ONE OF the most enduring complaints about modern motorsports is that drivers are PR-managed drones, soulless and bland compared to the hairy-chested heroes of yesteryear. But while many drivers can be media-trained to a fine sheen, the artifice does occasionally slip a bit in the heat of competition.
Here we take a look at the best comebacks, the snarkiest one-liners and the flat-out deranged radio/intercom communications. Just so you’re aware, the language on some of these can get a bit fruity, so yeah, that.
1. Fernando Alonso points out the obvious
Fernonso has had a pretty miserable second spell with McLaren. His first spell was arguably worse, but grubbing an ill-handling car around the nether regions of the F1 pack must be a soul-destroying task for a double world champion. At this weekend’s Abu Dhabi GP, Alonso found himself languishing in 13th place at which point Ocon and Gasly retired, putting the Spaniard in with a fighting chance of the last points-paying position. In an attempt to spur him on, Wilf Joseph, his race engineer reminded him that there was a point at stake. Alonso, in his farewell F1 race, offered Joseph a lesson in perspective.
“I have 1800 points.”
2. Mark Webber drops an angry number two
Dr Helmut Marko rarely missed an opportunity to remind Mark Webber of his place in Red Bull’s hierarchy, gifting academy scion Sebastian Vettel every possible advantage. Did this wear down the Aussie? Not one bit. It fired him up. So after being passed over in favour of the German for Red Bull’s new front wing design at the 2010 British Grand Prix, Webber delivered the perfect riposte. He won. Perhaps the loaded, “Now maybe we’ll get a smile from you,” from team principal Christian Horner was enough to tweak Webber into a dig, but the reply was a gem.
“Not bad for a number two driver. Cheers.”
3. Kimi Raikkonen doesn’t want your coaching
Kimi can be relied upon for some fairly terse responses when his wafer-thin tolerance for bullshit erodes to zilch. Being given the gee-up over the radio when he’s right on the ragged edge was always going to elicit a reminder of who was the F1 driver and who was the laptop jockey.
“Just leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.”
Kimi Raikkonen and Jarno Trulli Monaco laps: 2004 vs 2017
4. Check out the big brain on Trevor
We would never cast aspersions as to the relative intellect of a NASCAR driver, so we’ll let Brett Griffin, a trackside spotter for driver Clint Bowyer offer his learned assessment of track rival Trevor Bayne’s processing power.
“That cost us about three seconds. IQ of a f***** mud flap.”
5. Vettel’s home run
Sebastian Vettel can usually be relied upon to launch the toys out of the pram quite spectacularly when things aren’t going his way and Turkey 2010 was no exception. Guillaume ‘Rocky’ Rocquelin, head of race engineering at Red Bull was on the receiving end of one of the entitled one’s dummy spits when he carved the front off Mark Webber’s car with predictable results. The petulance that followed was one for the ages.
“****ing ****! What the f*** are we doing here? We are trying to win the World Championship for f**** sake. What a stupid action. I’M GOING HOME”
6. Screw this – Chase Elliott knows a tool when he sees one
We have to commend Chase Elliott’s composure. While sliding out of control across the infield at Daytona, he manages to give an impassioned plea for sympathy before identifying Michael McDowell’s shortcomings behind the wheel.
“If that damn 95 wrecks me one more time, man. Dammit! … What in the hell is that MFer’s problem, man?! That is the biggest dumbass I’ve ever seen in my life. That son of a bitch can’t drive a wood screw.”
7. Todd Kelly has had enough
Queensland Raceway is a sweaty old place to spend 63 laps in a Nissan Altima, and when your engine lets go with two laps to the flag, it’d be enough to try the patience of anyone. “WOY ME?” beseeches a clearly frustrated Kelly. We then cut to some furious effing and jeffing/wheel beating, before he is informed that the engine has indeed lost crank case pressure.
“F************.”
8. Mark Tapper rally crash
This one really is not safe for work. Not safe if you have a sensitive disposition for extremely strong swearing either, but it just goes to show that professional rally driving really does require 100 percent concentration and that a gentleman displaying his fundament by the side of the track really isn’t something that’s ever going to help Mr Tapper’s cause. Hanging upside down from his belts and choking back tears like an emotional fruit bat, Tapper gives a very succinct explanation for the reason for his off-piste excursion.
It’s one of the most distinctive, memorable odours of all, and even though there’s evidence to suggest it’s not actually very good for you, the scent of a brand new car is absolutely one you’ll never forget.
However, Ford has just lodged a patent to eliminate the new car odour, because it’s on the nose with its Chinese customer base. Named as a “vehicle odor (sic) remediation system”, Ford literally heats the completed interior to a point where the scents – caused by various chemical combinations used in the materials that go into a car’s interior – are minimised.
The idea of working the whiff isn’t new – prestige car companies like Lexus and BMW have worked on the on-the-nose angle in their cars over the last couple of generations. Mercedes-Benz has taken it to new heights with the latest E-Class, employing an olfactory team to work with a futurist in order to create bespoke scents for Merc’s luxury sedan. No, I’m not making this up.
Why is Ford going to such expensive lengths for the Focus, EcoSport and Escape? It says that up to 10 percent of its Chinese customers complain about the smell emanating from their new cars, prompting the company to form a division tasked with nothing else but working on ways to sweeten new Fords to the noses of the world’s biggest car market.
What smells, exactly? Well, research suggests your nose is detecting up to 50 scents that come from the various glues, carpets, plastics and fabrics used in the manufacture of your car – and we can say from experience that each car brand carries its own distinct flavour.
The CSIRO actually published findings in 2001 that these volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, can actually cause headaches and irritation in some people, and while car companies have long disputed these findings, materials like soy-based fabrics are increasingly making their way into production, minimising the VOC count in the process.
Somewhat ironically, that new car smell only lasts for a couple of months at most. Scientific studies show that the odours diminish by about 20 percent a week. After that, you’ll have to rely on your Squirrels in Underpants dangling air freshener for olfactory relief.
ONE well-heeled McLaren owner in the UK is making the most of the hype surrounding the McLaren Senna by advertising their virtually un-driven example for sale to the highest bidder.
Seemingly shunning McLaren’s best intentions for Senna owners to actually drive their ultimate road-going track cars, a blacked-out Senna has surfaced at Romans International dealership with a mere seven miles (11km) on the odometer, not to mention “several MSO options” and the balance of its manufacturer’s warranty running until 2021.
Built and named to commemorate one of the greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time, the Senna was an instant sell-out with all 500 examples snapped up with an individual base price of roughly $1.6 million – and that’s before you start adding options.
The black-on-black car in question has a multitude of McLaren Special Operations carbonfibre packs added, as well as glass doors, a Bowers & Wilkins 7-speaker stereo and a McLaren Track Telemetry system with three cameras.
Almost completely monochrome in appearance, this Senna’s only splash of colour externally is on the red brake calipers, with matching red seatbelts on the inside.
Powered by a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 similar to those doing service in the McLaren 720S and Speedtail, the Senna produces a mind-numbing 597kW of power and 800Nm of torque.
Manufacturers like Porsche, Ferrari and McLaren have started to come down hard on customers who get an allocation for a limited production model only to ‘flip’ them for more money after taking delivery. Ford even went as far as making GT customers sign a form stating that they would keep it for a number of years before being able to sell.
McLaren will no doubt be unimpressed with this particular customer, and could likely ban them from buying further cars from the brand.
At the time of writing no price is listed on the Senna ad, with those interested able to enquire by phone or email. We can only expect that it will fetch a significant premium over the $1.6-million base price.
At least one McLaren Senna already exists in Australia; a grey version spotted gracing the roads of Melbourne. More are rumoured to be on their way in 2019.
MAZDA is facing unexpectedly high volumes of customers booking in to retrofit their vehicles with the recently released Apple CarPlay and Android Auto upgrade. The retrofit has been so popular that its stock levels may not be able to keep up.
Following months of speculation, Mazda Australia confirmed a scheme to retrofit some 370,000 vehicles with the smartphone mirroring apps would become available to interested customers in late October.
Any Mazda fitted with the MZD Connect infotainment system, which was first introduced locally in early 2014, can have the retrofit installed at a cost of $494.98.
During a wide-ranging interview, Mazda Australia marketing director Alastair Doak told Wheels demand from customers for the retrofit has exceeded expectations.
“It is early days, but obviously people appreciate the connectivity, ease of use, and element of safety that it brings as well. You aren’t tempted to start sending a text message on your phone since you have voice to text, and that’s important,” he said.
“The demand for the retrofit has outstripped how many [units] we have brought in, so we have already gone back and ordered extra batches.
“Demand has been strong, and well received [by customers].”
Doak was hesitant to admit the retrofit was now on backorder and customers were having to wait longer than expected, instead stating that Mazda has had to increase its stock to match the demand.
“We can get supply, so it’s just a matter of managing it out of our warehouse. We can see the orders coming in, so we are trying to keep up with them as best we can,” he explained.
While admitting there could be wait times for customers wanting to get the smartphone retrofit installed, Doak stated there won’t be extended queues.
“There will be some people that say ‘I had to wait a couple of weeks’, but it is not a long wait if they have to. We are managing it best we can.
“The demand has been stronger than we initially anticipated.”
The updated CX-9 large SUV, and the recently upgraded CX-5 medium SUV now have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto installed as standard. Mazda’s BT-50 dual-cab ute also has smartphone mirroring, while the rest of the local range is fitted with the MZD Connect infotainment system.
Low-res images of Porsche’s latest version of its most enduring sports car, the 992-series 911, have been leaked ahead of its debut at next week’s Los Angeles Auto Show.
And true to form, the 55-year-old coupe looks pretty much the same as it always had. A few more rivals from the likes of Aston Martin, McLaren and Mercedes-AMG have emerged over the last decade, but the moniker of ‘911 fighter’ is not lightly worn.
Porschephiles will point to a new horizontal taillight bar on the pics leaked to US auto site Jalopnik, as well a more squarish profile to the lower front grille, but the 992 is very much an evolution of the 991, which debuted in 2016.
Specs are yet to be revealed, but the 911 is certain to retain the same 3.0-litre turbocharged flat-six powertrain as the current car. Bigger rims will likely lead to larger brake rotors, while that redesigned nose looks like it incorporates additional sensors and receivers, pointing to a higher level of autonomous and driver aid spec.
A plug-in petrol/electric hybrid version is also expected to debut in the range; we’d guess there will be a small electric motor helping with front traction, as well as a small battery array under the floor.
Spy shot of the interior also reveal a cabin inspired by the Porsche Panamera four-door, with more digital dials in the instrument binnacle and an integrated multimedia screen that’s positioned closer to the driver.
Recently, our man Morley caused a bit of a stir with his opinion column ridiculing eSports, suggesting that the men and women competing in an electronic arena, specifically in the case of motorsport, might be better off “getting real”.
Morley usually has a pretty decent cultural barometer but unfortunately he’s completely missed the mark on this one and the – as it turns out, extremely passionate – gaming community wasted no time in letting him know.
A lot of the (over)reaction was unwarranted; for what it’s worth, when the column landed in my inbox, I read it, had a chuckle and replied to Morley with a picture of my own driving sim rig with an invitation to cut a few laps. Unsurprisingly, the invitation hasn’t been taken up.
If it was, Morley might well find himself singing from a different hymn sheet. I spent most of my teenage years playing Gran Turismo before the acquisition of a licence allowed me to “get real” and take part in physical motorsport.
Fast forward a few years and with budgets a bit tight I decided to invest in a basic driving sim setup on the basis that if I didn’t feel it was of benefit to my driving I could always sell it again. Needless to say, it’s still sitting in the spare room.
Hours on the sim have undoubtedly improved my driving ability. Games like Project Cars, Dirt Rally, iRacing, Assetto Corsa and the like have now progressed to the point where there is realistic skill transfer between the virtual and physical worlds. If it works in real life it’ll work in the game and vice versa.
No, unless you have an all-singing, all-dancing hydraulic rig setup there are no g-forces or ‘feel’ as such, but in this era of electronic throttle-by-wire how is pressing a pedal on a driving sim any different to the pedal in a real car?
Personally, as well as the benefit of practicing lines and perfecting different corner types, the biggest benefit has come in smoothing out inputs. Real or not, the motions are the same and you’re training muscle memory so that when you hit the track for real that initial brake application is a little more gradual and the first steering input is a touch more accurate.
Morley states that pro drivers use sims more to memorise tracks than to predict a lap time or calculate fuel burn, but many race teams (including a growing number of Supercar teams) now use simulators to fine-tune setups prior to a race weekend.
Ferrari discounted a front wing upgrade in F1 this year after Daniil Kyvat found the old configuration to be superior in the simulator. I was lucky enough to sample Toyota’s WEC simulator a number of years ago and its drivers spent many hours honing their “lift and coast” skills in the virtual world to maximise the efficiency of the hybrid tech.
Max Verstappen has practiced overtakes on his simulator, Scott McLaughlin and Shane Van Gisbergen are regulars in the virtual world and the first ever eSports World Rally Champion, Jon Armstrong, was a front-runner in the British Rally Championship before he ran out of money.
None of these high-level drivers would bother with sims if it didn’t help behind the wheel of a real race car. Besides, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and about a million times cheaper than real motorsport. Is it possible for a high-level eSports racer to jump straight into a race car and be quick? No, but the virtual experience would certainly accelerate the learning process.
eSports might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the virtual F1 championship this year certainly created more excitement and overtaking than the real one. As ever, it’s a case of don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. If you do, chances are you’ll be hooked.
Holden’s new post local-manufacturing line-up has a new and significant member. Its Acadia large SUV is aimed squarely at seven-seat rivals which include perennial favourites like the Toyota Kluger and Mazda CX-9.
Holden has put the US-built Acadia through Aussie boot camp to smarten it up for local roads, tweaking everything from the suspension to the satellite navigation.
Scroll through the picture gallery above to learn 10 other interesting facts about the 2019 Holden Acadia.
MORE: Holden Acadia Range Review MORE: Holden Acadia Specs, Range & Price
Aaah, the Italians. Purveyors of the espresso bar, home to Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo, fond of grubby PMs and home to astonishing views along its coastlines… and it’s always taken a pretty liberal view of the notion of speeding on its roads and autostrade.
It is, after all a country of people who celebrate the notion of giving a Fezza a blat down the road, rather than flashing the cocked-wrist salute. Having driven there a bit over the years, speeding isn’t a matter of civil disobedience; people just want to get where they’re going, they love to drive and, for the most part, they’re pretty good at it.
However, the mayor of the village of Acquetico, Alessandro Alessandri, has had enough of what he called “crazy speeds” through the centre of the town of 120 mostly elderly people. He directed that a set of temporary speed cameras be installed near the primary pedestrian crossing of the town… and the results were astonishing.
In just two weeks, more than 58,000 tickets – or 4200 tickets a day – where issued to speeding drivers and riders, with many fines issued for speeding offences at more than double the posted limit of 50km/h.
And it’s not a trivial fine, either; get caught doing between 40 and 60km/h over the posted limit and the fine exceeds 800 Euros, or more than $1200. What’s more, if you’re caught between 10am and 7pm travelling that quickly, your licence is suspended on the spot.
Alessandri told a local newspaper the problem was that the route through Acquetico – which isn’t far from Monaco – was ideal for those looking to avoid speed bumps, cameras and tolls. The highway through the village also connects the nearby Piedmont region to Italy’s northern coast.
And such is the scale of the problem, the mayor is considering installing the cameras permanently.
Mama mia!
We may have global wireless communication and mastered powered flight, but as individuals we still can’t shake off our inclination for tribalism, which explains why we find these cool branded kit appealing.
It might not be attached to the real thing, but if you have always wanted something emblazoned with the logos of a car brand you desire, try these on for size.
1 – FEATURED “PRODUCT OF THE MONTH”: Rado Hyperchrome wristwatch ($6725 from rado.com) Rado’s new Hyperchrome Chronograph is limited to 999 pieces, each featuring a 45mm case of ceramic and bronze. Its automatic movement relies on a 42-hour power reserve. Water resistant to 100m.
2 – Mazda3 MPS dump pipe ($985 from tunehouse.com) Made for the second generation Mazda3 MPS from high-grade stainless steel and features a high-flow cat converter. Requires a custom tune after installation.
3 – Ferrari sunglasses ($675 from ray-ban.com) Ray-ban and Ferrari have collaborated to make these special-edition sunglasses from real carbon fibre. Named ‘Monza’ in tribute of the 2018 Grand Prix. Comes with letter of authenticity.
4 – MOMO wheel ($900 from fuelautotek.com.au) The Heritage 6 comes in 17- and 18-inch diameters and widths of 8.0 to 11.0 inches for aggressive fitments. Available in black, gunmetal, red, white, gold, bronze and silver. Price for one 17 x 8.0-inch wheel.
5 – BMW Motorsport rain jacket ($119 from bmw.com.au) Wear the famous BMW Motorsport stripe on your sleeve – literally – with this water- and wind-resistant light jacket. Comes with an integrated carry bag made from nylon. Sizes XS to XXL.
6 – Porsche 911 GT3 RS ($113 from shop4.porsche.com) It’s perhaps the lightest Porsche 911 GT3 RS to ever be built since it’s a 1:43 scale model. And it ‘has’ a Weissach Package, which shaves 18kg off a full size car.
7 – Porsche Design shoe ($636 from porsche-design.com) Porsche Design claims the shoe was inspired by the silhouette of a 911. Comes in sizes 37 to 46 and in a limited production run.
THERE’S a difference between driving without speed limits on a racetrack and on a public road. On a track you’re still policed by marshals with a sometimes over-enthusiastic attitude to your health and safety. You can mostly drive as fast as you’re able, but in tightly controlled conditions and only in circles.
A derestricted road is different. Your velocity is the product of a constantly shifting balance between the ability of your car, the condition of the road, your confidence and your duty of care to others. The sense of pure, unpoliced personal responsibility is as thrilling as the speed. You can explore the edges of your car’s ability rather than being confined deep within it. And when you find the edge you can stay there, if the road is long enough.
Other than the autobahn, I drove like this on the NT’s Stuart Highway back when it was still derestricted, flying halfway around the world from my home in the UK for the privilege. But I’d never been to the second most-famous venue for limit-free driving, despite the fact that it’s considerably closer. So when BAC rang and asked if I’d like to drive the Mono on the Isle of Man, I gave them an insta-yes.
The opportunity to drive a Mono is even rarer than the chance to drive on derestricted roads. Brothers Neill and Ian Briggs have built more than 90 cars since 2012 at a factory near Liverpool, but BAC is not yet rich enough to run a fleet of its own cars. There’s one development hack with the old engine and chassis, and one owned by a client who lends it back to the brothers for test drives and events. This would be my transport when I joined an event on the island with a group of paying Mono owners.
The Isle of Man is one of the few places unconquered by the flat white. It isn’t part of the UK but it revels in its preservation of a Britain which has faded away almost everywhere in actual Britain. Its country roads have stayed derestricted not because of a national devotion to hooning, but just because they’ve always been that way, and because without the free-spending drivers and bikers who come here for the TT races and the open-limit roads, the island’s tourist trade would dwindle even faster.
We’re met at the hotel by Inspector Mark Newey, the island’s chief traffic cop, who has come to give us a ‘friendly briefing’ before the driving starts. It’s odd to hear a cop tell you that you can drive as fast as you like on his roads, but Mark is still here to tell us to obey the law: there are just slightly fewer laws. Excessive speed where there are limits, or dangerous driving anywhere will still get us prison time and a five-year ban from the island.
The cars are parked outside the hotel and are drawing a crowd. You’ll seldom see seven together. Individually, they are surprisingly beautiful for such a functional object. The bodywork is pulled taut between the hard points of the chassis like a desert nomad’s tent – there’s enough skin to provide the necessary cover, and no more. In plan view the Mono looks like a teardrop, or a tadpole; the broad front bodywork tapering sharply to allow you to step into the single seat in the middle, then narrowing to a point over the engine. It has no sides to speak of – the air rushes straight through the front wings to a pair of radiators angled behind the driver’s back, and behind them there’s just the engine and the gearbox.
That dramatic plan view means your perception of the car changes with angle. Head-on, it looks wide and menacing, but as you move around to the front three-quarters the front wheel hides what little bodywork there is, so the rear looks lighter than air; just a carbon wing and the squiggle of thin black pushrods and drive shafts connecting the rear wheels to the gearbox. And don’t confuse the Mono’s race-car minimalism with any lack of thought – there are endless clever details, like the artful integration of the rear lights into the wing, or the little suede platform for your helmet ahead of the cockpit. The hybrid carbon-composite wheels and the use of graphene in the rear wheel arches are both world firsts. When it rains you can always just look at it.
You step onto the weatherproof leather and suede seat and slide your legs down to the gorgeous aluminium pedal box, having first remembered to take the wheel and your helmet, if you’re wearing one, from the little locker in the nose. Cabin storage is a pair of tiny zippered pockets just ahead of your shoulders. There are no cupholders. By your left knee there’s the isolator and a dial to adjust the traction control, and by your right the extinguisher and the brake bias knob. But the F1-alike wheel carries most of the controls, including some that Lewis’s doesn’t have, like a park brake, indicators and horn.
If you think that we’ve become too removed from the oily bits of our cars, too obsessed with user-interfaces and semi-autonomous driving, the Mono is the antidote. You feel, hear and smell everything. The four-pot naturally aspirated Ford-block engine is now from Mountune rather than Cosworth, displacing 2.5 litres rather than 2.3 and with power up 19kW to 227kW. It wakes with an angry, dieselly clatter and because it’s a stressed member bolted directly to the Mono’s carbon-panelled steel spaceframe its vibrations buzz your back and bum, and penetrate deep into your thorax when it’s working harder.
Same for the gearbox. You can hear the weird sucky noises of the six-speed Hewland’s hydraulic actuators, and first gear goes in with sufficient force to jolt this 580kg car like it’s been rear-ended at 5km/h.
There are three pedals down there but the clutch is only required when pulling away – which you can do without the throttle – and to shift below 3000rpm, the slightest dip of the left pedal easing the gear in. It’s surprisingly easy to trickle the Mono around town – the Briggs brothers bill this as a road car and not a track-day special, confident that it has the compliance to cope with public roads and knowing that its performance will feel more extreme in the real world.
I was more worried that even the derestricted roads of the Isle of Man might not cope with the Mono. I’d expected them to be like a public day at the Nordschleife, with every corner providing a near-miss between a coach or a diesel hatchback and a red-mist lunatic on a superbike. But in fact they’re like most British country roads, your speed kept in check by Manx drivers for whom the novelty of open limits wore off long ago and now drive at 65km/h everywhere. The roads are great, though; fast, scenic, open and often as smooth as the race-tracks some of them become for a few days each year. I was there just before the TT, the glorious, perilous insanity of that race made apparent by the token crash pads which were being attached to trees and lamp-posts as I passed. They wouldn’t break your fall in the school high jump, let alone in a 300km/h crash.
This place can have sunshine on one coast and the blackest storm on the other, and I mainly seemed to find the latter. But I could still start to push on in the Mono, freed of the need to scan for cops or cameras. Like any other racing car it only starts to cohere with speed and load, the gearchange being the most noticeable example. Between 3000 and 5000rpm you don’t need the clutch but each change still smacks you in the back of the head like a school bully. Above that it’s just slick and instant, your head giving the curtest nod, as if in agreement.
Racing engines are as functional as a Honda generator, their function being to make you go fast. Sounding good is an accidental by-product and not guaranteed. This one hasn’t been for the expensive voice-coaching an Aston or Ferrari engine gets. Its hard, mechanical blare is exciting, but mainly because it’s so freaking loud, and because the vibrations make you feel like it’s trying to eat its way into the cockpit.
At a middling pace you notice how compliant the adjustable Sachs pushrod suspension is – the ride doesn’t tire you, and you don’t worry about broken surfaces breaking your traction or making the front end skip. As you go faster you focus on the vice-like mechanical grip. The Mono is unlike anything else I’ve driven on the road. It arcs through corners like that compass from your high-school days; you dial in the radius and it draws it without deviation. It felt as if only my shoulders failing would cause it to understeer.
But I was still driving mostly as I would in the UK, at the speed limit plus the tolerance of a reasonable copper, my pace limited on these high mountain roads by the thick bands of cloud that wreathe them and occasionally race across them. But then, in the quieter south of the island, the clouds finally lifted. I could see clearly out between two tors to the mottled navy-opal blue of the Irish Sea. The sun fell over the green-gold moors and the road – known as the Sloc – that runs across them. A series of short, slightly downhill straights are separated by kinks and followed by a corner leading into series of sweeping bends cut into the hillside. It was empty and dry so for the first time I got all the way into the Mono’s throttle, hitting the limiter in second and third along the straights.
The noise and vibration and blast of the air made it feel insanely fast, and I’m sure it was – I didn’t look down at the speedo. But I backed off in fourth way before the corner because the pace was getting wildly inappropriate for the road. Through the bends the Mono maintains its death-grip on the road and lets you know it will go through here faster than almost anything else with number plates, yet social responsibility meant I was constantly feathering the throttle.
At the end of the day I parked up, switched the engine off and let the heat soak warm my back. I was the sort of tired my five-year-old gets when he’s been massively over-stimulated all day, like on his birthday or at a theme park, wide-eyed and spent at the same time. I wondered if I still wanted a Mono as much as I thought I did before I drove it. Despite the lack of limits, I’d got that same sensation of forced restraint and mild frustration at not getting anywhere near the edges of the bonkers, time-bending, physics-defying abilities of this car. The Briggs brothers are right – theirs is an extraordinarily capable road car. But it’s always more satisfying to extend a car than restrain it, and you’ll only ever really extend a Mono on a track.
And for all its clever engineering the Mono is primarily a functional object; a device for going fast. It has the price of a supercar, but not the finesse. Mono owners won’t care, though. They already have supercars. This one is for days when the Ferrari feels a bit too quiet, too soft in the front, too tame, too dull. And if it doesn’t feel that way now, it will after the Mono.
