Koenigsegg has set a new lap record at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, beating its own record by more than a full second, and the next nearest competitor by nearly six. That's pretty darn impressive all on its own, but is made even more noteworthy when you consider the impediments the team from Ängelholm was up against and the setbacks it had to overcome.
When Christian von Koenigsegg revealed the One:1 at the Geneva Motor Show last year, we knew we were looking at one of the fastest, most powerful supercars ever devised. Billed as the world's first "megacar," the One:1 boasts 1,341 horsepower – a full megawatt by metric standards, offset by 1,000 kilograms of weight to move, which gives it a perfectly balanced power-to-weight ratio (and its name). Ever eager to put his money where his mouth is, Christian and company soon set about claiming a new Nürburgring lap record, but didn't get to make an attempt before the new management set speed limits on key portions of the track that would render such an attempt futile. So the Swedish team set its sights instead at Spa.
Last month, the Koenigsegg One:1 set a blistering lap time of 2:33.26 at the Beglian track, beating the next best attempt undertaken to date (in the McLaren P1) by nearly five seconds and the Porsche 918 Spyder by nearly seven seconds. Nice work if you can get it, but Koenigsegg wasn't about to leave it there. So the team made the ten-hour journey again this month, and set a new time of 2:32.14 – beating its own record by over a second.
What's more, that they had to undertake that attempt not only on a packed circuit – track time at Spa can be hard to come by these days – but with an unexpected noise limit that necessitated jerry-rigging a modified exhaust that couldn't breath as freely. (Thank you very much, Belgian bureaucrats.) All of which tells us that if they were given an empty track with no decibel restrictions, they could surely undercut even that time by a significant margin. And we don't doubt they'll try again in the near future.
When Christian von Koenigsegg revealed the One:1 at the Geneva Motor Show last year, we knew we were looking at one of the fastest, most powerful supercars ever devised. Billed as the world's first "megacar," the One:1 boasts 1,341 horsepower – a full megawatt by metric standards, offset by 1,000 kilograms of weight to move, which gives it a perfectly balanced power-to-weight ratio (and its name). Ever eager to put his money where his mouth is, Christian and company soon set about claiming a new Nürburgring lap record, but didn't get to make an attempt before the new management set speed limits on key portions of the track that would render such an attempt futile. So the Swedish team set its sights instead at Spa.
Last month, the Koenigsegg One:1 set a blistering lap time of 2:33.26 at the Beglian track, beating the next best attempt undertaken to date (in the McLaren P1) by nearly five seconds and the Porsche 918 Spyder by nearly seven seconds. Nice work if you can get it, but Koenigsegg wasn't about to leave it there. So the team made the ten-hour journey again this month, and set a new time of 2:32.14 – beating its own record by over a second.
What's more, that they had to undertake that attempt not only on a packed circuit – track time at Spa can be hard to come by these days – but with an unexpected noise limit that necessitated jerry-rigging a modified exhaust that couldn't breath as freely. (Thank you very much, Belgian bureaucrats.) All of which tells us that if they were given an empty track with no decibel restrictions, they could surely undercut even that time by a significant margin. And we don't doubt they'll try again in the near future.
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