A few years ago, it was almost unthinkable that a production car could somehow be quicker than the industry’s fastest motorcycles in a straight-line.
However, as car companies are engaged in an unrelenting horsepower war while most road-going superbikes have been capped at around 200 hp for some time now, the performance gap between the two has gradually vanished. In fact, in some instances, powerful supercars are actually more accelerative than their two-wheeled couterparts, something that just a few years ago would have seemed impossible.
To see how one of the car world’s most fearsome supercars, the McLaren 720S, performs against one of the kings of the superbike world, the BMW S1000RR, the Street Speed 717 channel on YouTube pitted the duo together for a series of rolling drag races. While the green 720S featured has been tuned, the races do show just how far supercars have come.
Both of the races started at 50 mph (80 km/h) and immediately, the 720S manages to edge in front of the S1000RR as the BMW rider struggles to keep the front wheel on the ground. However, it’s not all bad news for motorbike fans.
In a later race between a stock 720S and a newer S1000RR, it was actually the BMW which came out on top – but only just.
What’s particularly remarkable about the races is that the 720S isn’t actually considered a hypercar and is McLaren’s ‘mid-range’ supercar, designed to compete with the Ferrari 488 GTB and Lamborghini Huracan.