Starting in the 1994 season, the series featured racing modifications of sports cars such as the Venturi 600 LM, Ferrari F40, and Porsche 911 Turbo.

Many teams, such as those run by Ray Bellm and Thomas Bscher, seeing the potential in the McLaren F1 road cars, Le Mans winner John Nielsen turned to Gordon Murray in an attempt to convince him to offer factory backing on racing versions for the BPR series.

Bodywork modification saw the addition of various cooling ducts, most noticeably a large one in the center of the nose and two placed in the location of the storage lockers on the side of the car.

McLaren co-ordinated a 24-hour test at Magny-Cours to find weaknesses in the car and develop upgrades to supply to the teams.

[2] A total of nine chassis would be built for the 1995 season, with #01R being retained by the factory as a test mule, except for a one-off use by Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

At Le Mans 1995, the Kokusai Kaihatsu McLaren obtained victory[2] and the highest practice top speed of the year, reaching 281 km/h (174.605 mph) on the Mulsanne Straight.

Homologation specials like the Porsche 911 GT1 had already proven their worth in the final races of 1996, while newcomer Mercedes-Benz was showing the potential of their new CLK-GTR in testing.

The 1997-spec cars are commonly referred to as the "Long Tail" version due to their stretched bodywork, most noticeably at the rear.

In the race, facing stiff competition from a Porsche 911 GT2 Evo, the McLaren F1 GTR of Ray Bellm and Maurizio Sandro Sala was able to take victory by a mere 16 seconds.

For the second race, French squad BBA Competition added their new F1 GTR to the series while Bellm and Sala would again take victory.

McLaren started the 1996 season in the same fashion as they had in 1995, with GTC Competition taking the first win in the hands of Ray Bellm and James Weaver.

GTC, West Competition, and Mach One would trade off wins for the next three rounds until McLaren finally suffered a loss to Ferrari at Anderstorp yet again.

Showing control of the BPR series early in 1996, McLaren now saw that their car was lacking against the likes of the new Porsche 911 GT1 in the all new FIA GT Championship.

The new F1 GTR "Long Tail" cars were therefore developed, and with increased assistance from BMW Motorsport, McLaren continued into the 1997 season.

At the opening round, the new Mercedes showed its pace by taking the pole in qualifying, but the car suffered mechanically during the race.

However, for the next round, Mercedes-Benz would be able to put up a fight against the McLarens, with a new CLK-GTR losing to BMW Motorsports F1 GTR by less than a second.

At Helsinki, with a smaller field on the temporary street course and more mechanical woes for Mercedes, the BMW Motorsport McLaren again took victory.

McLaren, realizing that the F1 could no longer compete against an even more evolved Mercedes CLK-LM, decided to pull out factory backing for 1998.

Team Davidoff and Parabolica Motorsports, aligned with BBA Competition, attempted to continue with their aged cars in 1998, but could finish no better than fifth in a single race.

Debuting at the opening round at Suzuka Circuit, the Lark team took a 1-2 finish, with winners Naoki Hattori and Ralf Schumacher.

Team Lark would not return to defend their title in 1997 due to disputes with GT Association over car handicaps, and no McLarens raced in the series.

Although quick enough to take six pole positions over the season, the team struggled during races, managing only a single victory against a large variety of sportscars.

These rule changes saw the return of a McLaren to British GT, with Steve O'Rourke's EMKA Racing running a 1997-spec chassis, and later joined by Team Carl at Silverstone.

Although officially not part of any one racing series, the 24 Hours of Le Mans was still considered important enough for McLaren to enter.

Although only six cars were being used in the BPR Global GT Series, chassis #01R which had been used as a McLaren testbed was also entered for the Kokusai Kaihatsu Racing team.

The winning car, which was driven by Yannick Dalmas, Masanori Sekiya, and JJ Lehto, was retained by McLaren and never raced again.

However, in an ACO sanctioned event in Japan in 1999, a McLaren F1 GTR was entered by Hitotsuyama Racing in the new LMGTP class for closed-cockpit prototypes.

Had the McLaren won its class, it would have earned an automatic entry to Le Mans as a prototype in 2000, however the car failed to finish and the eventual class winner, a Toyota GT-One, declined the automatic invitation as Toyota decided to end the GT-One program in favour of Formula One.At the close of the 1996 seasons, Bigazzi Team SRL, Giroix Racing Team, and David Price Racing took their F1 GTRs to Brazil to compete in races at Curitiba and Brasília.

Later, the car appeared at the Le Mans Autumn Cup, finishing second in combined heat races.

BBA Competition would fly to China for the FIA GT exhibition event at Zhuhai, taking second.