Simply Abu Dhabi XXXIV

2 1 8 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I While shedding 17kg on an 1,479bhp car might be about as effective as deciding to drive before or after lunch, as I discovered later, it’s not completely negligible as weight transfer at warp speed is the big area where the Sport has improved over the garden variety Chiron. Two years have passed since I drove the first Chiron and I remember it as being blindingly fast and literally took my breath away as I found it difficult to breathe under full acceleration. So, while I was prepared for the Sport version, in truth nothing can adequately prepare you for a Bugatti experience. “Did you remember your flight wings?” Raphanel joked as I shifted the lever across to sport in preparation for a full-on acceleration assault. With a 500km/h calibrated speedo, the needle barely lifted and I was already doing 60km/h in what seemed like the instant I lifted my foot off the brake. As it shifted into second gear, we brushed past 100km/h scarcely a second later which was when I heard the giant whoosh from the second pair of turbos engaging behind me that kicked it through 160km/h as the needle pointed to the 10 o’clock position. Two seconds later, the needle was sitting upright in the middle facing north indicating 250km/h, just over six seconds after I had released the hand brake. By now only my peripheral vision was registering the speedo which showed the needle at 1 o’clock and with plenty to go, I kept my foot buried, not realising that the 1 o’clock mark signalled 300km/h. After 16 seconds of full throttle in a Bugatti Chiron Sport, I decided enough was enough and rolled out of it, having touched 315km/h but scarily it was still pulling like a train, urging me on to 400. However, this was in the middle of a sandstorm, so visibility was reduced and grip levels were akin to black ice with sand drifts sweeping the road, but never once did it put a foot wrong. And here’s where the Sport earns its keep because even though the 8-litre, W16, quad-turbocharged engine is untouched over the Chiron, its 17kg weight loss and an air brake that now deploys regardless of pedal pressure above 160km/h means it not only pulls up much quicker but most importantly, there’s virtually no weight transfer which is fairly important at those speeds. Previously, the Chiron’s giant rear wing would pop up only when you jammed on the brakes with full force above 160km/h that resulted in some nose dive which, if you were not on the ball, could catch you out if the roads were bumpy and potholed like the ones we used in Portugal for its 2017 launch. When you jump on the brakes now, the negative g’s still sap blood away from your eyes fast enough to literally see spots and make you a bit dizzy but it pulls it up straight and true as if you were landing a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. Bugatti claims there’s a 25 per cent improvement in every respect to the Chiron’s performance over the Veyron including its drag co-efficient, fuel efficiency and power. With turbos that are 69 per cent larger than the Veyron, you can imagine the kind of lag they could deliver, so Bugatti offset them by having two blowing all the time, fed by eight exhausts each. Then at 3,800rpm a valve opens the back two to bring all four on song, being fed by four exhausts each to deliver a linear wall of torque from 2,000rpm to 6,000rpm. As expected, it takes a mountain of air, water and oil to keep the Chiron Sport operating at its peak with an oil flow rate of 120 litres per minute, or two litres per second, to keep things cool. At its 420km/h top speed, governed due by the tyre limitations, 1,000 litres of air is fed into its 10 radiators and intercoolers every second while its water pump can fill an average sized bathtub every 11 seconds at 800 litres per minute.