Bugatti’s Andy Wallace: the Mistral was still climbing after 282mph*

Top Gear: Andy, congratulations! King of speed again. You didn’t pick the best day for it. What kind of challenge does the weather bring when it’s this cold?

Andy Wallace: Thanks! Actually I didn’t choose the day and I dunno why you’d try and do it in November. During the runs there’s little tiny bits of – I guess it’s not rain – but it’s moisture on the screen building up. And you think, ‘hmm, I wonder how much grip there is?’

TG: You didn’t have the wipers on, did you?

AW: I didn’t have the wipers on, no. I think at that speed they might fly off the back, although I’m sure being a Bugatti, it’s been tested.

TG: How much buffeting is there inside the car? It must be like an absolute tornado in there?

AW: You’d expect that wouldn’t you? But honestly, my helmet’s not even moving really. There’s not a lot of air coming into the cabin. What you do have is a lot of noise from the air. When you don’t have a roof, you hear the air ripping off the top of the windscreen and it’s going around and behind you, but there’s no buffeting. I was really surprised.

I did some runs without a helmet on, let’s say 300kmh (186mph) just to see, and… nothing. I mean, I was going to say my hair wasn’t blowing, but obviously I don’t have a lot, but there’s no air wind inside. It’s amazing.

TG: But was it deafeningly noisy inside?

AW: Noise-wise, it’s getting close, but that speed, it’s getting close to deafening and I probably should have put some earplugs in. But on the whole it’s smooth – zero vibration. All the wheels are whizzing around, everything’s coming past you yet there’s not a hint of vibration through the wheel. It’s incredible.

TG: I heard you say earlier that when you come under the bridge halfway along the straight that it affects the aero of the car?

AW: It’s quite a wide bridge. It goes across the track and it’s fairly low. It reminds me of those height-gauges before you get on the Channel Tunnel that always make me duck as I drive under it – what’s that going to do? It’s not quite that low, but it kind of looks it at that speed.

So I’m coming under there at 427kmh. This is well over 200mph. And as soon as you get under – and I know it’s going to happen now, so I’m ready – it kind of just moves the car over. So I guess there’s an interaction between all the air under the bridge going on.

I’m also not using the lane close to the barrier on the left because there’s an interaction there and you get some instability. So I’m using one lane in, so you’ve got all these things going on, but I’ve done it quite a few times now and as long as you’re ready for these things happening it’s fine.

TG: You of course hit 304mph at the Volkswagen Ehra-Lessien test track. But that’s a considerably longer test oval and a bigger straight, so how much more of a challenge is doing a v-max run here at Papenburg?

AW: Yeah, well this is the issue you’ve got. As you say, so it was 8.8km (5.5 miles) at Ehra. And the banking’s not quite as steep here. So I’ve got 4km or 2.5 miles to use and then get the speed off [before the corner].

Having said that, the air brake and the actual drag of the car in general meant that I could break quite a lot later in this [than the Chiron]. I know I’m going a bit slower than 304mph, so you need a little bit less braking room, but still you have to come off the banking pretty quick.

TG: What speed do you have to exit the banking at on a top speed run?

AW: Ideally 250kmh (155mph) is the maximum on the banking. I was actually entering the banking at about 220kmh. There’s no point in going faster than you need to, because of the load that you’re putting into the tyres.

TG: Is 282mph the true maximum of the Mistral or would it go faster with more space?

I don’t think in this case or in the case of the Chiron Super Sport 300+, we were at v-max, but we were pretty close…

2 minutes 11 seconds