McLaren to bring F1 GTR, LM and Longtail to Goodwood

McLaren is taking the 24 Hours of Le Mans off this year -- actually, it has taken the last 14 years off -- and is instead concentrating on a British tradition: the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The company confirmed it would bring the 1995 Le Mans-winning McLaren F1 GTR to take on the hill this year. It will be joined by the one-off prototype McLaren F1 LM, as well as the Gulf-liveried McLaren F1 GTR Longtail, which claimed second place in 1997.

The British brand only competed in the 24-hour endurance race four times since its inception in 1963, winning overall in 1995, finishing fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth and 11th in 1996, and then second and third in 1997. In 1998, its best finish was fourth. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the brand that Bruce built.

Also at Goodwood, McLaren will take its new P1 supercar up the hill in collaboration with Microsoft's Turn 10 Studios, which produces the video game series “Forza,” as part of a contest. Laughably, the winner must weigh in at less than 330 pounds and be able to “sit comfortably within the McLaren P1 passenger seat with safety equipment in place.”

To enter, contestants have to go to the McLaren Automotive Facebook page and click the “like” button. After that, it's a matter of dropping a pin on a map, placing it as close to the starting grid as possible. To find out where, McLaren says you need to watch the game trailer and look around the Facebook pages for clues. We dropped ours in the river just for fun.

First prize is a ride up the hill in a P1, second is a trip for two to the McLaren Technology Center in England and third consists of a McLaren gift pack.

McLaren says more cars will be coming to the celebration. It'll be announcing them in the coming weeks.

By Jake Lingeman