“Following
successful road tests at up to 380 km/h, we are now refining the handling of
the vehicle at up to 440 km/h to allow the Chiron Super Sport to perform with
uncompromising safety, even at this incredible top speed, and give the driver a
good, and above all, safe feeling at extremely high speeds,” explains Jachin
Schwalbe, Head of Chassis Development at Bugatti.
This
comes down to multiple technical modifications and optimizations. Various
parameters can be modified and compared based on variable settings for the rear
wing angle, vehicle height, damping, and electrically assisted steering. This
is done lap after lap, all in top speed mode. Up to six engineers then discuss
the perfect setup.
“Our
engineers are from a wide variety of specialist backgrounds, enabling them to
comprehensively verify our assessments, ensuring the best possible result and
therefore maximum performance for the future owners while ensuring there is
maximum testing safety,” says Jachin Schwalbe. This is exclusive work – at 440
km/h, the Chiron Super Sport is the world’s fastest production sports car.
Michael
Bode, part of the Bugatti team responsible for overall vehicle testing, attends
to the measurement technology in order that objective data can be evaluated in
addition to subjective impressions. Approximately 100 additional sensors record
various data during the test-drives, such as the temperature and pressure.
“With the incredible power output and high speeds, the uplift and the
thermodynamics change depending on the different pressure levels. We therefore
monitor all the parts at top speed and full load, and then optimize them if
necessary. We owe this level of work to the customers who buy this
extraordinary and exclusive vehicle,” explains Michael Bode.
The
Chiron Super Sport differs from the Chiron and the Chiron Pur Sport among other
things due to its
extended
and aerodynamically optimized bodywork, which has been designed for extreme
high speeds beyond the 420 km/h mark. The extended rear holds the laminar flow
to the automobile for longer, resulting in a significantly smaller trailing
surface. This reduces drag and improves the aerodynamics – complex work at top
speeds of over 400 km/h.
The
idea of a long tail emerged in summer 2019 when the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport
300+ became the first production vehicle to breach the threshold of 300 miles
an hour – a speed record for production vehicles that it still holds to this
day, having hit exactly 490.484 km/h to make it the fastest production sports
car around. The series production run of the Super Sport 300+, limited to 30
units, was immediately sold out.
Greater output and a longer seventh gear ratio
In
addition to newly designed aerodynamics, Bugatti has modified the propulsion.
Ensuring that the Chiron Super Sport accelerates strongly even in excess of 400
km/h is the responsibility, among others, of Marco Schulte. As an engine
application developer within Bugatti’s Development department, he tunes the
output of the four turbochargers precisely to the load. In the Chiron Super
Sport, the 8.0-liter W16 engine delivers 1,600 PS – exactly 100PS more than in
the Chiron. With the improved performance, induced among other things by larger
turbochargers with more efficient compressor wheels, the seven-gear dual-clutch
transmission at full load and full speed now does not transition from sixth to
seventh gear until 403 km/h. In addition, the seventh gear’s ratio was made 3.6
percent longer.
“It’s
crucial that the driver doesn’t notice the interruption in traction when
changing gears at 7,100 rpm. We therefore set the boost pressure regulation
more finely in the last three gears,” explains Marco Schulte. As a result, the
boost pressure dips only minimally during a gear change in order to immediately
offer the full boost pressure of 2.8 bar again. The Chiron Super Sport
accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.4 seconds and to 200 km/h in 5.8 seconds,
making it 0.3 seconds faster than a Chiron. The difference is even more evident
when accelerating from 0 to 300 km/h – this takes 12.1 rather than 13.1
seconds. The Chiron Super Sport accelerates from 0 to 400 km/h in 28.6 seconds,
making it four seconds faster than the Chiron. Above 420 km/h, the Chiron Super
Sport is in a league of its own – the Chiron gently curtails the speed when it
hits 420 km/h.