Drag race: McLaren P1 vs Caterham 160

The 903bhp McLaren P1 is one of the very fastest road cars ever created.

The 80bhp Caterham 160R is not one of the very fastest road cars ever created. In fact, the three-cylinder Seven is one of the very slowest cars ever invited on Top Gear magazine’s annual Speed Week shoot-out.

And cheapest: you could buy no fewer than 58 of the little Sevens for just one £866,000 P1.

So what happens when you put game-changing hyper-hybrid against back-to-basics lightweight in a quarter-mile drag race? A foregone conclusion, you might think…

…and, yeah, you’d be right. But exactly how great is the gap between the car Clarkson described as ‘making everything else look like the past’, and the car that, well, just looks like the past?

Have a watch of the most one-sided contest since the Netherlands humbled perennial no-hopers Spain in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. And then enjoy a whole load more excellent (and somewhat less one-sided) videos from Top Gear magazine’s incredible Speed Week by downloading the latest issue on iPad.

Video: Smudge Media