British car manufacturer McLaren is to axe a quarter of its workforce as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to hit the automotive industry.

The company - which specialises in supercars - has thousands of employees based at its McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey.

The redundancies equate to 1,200 jobs or roughly 25% of the group's workforce - and will be spread across its F1, road-car and Applied Technologies operations.

McLaren is expected to brief employees on the proposed cuts this week as it seeks to borrow up to £275million against the value of its classic car collection and spectacular Surrey headquarters.

In a statement, the firm said that it has been "severely affected by the current pandemic".

Nissan is reportedly also in talks over thousands of redundancies (
Image:
Getty)

"The cancellation of motorsport events, the suspension of manufacturing and retail activities around the world and reduced demand for technology solutions have all led to a sudden impact on the group's revenue-generating activities," a spokesman said.

McLaren said the new annual spending cap for Formula One teams also led to the job losses.

The cuts will be the latest announced across the sector, with Nissan, the Japanese car manufacturer, reportedly planning to announce up to 20,000 redundancies before June.

McLaren has already approached the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) with a funding request, according to Sky News.

However, it in understood that the government rejected the initial approach from McLaren on the basis that it had not yet exhausted options already on the table.

A significant number of McLaren's workforce has been furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.