This is what it’s like driving a Bugatti Chiron at 305mph

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  When Bugatti wants to find out just how fast one if its cars will go, it calls racing driver Andy Wallace. [credit: Bugatti ]

FRANKFURT, GERMANY—As the twin forces of efficiency and safety change the vehicles around us to meet the needs of the 21st century, there’s not much day-to-day relevancy in how fast a car can go on a straight and flat enough road. Just about any new car sold today will happily cruise 20-30mph (30-65km/h) faster than even the most permissive speed limits outside a few stretches of German Autobahn. Even on the derestricted stretches, you might struggle to find yourself traffic-free long enough to exercise a supercar up to 200mph, and anything beyond that has always been more of an academic exercise than anything else. Unless your name is Andy Wallace, that is.

The British racing driver’s initial big result came at Le Mans in 1988, the first of many in a success-filled career racing sports prototypes. That first win was back when the Mulsanne Straight really was flat-out for 3.7 miles (6km), which meant going a little faster than 247mph (398km/h) for most of the 394 laps it took to win that year. So it shouldn’t be surprising that Wallace has gotten the call when someone needed a production car tested at that kind of velocity. He was behind the wheel of the record-setting McLaren F1 at Ehra-Lessien in 1998 and then again with an even faster Bugatti in 2007. That association continues to this day, most recently experiencing the 305mph (495km/h) Vmax of the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+.