Chiron breaks the 300mph barrier

[Masterlu]

Originally Posted by Puma Cat

How much brake horsepower does the Chiron have? I'm guessing somewhere in the range of 1400?

As an old, ex-roadracer, I gotta say its not about top line speed...its all about lap times.

This is not a regular/standard Chiron. Even the normal production run Chiron has a limiter on HP.

I’m not talking about the 2 keys; where the 2nd key releases more power. The engine is capable of considerably more power than advertised.

[antipop]

Originally Posted by Masterlu

This is not a regular/standard Chiron. Even the normal production run Chiron has a limiter on HP.

I’m not talking about the 2 keys; where the 2nd key releases more power. The engine is capable of considerably more power than advertised.

Indeed the engine was a bit tweaked to extract more power:

Given speed is driven by two factors – aerodynamic efficiency and power – the engine powering the Chiron is rather special too. The 8.0-litre, quad-turbo W16 unit, nicknamed Thor, delivers 1,578bhp. In a testament to Bugatti’s engineering, the gearbox remains standard – as does the all-wheel-drive system.

The limitation is not the engine or aero but the wheels. Bugatti is limiting the current regular ones because the tyre can't handle more speed than that.

Well, Car and Driver wondered that too, and it turns out this thing used a custom set of Michelin Pilot Cup 2 tires for the job. Here’s what driver Wallace told the magazine:

“Inside the tires you’ve got these thin metal strands that go radially around the edge and which are sort of equidistant from each other,” Wallace explained, when C/D spoke to him after the record run. “On quite a lot of tires there are one or two spots where these strands touch. It’s not normally a problem, certainly not at the mandated speed limit, but when you start to go really fast with the huge gravitational force it’s possible to get movement there, and temperature.”