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ARMS RACE
McLaren helping UK military chiefs to build hypersonic missile that can reach 4,000mph in rush to match Russia & China
The MoD want the missile to be ready in the next six years
McLAREN is helping Britain to build a hypersonic missile.
A connected division of McLaren Racing joined the arms race to knock Russia and China out of pole position - although it will be kept separate from the racing arm.
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The goal is to build super fast rocket that can corner and swerve at speeds over 4,000mph.
The MoD wants the missile within the next six years as Russia and China already have them.
Hypersonic missiles can manoeuvre at over Mach 5 – or five times the speed of sound – making them unpredictable and much harder to shoot down.
Russia has unleashed deadly Khinzal and Zircon hypersonic missiles in Ukraine.
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Some have been downed by Patriot missiles despite Putin's boast that they were unstoppable.
China stunned the US and allies by test-firing two hypersonic weapons in 2022.
The UK has nothing to match them.
Vice Admiral Andrew Burns said McLaren got the military’s need for an “advantage over any rival”.
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He said: “Defence and motorsport have much in common, including a competitive instinct fuelled by a need to win.
“This drives innovation and technical excellence, matched by an ambition to achieve advantage over any rival.”
The hypersonic project is part of a three-year deal between the MoD’s Future Capability Group and the McLaren Racing Accelerator.
SAS legend Andy McNab – who wrote the best-selling Bravo Two Zero – said: “It’s great. McLaren know about winning.
“Its all about efficiency and anything that boosts efficiency is good news for the Ministry of Defence.”
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McLaren said its Accelerator shares “expertise, processes and culture from elite motorsport,” with industry.
It's customers include Saudi Arabia’s new city NEOM and the world’s third largest cigarette company, British American Tobacco.
The MoD said McLaren Accelerator was helping “delivery of a hypersonic capability”.
The Surrey-based race experts are working with Britain’s Team Hypersonics, whose goal is to build a missile by 2030.
The MoD said: “Team Hypersonics is striving to do things differently, and aims to reduce development timelines outside of the MoD’s traditional timelines, which is why it has teamed up with McLaren.”
They added: “The programme will deliver a hypersonic capability for the British military by the end of the decade.”
McLaren Accelerator are based at the race team’s £300million headquarters in Surrey.
It sits the edge of a World War Two airfield where hero pilots trained to win the Battle of Britain.
An MoD spokesperson said: “We are also collaborating with McLaren through talking to some of their wider team members outside of the Accelerator.
“For example, we are talking with a senior manager within their procurement team to better understand how they tender work and the processes they use to see if there are any learnings we can bring back into Team Hypersonics.”
Announcing the landmark deal in March, Matt Dennington, co-chief commercial officer of McLaren Racing, said: “This new partnership with the Ministry of Defence provides a great opportunity to stretch and apply our innovation and technological know-how and a high-performance culture with a view to improving operational efficiencies across a wide range of exciting projects.”
The MoD said McLaren was working on four projects, including hypersonic missiles and the electrification of vehicles.
McLaren said the partnership “centred around shared learning and improving decision making processes to help achieve a high-performance culture and operational efficiency.”
They said they were not involved in missile technology.
A McLaren spokeperson said: “McLaren Racing is categorically not involved in developing any technology or any kind of weapon capabilities with the MoD.
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“Any suggestion that we are is false. We are also not privy to any classified information around weapon capabilities.
“The MoD partnership with McLaren Accelerator, a division separate from the racing team, is centred around improving decision making processes to help achieve a high-performance culture.”
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