There’s a new Goodwood Festival of Speed hill climb record. After 23 years, Nick Heidfeld’s Timed Shootout record in the McLaren MP4/13 has been broken. F1 and IndyCar star Max Chilton’s new 39.08 second run in the incredible McMurtry Spéirling fan car has knocked over two seconds off that time. Check out the run in the video below.
The McMurtry Spéirling has also taken the outright hill record from the Volkswagen ID.R. Romain Dumas’ time of 39.9 seconds from the 2019 hill climb was smashed earlier in the day in practice, and a further 0.1 seconds in the Timed Shootout. This means the two quickest cars to ever run at Goodwood are electric.
The specs on the McMurtry Spéirling are mind blowing. The tiny single seater weighs less than 1000 kg and has two electric motors making over 1000 hp for a power-to-weight ratio greater than 1000 hp per tonne. Powerful enough for zero to 60 mph in less than 1.5 seconds and zero to 186 mph in less than 9 seconds! Top speed is over 200 mph.
The car can also corner faster than a F1 car thanks to its twin fans that generate up to 2000 kg of downforce from zero mph. You can actually drive this thing upside down in a tunnel and it won’t fall down! Spéirling is Irish for thunderstorm, and that’s what this car sounds like when the fans are going full blast.
Congrats to driver Max Chilton and the team at McMurtry Automotive for the brilliant effort. The future is indeed electric.
