Road tour ends in ditch for McLaren driver

A McLaren F1 in a ditch outside Queenstown. Photo: Paul Taylor.
A McLaren F1 in a ditch outside Queenstown. Photo: Paul Taylor.
The sequel to a McLaren F1 crash will take place in the Queenstown District Court this morning.

The crash, near Queenstown, saw the 1994 McLaren end up in a ditch on the Glenorchy-Queenstown road on Saturday morning.

The Australian driver (65) has been charged with careless driving and  summoned to appear in the Queenstown District Court today, Queenstown Sergeant Blair Duffy said yesterday.

The grey supercar, capable of reaching  386kmh, appears to have spun and skidded off the road at Closeburn at 11.45am.

Long, criss-crossed black tyre marks led towards where the car lay in a ditch, just after a tight left-hand uphill bend.

The car was covered with a black McLaren dust cover and later towed away, while its minders tried to stop people taking photos and video.

The car was part of the inaugural Epic New Zealand Road Tour. It pays tribute to

Kiwi brand founder Bruce McLaren.

A convoy of 31 McLarens  travelled from Auckland to Queenstown last week.

Saturday was the final leg. The F1 was in a procession heading from Queenstown’s Hilton Hotel to Glenorchy.

It is one of only 106 McLaren F1s built. The model was the fastest production car when launched in 1992 and  remained so for 13 years, until surpassed by the Bugatti Veyron in 2005.

It has a central driving position and an engine bay lined with gold foil to reflect heat, and was the first production car to use a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis.

British comedian Rowan Atkinson  crashed his burgundy McLaren F1 into a hedge in Oxfordshire, England, in 2011.

His insurance company was handed a $1.6million repair bill, thought at the time and for some years to be the world’s largest single-car insurance claim.  He sold his car last year for $14million.

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