The plan was to drive to Prescott National Forest, because the high roads of Yavapai County in northern Arizona looked wonderful. It was about 110 miles from our Scottsdale Airbnb. But that evening, after an, er, eventful day on track, I realised something. I didn't fancy driving the Radford that far.
You see this is not one of those supercars that has bandwidth. It's raw and single minded, and although this is a development car and yet to have a final dynamic polish, that's not going to turn it into a limber, languorous tourer. And there's a reason for that. This is Jenson's car.
We're in no surname required territory here, aren't we? But also on familiar terrain for top flight racing drivers. In a few pages' time you'll see Dario Franchitti in the GMA T.50. There must be something written in a contract that says Porsche can't launch a car without a personal appearance from Walter Röhrl and Honda NSX is basically word association for Ayrton Senna.
So what's made the 2009 Formula One world champion get involved with a tiny start-up? "The whole thing for me was after a career of developing cars and the high stress of F1. I wanted to do something I was passionate about, developing something that's truly mechanical and people will jump in and go 'Wow, that's cool, that's fun'."
Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av BBC Top Gear UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 2023-utgaven av BBC Top Gear UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
ELECTROMECHANIC
Meet the electric restomod that you can create at home it's so easy you can do the conversion in a day, apparently
ALL THE SMALL THINGS
Word is there's no such thing as a decent, small, simple, reasonably priced car these days. Allow TopGear to investigate
VOLKSWAGEN ID.BUZZ 7-SEAT
Volkswagen’s new seven seater ID.Buzz is now the family mover it always should have been
BMW M5
TO THE POINT: THE NEW BMW M5 IS AN excellent car. It's very fast, confident, endlessly configurable and now offers a not inconsequential 40ish miles of electric-only running for happy tax returns.
VAUXHALL GRANDLAND vs FORD EXPLORER
These two brands have been the 'pile it high, sell it cheap' kings of the UK market for decades, but their new core models take a very different tack...
CAR OF THE YEAR - 5 STAR
Yep, Renault's retro-chic new supermini with an optional wicker baguette holder Scoops the grand prix...
MEANWHILE... IN THE FUTURE
Catching rockets with chopsticks isn't the only autonomous tech going on in Elon Musk's world...
KING OF THE HILLS
You wait for one 800+bhp super GT, then two rock up at once. It's the Aston/Ferrari showdown we've all been waiting for...
PACKAGE
What better way to test the Hyundai Santa Fe's SUV-ness than hand delivering TopGear magazine to each and every subscriber in... New Zealand?
MYTH BUSTER
\"THE GOLF GTI WAS THE OG HOT HATCH\"