The opening episode of the new series of Top Gear saw the new Pagani Huayra set a stunning Top Gear Track Lap record of 1:13.8. But was it fixed?
But when it comes to the Stig taking cars round the Top Gear test track to see which car can set the fastest time, we all take that seriously as it’s a proper competition between cars that you can buy in a showroom (well, depending on how deep your pockets are), driven by the same driver on the same track. As even a playing field as you can get. Or is it?
Many are questioning how the (admittedly impressive) Pagani Huayra managed to blitz the Top Gear track in a time the eclipsed that of the Ariel Atom V8, McLaren 12C and Lamborghini Aventador. After all, on paper at least, it’s not really any better than the Aventador or the 12C (even if it does cost 4-5 times as much) and the Atom V8 should just be quicker.
We’d heard rumblings from a couple of people who were at the Pagani Huayra Top Gear test that all was not as it seemed, and now it is now starting to appear that Pagani may have been cheating by fitting racing slicks to the Huayra with hand-cut grooves to fool the casual onlooker (it seems to have fooled TG), and give the Huayra the sort of advantage that would explain how it managed to be so quick. And give Pagani huge Kudos (and enormously valuable advertising) in the process.
The eagle-eyed petrolheads on TeamSpeed have been debating this interesting bit of potential skullduggery and have concluded that the tyres on the Huayra were NOT road legal (and therefore the Huyra shouldn’t be allowed on the Top Gear board) and, perhaps more importantly, they question what other mods were made to the Huayra before the Top Gear run to make it perform so well. And they pointed out, quite fairly, that the Huayra looked a lot less than stable when Fifth Gear’s Jason Plato went playng with the Huayra too.
Perhaps Top Gear need to grab a stock Huayra from the showroom (or an owner) and run it round the Dunsfold track on stock tyres and see exactly what the lap time is?
We’re betting it won’t be much quicker than the Zonda was.
Pagani Huayra Photos
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Maria says
Press release states tires as Pirelli Corsas….busted;)
http://www.pagani.com/en/news/2013/pagani_huayra_fastest_road_ever_gear.aspx
Cars UK says
Oh, Yes. Whereas they weren’t!
Pete says
The Zonda R that broke the lap record at the Nurburgring was also fitted with bespoke Pirelli P-Zero tyres. Perhaps there is something in the road tyres fitted to Pagani cars and they didn’t cheat.
uberzero says
Pagani cheated on Top Gear Power Lap with Huayra, period. Find any street legal tires having an indicator wear (displayed at tiny set of four holes) and identified with xxx/xxx designation instead of xxx/xx within Pirelli.
Clearly the tires from Zonda R are hand cut to make it look like road legal.
Pete says
Does the fact that the Huayra is 225kg lighter (1350kg vs 1575kg) have anything to do with it? Power isn’t everything, despite what Clarkson says. I would imagine it would be pretty difficult to find one in a showroom as they are still rare as rocking horse ****.
Cars UK says
It’s a fair point, but still doesn’t explain the difference in lap times, whereas the tyres would. As for another Huayra, yes that would be tough. But as far as we know there are 5 for sale at the moment!
PhilipJH says
Lamborghini Aventador: 0-62mph in 2.9s & 700bhp. TG Lap time 1:16.5s. Pagani Huayra: 0-62mph 3.3s & 700bhp. TG lap time 1:13.8s.
Now we know why it didn’t add up!!
Ben y. says
This statement has no correlation to lap times. The Lamborghini is all wheel drive vs the pagani’s 2wd. I would bet this car is fast on its stock tires but they wanted to set the bar high. These tires look similar to the yoko a032 I used to run on my race car. They had a wear rating of 47 but I could get 1k miles on them. Street legal of course but not practical
Tramp12 says
That would explain the completely unbelievable time by the Huayra!
Sacha says
How could Pagani cheat? Wouldn’t Top Gear have seen the tyres on the car weren’t road tyres?