McLaren joined the ranks of car manufacturers with a one-make racing series in 2023 when it launched the inaugural season of the McLaren Trophy in Europe.
Similar to the groundbreaking Ferrari Challenge, the series is open to private teams made up of both novice and amateur drivers. McLaren provides full support in terms of logistics, replacement parts and other forms of trackside support.
McLaren announced in March that the series would expand to the US in 2025, and on Monday the company released the calendar for the inaugural american season.
There will be five rounds with two races each, supporting the GT World Challenge America calendar. Each race will 50 minutes and include mandatory pit stops for driver changes, and the McLaren Automotive YouTube Channel will stream them all live.
McLaren Trophy, a one-make racing series
The five rounds will be held at Sonoma Raceway (March 28-30), Circuit of the Americas (April 25-27), Virginia International Raceway (July 18-20), Road America (August 15-17) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (October 3-5). Formula 1 fans will note that Circuit of the Americas is currently home to the United States Grand Prix.
A Trophy race car based on the McLaren Artura supercar will be the focus of the McLaren Trophy in the US, although teams still running the former 570S Trophy in the European series will be able to run the older car in the US series. There will be separate classes for each car.
The Trophy versions of the supercars are similar in specification to their road-going counterparts, but feature tweaks to the aerodynamics, powertrain and safety systems. McLaren said the cars offer performance close to that of GT3 race cars. In the case of the Artura Trophy, the road car’s plug-in hybrid system has been removed, meaning there’s only a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-6, in this case tuned to 577 hpcompared to the 596 hp delivered by the engine in the road car.