Can the Bugatti Chiron beat a 2011 F1 car in a drag race?



People talk about the advancement of technology and all that, but what’s the point if our current hypercars still can’t beat a 10-year-old Formula 1 race car? Of course, we’re only kidding, but it seemed like the lads at Carwow weren’t, as they’ve literally just pitted a Bugatti Chiron beside the Red Bull RB7 F1 race car in a drag race.

While the RB7 is already 10-years old now, its performance is still nothing to scoff at. The 2.4-litre naturally-aspirated V8 engine at the back can put down 750hp to the rear wheels, and it needs to work against 650 kg plus one David Coulthard.

On the other hand, the Bugatti Chiron’s massive 8.0-litre W16 engine packs a whopping 1500 hp and 1,600 Nm on tap, but it also weighs like a pig with all of its leather and luxury touches on-board, tipping the scales at just under 2,000 kg.

Screenshot: Carwow/YouTube

Just based on numbers alone, it already doesn’t look too good for the Chiron. At least it has launch control and all-wheel drive to help put the power down into the ground, I guess.

Can’t get enough of the Bugatti Chirons in drag races? Check out this one against a fighter jet!

And unsurprisingly, the Red Bull RB7 managed to outgun the Bugatti Chiron in all three drag races – the F1 racer completed the standing quarter mile run in 9.2 seconds, while the Chiron came in just 0.4 seconds away at 9.6 seconds!

Screenshot: Carwow/YouTube

We all thought that the F1 car would make the Chiron look like it’s standing still, but the fact that it managed to stay so close to an actual F1 car is already impressive – granted, F1 cars are never built for drag races, but… it’s still an F1 race car, for heaven’s sake.

At the end of the video, the Bugatti Chiron even managed to beat the RB7 from a rolling start on a longer run, thanks to its higher top speed. The downforce-focused design of the F1 car just generated too much drag, even though it managed to accelerate faster at the start. We’ll take that as a win in our books.

We at AutoBuzz.my run our own drag races too! Here’s the ultimate Juara Kampung showdown, the Perodua Myvi vs Proton Iriz.

All in all, it’s just one hell of a fun video, so make sure you give it a watch, especially because you may not see anything like it again. It’s not every day the F1 cars are allowed to do fun stuff like that. At the very least, you’ll still enjoy the glorious sound of the “old-school” V8 F1 cars.