extreme cold”. Yep, can confirm it’ll still do massive skids when the temperature is well below zero. Tick that one off the development list, folks.

Sadly for the intrepid engineers, we’re also told this “exhaustive test and validation programme” concluded earlier in 2025, and only now are we seeing some behind-the-scenes images for the first time. Still, pretty pictures of the P1’s successor, aren’t they?