0.4 Seconds Faster Than the Mclaren P1, the Model S Plaid Is Here to Smash Records
Yes, that wasn’t a typo. Yes, you read that correctly. A stock (aside from bucket seat for safety) Tesla Model S Plaid just beat the million-dollar Mclaren P1’s lap time at the legendary Laguna Seca racetrack located in Monterey County, California.
This is a supercar blog after all, but if you aren’t well-versed in the world of racing you may not think 0.4 seconds is much faster, and perhaps even close to the same time. I can assure you half a second is an eternity when it comes to high-performance lap times.
To put a 0.4-second lap difference into context; in the 1997 Formula 1 European Grand Prix qualifying laps, Jacques Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, and Heinz-Harald Frentzen all crossed the finish lines putting down and an identical lap time of 1:21.072. That’s to the thousandth of a second.
The Tesla Model S Plaid is currently pushing approximately 1100 horsepower coming from their three onboard motors with a 0-60 of less than 2 seconds.
I’m not sure if any of you share this dream with me, but I long for the day I roast a million-dollar hypercar off a stoplight in my $140,000 commuter. The cost-to-performance of this Tesla is a feat only space engineers can achieve.
