Simply Abu Dhabi XXXIV

“Just remember, it has 500bhp more than a current F1 car, but it drives very nicely at slow speeds.” If that’s not a backhanded warning from Bugatti test pilot and former F1 and GT racer, Pierre-Henri Raphanel to keep my brain engaged, then I don’t know what is. While never normally flustered about being given the keys to other peoples’ cars, the AED12million number on the Bugatti Chiron Sport did raise a few hairs on my neck. Especially when I’d just signed the paperwork covering me for third-party insurance. In reality, this is normal business for a road tester as the signing of waivers and insurance agreements goes with the territory and the Bugatti crew are all first- rate guys. It’s just that I’d rarely given it a second thought because it’s not every day I drive a car that’s worth more than a small country town. The, ‘you bend it, you buy it’ clause was particularly cautionary as Dubai was experiencing a four-day sandstorm that resembled the Tom Cruise scene in Mission Impossible. The hotel gardeners and taxi drivers wore face masks, camels walked freely along parts of our drive after fences had blown over, visibility was fog-like, and some lanes were closed without warning from sudden sand drifts. BugattiChironSport –FirstDrive B y D a m i e n R e i d