Oftentimes supercar manufactures and supercar buyers alike will tout their superiority by way of lap times. Hell, Ford just did it themselves this week. Many of these are phenomenally fast street-legal machines, priced upward of a quarter-million dollars before options, like the Porsche 911 GT3 RS or the McLaren 750S. Hundreds of horsepower, lots of wild state-of-the-art electronic driver aids, trick aero and suspension, these cars have it all. They’re also low and stiff, giving up street comfort for lap time prowess. So why are they still slower than a 240-horsepower motorcycle-powered track car around a track?
Evo Magazine recently took brand-new examples of the GT3 RS, 750S, and Radical SR3 XXR to Anglesey for a lap time shootout. With a tiny Suzuki-sourced 1.3-liter four-cylinder engine, the Radical has less than half the horsepower of the Porsche and just one third the power of the McLaren. The little open-top prototype still manages to clear both the German and the Brit’s lap times by five or six seconds. There’s something to be said for sticky slick tires and a lightweight chassis. Even without all the fancy electronics, the Radical makes its speed by weighing half as much as its competition.
It doesn’t end there, either. Not only is the Radical significantly faster than the 911 or the McLaren, it’s half the money, too. The SR3 XXR starts at a comparatively reasonable $119,900, up against the GT3 RS’ $241,300 or the 750S’ $329,500. Hell, stacked up on Evo’s leaderboard, the Radical turns a lap time two and a bit seconds quicker than even the all-conquering $3.1-million McLaren P1 GTR.
Supercars are increasingly difficult to drive quickly on the street, even downright boring because they don’t come alive until well above street-legal speeds. You’re sacrificing a fun drive, a comfortable drive, and a fat stack of cash to buy a car that is optimized for track lap times, and still getting your ass handed to you by the upper-middle-class track rat in a funky-looking motorcycle-powered bathtub. What’s the point?