Will a McLaren F1 GTR run on DIESEL? It seems not.

Will a McLaren F1 GTR run on DIESEL?

Wealthy petrolhead Francois Perrodo managed to fill up the tank on his McLaren F1 FTR at BP in Chiswick with diesel. Which won’t be a cheap fix.

The McLaren F1 is perhaps the most celebrated, and expensive, supercar ever made (challenged only by the Ferrari 250 GTO) and only 64 road cars and even fewer track-only F1 GTRs produced, with some of the F1 GTRs converted to road use.

One of those F1 GTRs converted to road use, and residing in the UK, is owned by wealthy French petrolhead Francois Perrodo, and this week he decided the time was right to head out for a bit of a blast with mates in the F1. And, as we’d all do, he made sure the petrol tank was full.

Pulling in to BP in Chiswick, Perrodo proceeded to fill up ready for a day of fun, but shortly after his car refused to start.

Perrodo immediately enlisted the help of McLaren F1 guru Paul Lanzante to get the F1 going, but when his efforts initially proved futile they realised Perrodo had inadvertently filled his pride and joy with diesel.

Filling a modern car with diesel instead of petrol is not really possible as the nozzles are a different size, but the F1 is 30 years old and, built for the track, has a filler the size of a drainpipe. So it happily gobbled the fuel of the devil.

Fixing a misfuel in a normal car is enough of a pain with new filters and clean through, but in the F1 it’s going to mean at least the equivalent of a four-year service with new fuel tank bladders, and that could cost six figures.

An expensive Sunday drive.