Last week I did a photo shoot of the reunion of two sister McLaren F1 GTRs, chassis #04R and #13R which both competed in the All Japan GT Championship series in 1996 to much success.
It all came about when I went to the McLaren employees motorshow and saw they had the McLaren owned #04R on display on the boulevard. One of my friends, Andy, owns the matching Lark car #13R so I tweeted him a picture of the other car and suggested we should do a shoot of them together. He agreed and one of the friendly people from McLaren agreed and that's how it happened.
This is the first time in many years the two cars have been put together for a photo shoot and it was very special to see and shoot them together outside the McLaren Technology Centre.
Andy's was the fourth 1996-spec F1 GTR built as chassis #13R, the year after McLaren won Le Mans. Along with its sister car, #14R, the two went to Japan and competed in the All Japan GT Championship series in 1996 and won 4 out of 6 races. Andy's car claimed 3 of those victories and would have likely been first in the championship if not for two unfortunate DNFs and a 22nd place in the other races. In the second-to-last race of the season #14R was heavily damaged in a crash and replaced with #04R for the final event where it's 4th place garnered enough points to claim the overall championship with Andy's car second overall.
All photos by myself, GFWilliams
Thanks to Erik Reynolds for extra information about the cars race history.