Flat-Out In The £3.5m Bugatti Bolide!

The Bugatti Belleed is the answer to one of the great pub questions. What if Bugatti kept the Chiron Supersport's 1,578bhp 8.0-litre quad-turbo W16 engine but built a totally bespoke, stripped-down, track-only hypercar around it? What would that look like? What would it feel like? Well, today I'm the first person outside Bugatti's inner circle to spend some proper time with the £3.5m Belleed at the Nardo Proving Ground in Italy and experience it in full flight. Our chaperone for the day, none other than Bugatti's chief test driver and Le Mans winner, Andy Wallace. Shall we do a launch then? Let's do a little launch, shall we? Oh, squidgy body! Just ridiculous! I'll tell you what, electric cars, a Tesla Model S Plaid could probably do something similar to this in a straight line for a few hundred metres at least. But it's kind of a silky smooth violent force. This, this is just pure unadulterated violence to the senses at all times. So I'm going to do a... It's on another level. Sorry, sorry to interrupt you, I'm going to do a pit speed. Oh, yes. So we're on pit speed. So this is going to be a pit speed limiter. So coming out of the pits and... Holy mother! Jesus. So that's a rolling launch straight out the pits. I think you'd probably leap from 10th place to first if you did that in a race. Oh, whoa! The acceleration just doesn't stop. You basically run out of track so long before the car runs out of performance. It feels like I do five, six hundred miles an hour if you had a long enough straight. No idea what speeds we're doing. God, I hope, I pray the owners of this car use it properly because this thing is wild, wild, wild. And I'm starting to feel a little bit sick, Andy. Copy that. I'll come back now. Here we go. F***ing hell. Andy, thank you so much for scaring the s*** out of me and making me feel quite sick. But you said that sitting in the passenger seat even makes you feel sick. Yeah, the trouble is it's not fair being in the passenger seat because you don't know when I'm going to put my foot on the brake, do you? All I saw was your helmet going towards the windscreen and stretching your neck. Extending by a few inches. Anyway, I'm going to start with a really obvious question. All right. How does driving this thing compare to the Chiron? I've driven the Chiron. I'm guessing quite different, but sort of sum it up for me. Well, as you know, I mean, the Chiron is amazing, but it's designed for all of the obstacles you have on the road and all of the niceties that you need. And of course, we don't need any of that. It's a track car. It's a racing car, isn't it? It's a race car, effectively, isn't it? Of course, it's still a Bugatti. It's still easy to drive and it's comfortable and it's got air conditioning, but it's far, far away from what a Chiron is. And then, of course, with that, especially because you've got Michelin slick tyres, you've got carbon-carbon brakes. So all of these pieces need to go into the window in order to get the car to operate correctly. So just driving slowly around some of these roads here, of course, you don't have any brakes. So basically, when pesky journalists come along and say, oh, Andy, can you follow that car for a bit of tracking and a bit of photography and slow down and speed up? It's not ideal for the Balide, but we also got to experience it in that window, which was absolutely insane. So what I want to do now is just, there's so many details on this car. As with any Bugatti, it's like a, you know, if you're a FAC fan, it is just chock full of incredible stats, this car. So I want to go through each element bit by bit. I'll sort of prompt the area we want to talk about. All you need to do is just turn your brain inside out and give us as much information as possible. And I want to start with the engine, which is about 35% of the entire car in this thing. It's not actually that big, the Balide, when you're standing next to it. It's very wide. I believe it's 2.1 metres wide. Yeah, but the footprint doesn't seem that big. Let's come back to the engine. So obviously, it's the engine that we know and love. But more power than the Chiron here? It's the same power. It's more power than the standard Chiron. It's the same power as the Supersport. Supersport, okay. So 15 in old money, 15.78 bhp or something like that. 1,600 PS? Yeah. I've just helped you out there. Yeah, thank you so much. What about the rev limit? Does it rev any higher? Is there any differences internally? There's a few more rpm on there. It's just a couple of hundred rpm. But in any case, the rpm side of things, and I notice this with a lot of fast cars that you drive, but in the case with this one, it still retains the auto upshift. So there's no automatic setting. You're in manual the whole time, but it will upshift for you at maximum rpm, which is great because this thing accelerates so fast when you leave a first or a second gear corner. So when we were doing all those launches earlier, were you on auto upshifts? It's permanently on. What you can do, of course, you can short shift on the track if you need to, to get rid of some torque. But normally you just slam the pedal wide open and you just sit there and it's bam, bam, bam. And the shifts are really smooth, really fast. If you had to stare at the tacho or the shift lights to see when to shift, that would actually take away from the driving pleasure, I think. Because it's all happening so fast. I can vouch for that. It was happening quite fast. I just thought your upshifts were absolutely perfect and on point and you were just letting the computers do the hard work. I did a little bit of fag packet calculation. So I think this car, so it weighs, we'll come on to the weight next. So 1450 kilograms, that's the target, which gives it, I think, over 1100 horsepower per tonne, which is just, whichever way you cut it, that's bonkers. So I'm thinking Alpine A110 with 1000 horsepower. That's how I'm trying to get my head around it. But what are the sort of big, what are the major things that have cut all that weight? Is it 500 kilograms less than the Chiron? A bit more? It's probably, yeah, 500 kilograms less. Probably even, yeah, perhaps 550. Well, I mean, from the ground up, it's completely different. The monocoque is totally different for a start-off. And then all of the things that add weight onto a road car, that make it nicer to drive, of course, we don't need any of those things. So one of the things, in terms of the engine, we've taken away the sequential turbocharging system. So on the Chiron, two turbos are switched off until 4000 RPM. And here we have all four running at the same time. Now we do that on the Chiron, so that peak torque doesn't arrive at 4000, it arrives just over 2000. So on the road, it's fantastic. You've always got torque. On the track, of course, you're always in the right gear. So you don't need that. You're always going to have 4000 RPM. Minimum. You should be. Yeah, your minimum. And even if it drops under that, it's for just a nanosecond and bang, it's above it again. So of course, taking that system off saves some weight. So that's one of the areas we save weight. And you'll see that all the bodywork is exactly what it needs to be for a track car. Yeah, it's carbon. Everything is made out of carbon. You talked about the monocoque there. There's a fantastic image that you released of the rolling chassis of this car, which looks like some sort of mad hot rod from the future because it's this beautiful kind of teardrop shaped monocoque with the nose cone out the front. And there was a wonderful statistic about the stiffness of it. And I think it's something like, correct me when I go wrong, seven and a half tons sitting on the A-pillar and it's not allowed to deflect more than 50 mil, which I was sort of, you know, 50 mil and seven and a half, that doesn't compute. It must be incredibly stiff. Yeah, it is. And even a standard Chiron, the numbers are mind-boggling. It's a standard Chiron was at the level of a LMP1 Le Mans prototype in terms of chassis stiffness. So it's incredibly stiff and it needs to be because not only do you have the 1,600 PS, you've also got the 1,600 Nm, which I believe is close to 1,200 foot-pounds. Now that, of course, is the bit that's twisting everything. And so everything needs to be stiff. And if it's not, you get strange feelings from the driving seat when you're on full acceleration, the car can move around and steer itself and you don't have any of that with this. Aero, it's got some. It's got a lot of aero, yes. So 380 k's, which I believe is around, is it 237 miles an hour? So at that speed, the car has almost three tons of downforce. So 1,000 kilos on the front, 1,900 on the rear. Yeah, twice its weight, effectively. Exactly, yeah. So it's immense. And so during all the testing that we did in the high-speed corners, the car is absolutely planted in it. But importantly, this downforce is not pitch sensitive. So we could have actually got more downforce on the car, but the penalty for that would have been some pitch sensitivity. And it's so benign if you're in the middle of a fast corner and you lift off the throttle or you have to dab the brake, it doesn't shift around. So it becomes very easy to drive, easy to trust. And then therefore, for our customers, they can get closer to the limit very quickly. Yeah, no active aero. There is no active aero. No, there isn't. Except for the point that, of course, the faster you go, the lower the car gets because of the squash. Yeah. Well, that's a nice little segue into talking about the suspension, which has some very trick suspension arms, doesn't it? 3D printed, they're very light and very soft. I think it was 100 grams, but it could take three and a half tons of force. Incredible, isn't it? I know you pick that thing up and it weighs absolutely nothing, but it's probably easier to point the things that are not, you know, wow, wacky, exotic, because that's the same everywhere you look. Yeah, yeah. If it can be done, it's done. You can ask the question why after, but let's do it. Gorgeous. I must say about the styling as well that, you know, this is obviously a prototype that we're with today, but actually you step back and you get the sense of that overall shape and it's so function led in terms of just the amount of space in the back of the car and all the vents and the wings and stuff. And I love that, but it still looks. That's great. And this particular car, I think it's close to 12,000 kilometers it's done. So it's like seven and a half thousand miles. This is not going to Tesco's and back. We have not driven this car with any sympathy whatsoever. I was talking to you a bit earlier about we were in Mugello. Lots of the tracks we've been to, huge curbs on the apexes and the exits, and we're just blasting across the top of all of them. And, you know, that's what the car's been designed for. Lovely. So you hear that? If you're one of the 40 customers that's got to believe, feel free to smash into those curbs because it's Andy Wallace approved. Now, I know I'm not allowed to drive it today, but can I have a sit in your seat? Because I'd love to see and feel what it's like to get in there and to find out. And it's very important, the seat, because you can sit in a seat and think, oh, this is all nice and comfy while the car's stood still. Yeah. Then you go out on the track and you realize, actually, it's not good at all. So this one, and this can happen for any customer who wants it. This is a purpose-built, made to the shape of me. Yeah. So, yeah, have a seat in there. Before we even get in, you'll see the padding's here. So that part of the headrest and the padding is built into the carbon structure of the door. Yeah. And this is made as part of the seat too. So when you change seats, you would change that. Yeah. So the seats are fixed to the monocoque and then you adjust wheel and pedals. Yeah, exactly. And so the height adjustment is what you do when you make the seat. Right, I'm going to climb in. OK, right. This can't be that difficult. So I've got to hold the harness, right? So I don't fall underneath my bum, never to be retrieved again. Yeah, so you don't sit on it. Feet on the seat. Feet out in front of me. Oh, a fair bit snugger than the passenger seat, I have to say. It is, and it might feel snug when you're stood still, but when you're racing around high-speed corners, it will feel absolutely right. Proper racing car position. It's much more reclined. My ankles are somewhere around the same height as my bum. And so, yeah, it's got that sort of unique race car. The steering wheel comes off, doesn't it? It does. Should we give this a go? Yeah. Yeah, go on. There we go. So there we go. You don't actually necessarily need to do that. I mean, I didn't need to do it. I suppose if you're a bigger person. Well, if somebody's got big knees, for example. Yeah. Then you wouldn't need to do it, but... Big knees. And important to make sure it's actually back on before you set off again. Yeah, it's the one thing as a racing driver. Of course, they didn't come off in my day when I was young, but each racing driver has done it once where you leave the pit and it actually comes off in your hand because it was not put on properly. It's like an anxiety dream before a big race, isn't it? So other things I'm going to point out. So these... Well, it looks like you've got a couple of exhaust pipes coming in here, but that's actually piping the cold air in, and you've got a couple for the passenger as well. Yeah, and in fact, through most of the testing, if it wasn't 40 degrees ambient, you couldn't even have it on maximum. It's coming through there pretty cold. Yeah. It's very pleasant. Yeah, and literally, I don't think there's any components... I mean, this is obviously a long way off being the beautiful finished article that you'll deliver to customers, but I don't think there's any carryover components with Chiron. No, I don't know. No, not in the cockpit, not at all, I would say. Yeah, so this wheel in front of me, do you have to be a racing driver to understand what the hell's going on? Well, you don't, and with all the wheels, and it's the same with some road cars these days. When you first look at it, you go, whoa, big overload of buttons and switches and things, but actually, it's really, really logical, and it's really easy. Okay. So, I mean, if you want me to run through a couple of bits and pieces, if you just knock that ignition switch up, that's it. So, if you see the ABS and the traction control positions, for example, so if you turn that, yeah, so obviously, these are... Which way is braver, higher number or lower number? The bravest is five, and you'll notice if you go back down to one, so when you're on one, two, and three, you actually have ESC as well, stability control. As soon as you go to four and five, there's no stability control, but just traction control. Yeah. Obviously, that's just limiting the slip a little bit. You can actually just stay full throttle. Yeah. Sorted out, and when... Have you got crossed up in this yet? Oh, yes, a lot of times, and there was one time in Imola, going towards the Aquamineroli chicane, aptly named because it was pouring with rain, and it's very bumpy on the entrance there. If you hit the bump at the wrong time, and you turn, and you think, oh, it's not going to make it, and you feel the back coming around, and almost before you thought, I wish it wasn't doing that, you just hear this, as it grabs a hold of it and pulls it straight again. So, once you've done that a couple of times, and you learn that you can trust it, it's a fantastic feeling. It's just like somebody looking out for you. It sounds like a bit of a moment you had there, Andy. Not quite as big as the moment we had in the show on Supersport at the Nurburgring, when it was soaking wet, and I had more confidence than ability. Well, actually, you heard it here first. That was the first Bugatti boat of racing times that we were driving at the time. W16 Bugatti boat. That was a lot of water. I want to know about this one, launch control. What's the procedure for launching a Balide? So, left foot brake. Sorry, left foot brake. Yeah, got it. Good bit of pressure on the pedal. Then, press the launch control. As soon as you do, you'll have launch control active on the center dash. Then you go full throttle, wait about two seconds for all the boost to get nice and ready. Boosty. Yeah, and then just keep the pedal flat out. Yeah. Just sidestep the brake pedal. Oh, even I could do that. And it's brilliant, because you do have a little bit of slip initially, and it's perfect, and it's part of the feeling. As you demonstrated earlier. And then, of course, because of the auto upshift, you just keep it pinned, zipping through the gears. Oh, anyone could do it. In fact, are you sure you don't want me to drive? Actually, I'm absolutely fine with it. I think some other people might. Yeah, it's... Yeah, as long as I don't have to come with you, I'm absolutely fine with it. So, if you want the ultimate road car, don't buy this. Buy a Chiron or its V16 hybrid successor that's waiting in the wings, because the Bolide is a very different expression of Bugatti's values. It's something raw and unfiltered. Arguably, the world's greatest hypercar powertrain strapped to a true racing car chassis that just happens to look knee-tremblingly good. Yes, they're only making 40 of them. Yes, you can only drive it on track. And yes, they cost a staggering £3.5 million each. But that brings a purity, too. The Bolide is built for driving, not posing. And in an era when EV performance cars are fast but failing to ignite our excitement, the Bolide is the bit of old-school, big-engined, bedroom poster fantasy we all needed. It's a total headbanger of a car, a barely-contained explosion of energy, and my dream garage just got a little bit fuller. What a day.