Drag Race God: Rimac Nevera Smashes Records, an F1 World Champ, and a 7.9-Sec Track Weapon

However, cars have an advantage over flying machines: they can – and, in most cases, do – offer comfort for the pilot. Various degrees of convenience, granted, but comfort nonetheless. Unless said ground-bound machines happen to be purpose-built for going extremely fast, in which case they’re usually pretty gosh darn tight.

For example, look at the three automobiles lined up at the start of this high-speed tea party by carwow. Guests of honor: a Rimac Nevera, a McMurtry Speirling, and a Red Bull Formula One World Championship-winning car.

Naturally, two are track-only toys for rich boys and girls, so it’s all about maximum power, minimum weight, low air drag, and bullet-fast acceleration. And even the Rimac – although a street car at heart – isn’t precisely a relaxation cocoon in this case.

The car used by Mat Watson, carwow’s YouTube host, has a racing seat with stubborn seatbelts – but at least the driver can hear his thoughts when the car is doing its thing. Unlike the Speirling and the Red Bull, which are plain downright auditive massacres.

However, like most car races, this race isn’t awarding trophies for low-decibel performance but for getting across the quarter-mile in the shortest time. We have already seen what the Rimac Nevera did to one of the most iconic hypercars ever to roll its wheels on God’s good Earth, the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport. It made the W16 eight-liter quad-turbo 1,600-hp monster look like a cheap and lame build after a long night at the bar.

Believe it or not, today’s competition is much fiercer than the Bugatti missile: the McMurtry is the quickest car Mat Watson has ever put through the 1,320-foot acceleration trial. On a racing circuit, the car set a 7.97-second quarter-mile record, blasting a 0-60 mph (97 kph) time of 1.4 seconds. Mind you, the numbers were achieved with the motoring journalist and vlogger in the cockpit.

The one-ton single-seater does this with electric power (1,000 hp / 1,014 PS), spinning the rear wheels and the massive suction fans that effectively make the car stick to the ground. The pair of ventilators generate a downforce twice as high as the car’s weight: two tons of road-fastening physics, thanks to the 23,000 RPM turning speed.

However, there’s a significant disadvantage of this particular McMurtry: its top speed is limited to 150 mph (241 kph). And this might not be the best decision against the cutthroat Rimac Nevera, which can go 108 mph/174 kph over Speirling’s best effort.

It does that with the 1,888-hp (1,914-PS) quad-motor setup and 1,740 lb-ft (2,360 Nm) sent to all four wheels. This cosmic level of performance comes with a dire cost: 2.3 tons of body weight. To put it into a better perspective, factor in that the Nevera is heavier than its competitors put together.

That’s partly because the third contender is the featherweight Red Bull RB8 F1 car that Sebastian Vettel drove to his third World Championship in 2012. At 700 kg/1,540 lbs, the vehicle is over three times lighter than the Rimac. Its 2.4-liter naturally-aspirated V8 delivers almost 800 hp, thanks to an astronomical 18,000 RPM (electronically limited, by the way).

The only car with a positive power-to-weight ratio is also the least practical for drag racing: the rear wheels have zero downforce to aid them in gripping the tarmac from the standing start. The high-speed downforce is also against the racer’s odds, as it slows the car down in a straight line.

And the video proves it: the Formula One car is last to cross the line in all three races. The battle was a neck-and-neck affair between the Nevera and the Speirling, but the electric hypercar from Croatia used its top-end acceleration and took the win two times.

For journalistic accuracy, we’ll also note that the McMurtry was fitted with the Goodwood hill-climbing gearbox, so it tops out very quickly. On the other hand, the Rimac pulls like a male elephant on a testosterone overdose. During the half-mile rolling start race, the Nevera hit 221 mph (356 kph).

The only car with two seats, air conditioning, and a stereo involved in this high-speed joust took the crown. But, predictably, the McMurtry would return for a rematch after it puts on the go-fast gearbox, which can propel this electric vacuum-cleaner-armed hypercar to 190 mph (306 kph). That should be an exciting race, and my money’s on the tiny British torpedo.

The Rimac and McMurtry scored an 8.4-second sprint in the standing quarter exam, while the Formula One legend bested a 9.5-second time. But note that the Speirling maxed out way before reaching the finish line, which is why the Nevera could reel it in and eventually get ahead of the pack. Incidentally, today’s results stand as carwow’s new quarter-mile record.

So, until battery packs shed copious amounts of weight and become much more energy-dense, the Croatian speed demon will have a massive burden dragging it down (literally). Then again, it’s always a question of time before someone invents an antidote for this nemesis of EVs.