We sat down with McLaren's Le Mans driver in Monaco

Welcome back to the Rev Report.

This week RevMag did something we're quietly proud of. We sat down with Mikkel Jensen, McLaren's Hypercar driver, in Monaco, with the MCL-HY parked outside, three weeks before Le Mans. He was calm, precise, and said something at the end that stopped the conversation dead. You'll find it below.

Elsewhere: a Dacia Logan with 280 horsepower made Max Verstappen flash his lights at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. BMW designed the most beautiful concept car of 2026 and decided not to sell it. And Brabus built a 224mph V12 monster as a tribute to the man who started it all.

Let's go.

Jack

McLaren last won Le Mans in 1995. Thirty years. An entire generation of racing fans has grown up never seeing it happen. That changes this summer, and Mikkel Jensen, the Danish driver chosen to lead the charge, is the man carrying all of that history into the cockpit of the MCL-HY Hypercar.

We met him in Monaco, where the machine had been brought to the Principality ahead of the FIA World Endurance Championship season. Jensen is the kind of racing driver you don't often encounter. Thoughtful, precise, genuinely engaged with the engineering. He was involved in the MCL-HY's development from the very first conversations with engineers, arguing for cockpit systems and driver interfaces before the car physically existed.

On the pressure of the McLaren legacy: "Joining McLaren is an honour because it is a brand with a lot of success. Last time they were at Le Mans they won, in 1995, and now it's been many years since they participated. You know that you are joining something built for success."

At the end we asked him: if you could take any car around the streets of Monaco, what would it be?

He smiled. "It has to be the new hypercar. Because it has never been here before."

Part Two of Papaya Rising with McLaren Motorsport Director James Barclay lands next week.

A Dacia Logan finished the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours 107th overall. It had 280 horsepower. The winning car had considerably more. Nobody cared about the winning car. The Logan, entered by Ollis Garage Racing, crewed by amateurs, held together by determination and presumably some optimism, made Max Verstappen flash his lights on the Döttinger Höhe, survived a crash with three hours to go, and became the most talked-about car in the entire race. Motorsport, at its purest, is exactly this.

The Kimera K39 takes the spiritual DNA of the Lancia Stratos, fits a Koenigsegg-derived twin-turbocharged V8, and then, crucially and gloriously, insists you row your own gears with a proper clutch pedal. In 2026. When every other hypercar manufacturer is building paddles and algorithms. Kimera have decided that the driver should be involved. Deeply, physically, uncomfortably involved. We are entirely here for it.

The BMW Neue Klasse Roadster concept is genuinely, achingly beautiful. Long bonnet, short tail, proportions that recall the original 3.0 CSL and make every current BMW look apologetic by comparison. BMW showed it, let the world fall in love with it, and then confirmed it will not enter production. The decision will be debated for years. The concept will be displayed in museums. We will be quietly furious about it forever.

Bodo Buschmann founded Brabus in 1977. He died in 2022. This is what his company built in his memory. A 224mph, twin-turbocharged V12 Mercedes S-Class, tuned to 900 horsepower, named after the man himself. It is excessive in the way only Brabus can be excessive, which is to say completely and without apology. As tributes go, it is fitting.

If the K39 has you intrigued, the Kimera EVO37 is where the story began. A modern reimagining of the Lancia 037 rally car, hand-built in Italy, powered by a supercharged 2.1-litre four-cylinder producing 505 horsepower. Only 37 were made. A few have appeared at auction recently. If you know, you know.

Explore the EVO37 (not affiliated, just a genuine recommendation)

That's issue two of the Rev Report. The McLaren story is just getting started. Part Two with James Barclay lands next week and it's worth waiting for.

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Le Mans is three weeks away. The papaya is coming.

— Jack Brodie, Editor-in-Chief

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