Tested: 2019 McLaren Senna Photos

We measured 102 decibels' worth at wide-open throttle, the highest number we can recall.

More than a few minutes in a Senna will make dinner that night a ­conversational minefield.

Tucked into the unlined carbon-fiber tub and belted into the one-piece racing seat, you realize that you are the sound deadening.

While the 789-hp twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 is trying to smash your eardrums and vibrate your body's water out of suspension, the Senna ignores your plight and hurtles forward as if its goal is a Mars landing.

The launch-control system holds the engine at 3000 rpm and tells you when to release the brake. Forget SpaceX; a check for $964,966 can make you an astronaut today.

Hold the accelerator pedal down for 5.1 seconds to bring up 100 mph; keep it planted for another 5.4 and you'll be at 150 mph.

Some basic training is required. For example, getting out requires that you pull the door handle in the roof.

Instead of windows that open in a useful way, you can get glass in the bottom half of the door panel that provides a view of Earth as you approach what surely must be escape velocity.

McLaren puts the window switches up there, too, but the mail-slot side windows are more Countach than anything we've seen in 30 years.

Between the door handles is a button marked Race that takes an already focused car and drops the suspension 1.5 inches in front, 1.2 in back, and switches the dampers to their most aggressive setting.

The brake rotors are a new material that's somewhere between the carbon-ceramic discs found on many current high-performance vehicles and the carbon-carbon units fitted to purebred race cars.

As the car drops, the active aero slats in the front and the giant wing in back set up for maximum downforce, which measures 1764 pounds at 155 mph.

Once downforce starts to pile up, there's way more available on-track than the 1.12 g's we registered on the relatively low-speed skidpad.