McMurtry Speirling falls milliseconds short from new Goodwood record

As we reported before, McMurtry Automotive promised to do its best at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed with its new and track-ready Speirling EV.

Piloted by Max Chilton, the car finished the climb in 41.29 seconds. He made another attempt and was able to shorten the result to 40.056 seconds, but never reached the 39.9 seconds shown by Romain Dumas piloting a Volkswagen ID.R earlier. With the gap as small as two-tenths of a second, we can imagine how frustrating it felt.

The Speirling is a one-seat electric hypercar that weighs under 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds) and thus has a power-to-weight ratio of 1,000 horsepower per metric ton. It needs less than 1.5 seconds to get to 97 km/h (60 mph) and maxes out at 240 km/h (149 mph). Dual fans in the back and an aerodynamic body kit work together to press the car to the road with up to 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) of downforce at its top speed.