McLaren 570S Sprint unveiled at Goodwood Festival of Speed – first drive

As the name suggests, the car is at the hardcore end of the company's Sport Series range

Some niceties have been removed to make the car and more focused on trackday use

McLaren unveiled the 570S Sprint at Goodwood. It’s the latest addition to the company’s Sport Series range – and as the name suggests, it’s at the hardcore end, with a roll cage added and some niceties removed to make it lighter and more focused on trackday use.

It ought to be good, then. But it also oughtn’t be too much different to the rest of the 570S range, which is already about as good as a car can get.

Other changes to standard include race suspension and tyres, as well as a mighty great spoiler looming over the back end of the car. All of which sounded promising to us when we took the wheel for a quick spin up the Goodwood hill.

There’s still a drive mode dial, and it has a ‘Race’ option so obviously we’ll select that. We’ll switch off the traction control, too – at least, we will after trying to floor it off the line and wondering why the engine feels like it’s got a sock caught in its air intake.

The Sprint is more powerful than the GT4 racecar it’s based on, because it doesn’t have to be limited to meet comp regs. And on its ultra-sticky tyres, which the engine is still able to spin up, the gas pedal feels more like an on-off switch. And ‘on’ is full on.

Go for the brakes and it stops just as hard as it goes, which is the mark of a properly quick car. But most of all, with its suspension sat there being all kinds of brilliant as the bumps in the Goodwood hill do their damnedest to cause trouble, it’s just eye-openingly easy to drive.

Easy to drive, but what about being easy to drive fast? Yes, it’s that too. Quite how fast is something we’re still to discover, because one short blast up the hill is almost the dictionary definition of a teaser. But we’ve already seen enough of the Sprint to love the 570S more than ever.