You Could Buy Three McLaren Racing Cars Before They Even Race

Opportunities to buy nearly new F1 racing cars directly from their constructor don’t come around very often, but McLaren is breaking that trend by offering up one of its 2026 machines for auction – and it’s throwing in an IndyCar and a Le Mans Hypercar as part of the package too.

The catch is that whoever spends a presumably inconceivable sum on this trio will have to have some patience, because they’ll need to wait until the cars in question have run their respective racing campaigns, happening in 2026 or, in the case of the Hypercar, 2027. That’s despite the auction happening this year which, if you’d lost track, is 2025.

It’s part of McLaren’s effort to double down on winning motorsport’s prestigious ‘Triple Crown’ – the Monaco Grand Prix, Indianapolis 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans. It’s already the only team to have done so once, and from 2027, when it rejoins the top class of the World Endurance Championship, it’ll be the only team fielding entries in all three necessary series to do it again.

Whoever throws in the highest bid at the RM Sotheby’s auction, taking place in Abu Dhabi on 5 December ahead of the final race of the 2025 F1 season, will be able to take home all three cars once they’ve finished racing in their respective series.

That means they’ll get one of next year’s McLaren Formula 1 cars, likely to be called the MCL40 and the constructor’s first car to be built to the incoming 2026 regulations. Also part of the deal will be a 2026-spec Chevrolet-powered Dallara DW12 IndyCar racer, and one of the first chassis of McLaren’s new LMDh racer, which doesn’t even have a proper name yet.

With the buyer having to wait until the cars have finished running in their respective series, though, it won’t be until late 2027 at the earliest that they can have them as part of their collection. Whether they’ll come with technical support to be run privately, or will have to essentially serve as very expensive sculptures, isn’t clear.