Top Gear Supercar Shootout: Bugatti Veyron vs. McLaren F1
Fresh off the excitement from the first episode of Top Gear Season 13, when Schumacher was revealed as The Stig, Episode 2 had its own fair share of fireworks. The highlight was when Richard Hammond took the wheel of a Bugatti Veyron and raced against The Stig pushing a McLaren F1. Both of these rare supercars were run full-out down a 1 mile stretch. So, where might you find two of the rarest cars in the world, no less together on the same road? Well, Abu Dhabi of course. Check out the video after the jump:
Source: YouTube
This race is incredible for so many reasons. Firstly, who knows when it will happen again on the planet, televised or not. But the place it was done, the beautifully straight road, the film quality and the camera angles is something of a masterpiece. The only thing I didn’t like was Hammond focusing solely on who won the race, rather than the race itself. It took almost a full mile for a Veyron to run down that F1. There is almost a 400 hp difference between them, and people boast constantly about the Veyron’s cranium shattering 0-60 acceleration. But the McLaren beat it off the line, and stayed ahead until what, 150mph? That blew me out of my chair. If this had been a 1/4 mile race, the F1 would have won it handedly. I don’t think people realize what Gordon Murray accomplished 15 years ago. The supercar he built is still stiff competition against the brand new almighty Veyron.
Sure, the Bugatti would go on to 250mph and the gap would get bigger and bigger and it’s cronies would have said “Seeeeeee?!” But that’s 250 mph. I think hypercar numbers are clouding the judgement of what we think a fast car is. These cars were neck and neck to 200mph, that is insane. Most supercars barely crack the magic 200. Any other supercar from the 1990s would have been far far behind the Veyron. But the F1 was right there, and only at around 200mph did the horsepower difference truly turn the race. I just want to say that the F1 not only set the benchmark for supercars 15 years ago, it’s only dropped to 2nd place, and only by a few car lengths. A street bike from 1994 would be destroyed by the modern GSXR 1000. The fastest Porsche from that time would be owned by a new 911 Turbo. But the F1 had that Veyron until the final push. Bravo.
We seem to highlight these 2 cars so much. There are other car manufacturers out there who manage to produce cars as mind-blowing as these, yet they don’t seem to get the credit they deserve. Let cars like the Koenigsegg remind us that human engineering has so much room to grow. There are so many ways to reach 240+ mph.