Bugatti Chiron Sport – Bugatti's 1500 Horsepower Track-Weapon
A new version of the Chiron has been revealed at Geneva - with improvements made to its handling.
The northwest corner of the Geneva Motor Show has long been the area where the densest crowds congregate in awe. For it is here in a confined slice of the vastness of the Palexpo that the neighbouring stands of two sworn enemies reside: the stands of Koenigsegg and Bugatti.
It is from this place that fans accumulate in their thousands to snap gratuitous Facebook profile pictures of their faces next to a new version of the Koenigsegg Agera that has a somehow more outrageous wing than it did the previous year, sprinkled with even more power for good measure. And once they've finished with that, they can just pop next door to see what shade of carbon Bugatti have decided to showcase the Chiron – or in years gone by, the Veyron – in this year.
For 2018 however, while the Chiron may appear on the outside to be sporting the classic Red & Black colour combination flaunted by early iterations of its predecessor, it's underneath the beautiful exterior that the main focus of fascination resides. For this is a Chiron that has been honed for something the more cynical amongst you would never consider to be the natural habitat for anything with a Bugatti badge on it: track work.
It is called simply the Chiron Sport, and it has been designed as a sharper, better handling version of the Chiron. The very thought of improving the already competent handling of the Chiron is something that will make the armchair engineers out there jump to a quick conclusion: remove a large portion of the lard that is synonymous with Bugattis, and it will handle better. Indeed, the Sport carries less mass than the original Chiron.
Thanks to the use of lighter wheels, a carbon stabiliser and intercooler cover, carbon wipers, lighter glass in the rear window, and a lighter exhaust deflector, the total weight saving stands at a mighty...40lbs! That's just 18kg in Junckerspeak, resulting in the Chiron Sport weighing in at 4359lbs (1977kg) dry. Do not allow that fact to lure you into jumping to a premature conclusion though. While the Chiron Sport may be fractionally lighter, it's not about being lightweight. Had it been Bugatti's intension, they could've stripped considerable amounts of weight from the Chiron – but along with that weight would've gone the very essence of what makes Bugatti special in the realm of the megacar.
The difference between Bugatti and Koenigsegg can most accurately be quantified from the perspective of either the driver or passenger by how comfortable they are when they lose control of their bowels. It's an unpleasant inevitability, but one which the Chiron allows to be done in perfect comfort and refinement. To the less radicalised of car enthusiasts whose thoughts aren't voluntarily confined to an unwavering single dimension, this luxury is what sets Bugatti apart. And the cost of luxury is weight.
Instead, the most dramatic and noteworthy of changes the Sport brings are to be found in the lap time it is now capable of extracting. In handling mode, the shocks are 10% stiffer than the original Chiron. The electric steering has also been recalibrated, but Bugatti puts significant emphasis on explaining that the exceptional feel that was praised in the original Chiron remains as pungent as ever. The rear differential now features a system called "Dynamic Torque Vectoring", which in English basically translates to better throttle adjustability on the limit. I'm sure Mr. Harris will approve of that one.
All of these changes result in the Sport being 5 seconds faster around the Nardo handling circuit than the original Chiron. While the specific lap times remain unknown, it's still an incredibly impressive achievement considering the original Chiron cornered in a way no 2 tonne car should've been able to.
The only way a person can distinguish the Sport from the original Chiron on the outside is by looking at the exhaust pipes, which are rounded on the Sport. It's also worth mentioning that Bugatti are giving current Chiron owners the option to have their cars upgraded to Sport spec – the cost of which sits at around £250,000. In the grand scheme of the automotive hierarchy however, Bugatti can pretty much charge whatever figure they think they can get away with.
As far as the acceleration is concerned, the Sport is unchanged. It still produces 1479bhp from its Dragon-Heart of an 8 Litre Quad-Turbo W16. It's still capable of jettisoning whoever's brave enough from 0-60mph in 2.3 seconds. If that level of performance leaves you wanting, you should probably be living in a padded cell.
The Sport simply extends upon one of the strings the Chiron already had on its bow. It's designed to not necessarily attack a circuit, but to redact it into a number of infinitesimally small sections where you can blink and breathe. It's designed to beat the laws of physics into a submission of irrelevance, and deform the human skeleton with multidirectional brutality. Yet its bent on handling and track work could never tempt a person into describing it with a word as dirty as "hardcore". I for one hope to see it in action very soon.
Written by: Angelo Uccello
Twitter: @AngeloUccello
Tribe: Speed Machines
Facebook: Speed Machines – DriveTribe
Photo Credits: Bugatti
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Comments (1)
This car is seriously insane! I want one quite badly