SimplyAbuDhabi XIV

2 4 6 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I The route took us down the highway from our hotel, along the legendary Ronda road and up to the Ascari Race Resort, giving us plenty of opportunity to drive the awesome McLaren on a variety of road surfaces. And we're more than happy to report that the 650S handled them all with an amazingly accommodating ride. While youmight assume that any car costing this amount of money would offer that level of comfort, an awful lot of performance-focused machines sacrifice ride quality in the pursuit of ultimate handling. Once again, though, McLaren have performed their magic and created a car that offers the very best of both worlds and proves a complete joy to drive. Upon arrival at Ascari , we were met by our own professional McLaren instructor, who taught us what the Sport and Track modes of the 650S are really for! It was an incredible eye-opener and clearly showed up the very best aspects of this truly incredible car’s dual personality. The suspension of the 650S is an evolution of the system launched on the 12C which almost completely eliminates body roll and soaks up imperfections in the road or track surface and allows you to exit a corner, getting back on the accelerator that much sooner. Long straights shrink beneath your right foot on the track, while small gaps in traffic are more than enough to pass a truck or bus on either twisty road or open highway – traits that Jordana certainly enjoyed when she drove us, at some astonishing speeds, back from the track! After a morning lapping around Ascari and then an afternoon of Jordana driving those scenic (if frighteningly narrow) mountain roads, it became clear that the 650S complements a relative novice driver as much as it rewards professionals like our frighteningly accomplished McLaren instructor. Indeed, it’s such a forgiving car to drive that the scariest moment of the journey was when Jordana noticed flashing lights in the rear-viewmirror and we realised that the police were pulling us over! Thankfully our fears were allayed when it became clear that the officers simply wanted to check out the McLaren at close range, much like all the