McLaren is leaning towards all-paw traction for its future supercars.

The British sportscar maker's CEO, Mike Flewitt, recently revealed to US publication Car and Driver that upping the power and torque outputs of its engines won't be enough to make the current crop of rear-wheel drive Mclarens faster.

"We're not there yet, but I'd say we're getting close to the limit," said Flewitt when discussing the potential for two-wheel drive cars to handle even more grunt.

But Flewitt flagged that the brand may be considering other options; "We're not planning [all-wheel drive] right now, but we're conscious it's a direction that we may well want to go in."

McLaren is known for its engineering prowess of late and any move to all-wheel drive would again involve quite an innovative approach rather than just connecting the front and the rear.

"From an engineering point of view there's no point bringing a shaft down the centre of the car," said Flewitt.

Which lends us to believe that the most likely alternative would be a hybrid system which provides additional power on demand to an electric front axle or a twin-motor system.

The British carmaker has used a hybrid system before in the 673kW/900Nm P1 hypercar, however, McLaren maintained a more traditional mid-engined, rear-wheel drive layout.

Other automaker have preceded McLaren in utilising an electric front axle, with both Porsche and Honda pairing the system with the 918 Spyder and NSX supercars.

Flewitt also mulled whether the brand may try some other weight saving measures similar to those seen in motorsport where the engine is attached directly to the carbon fibre tub rather than the usual rear sub-frame construction, though this may be saved for the more hardcore track-focused models due to the refinement issues associated with it.

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