FIRST DRIVE Koenigsegg Jesko Attack Unleashed on TG Test Track

That's a hypercar! This is a hypercar! No messing! Question. Can you drift a 1,600 horsepower Koenigsegg Jesko attack? Well, the car can do it. The question is, can I? Shall we have a go? All rev limits are broken! The Koenigsegg Jesko attack. Yes, it can do funny things to your insides, but just look at it. Have you ever seen more carbon fibre? Seen it done more beautifully than this? The Jesko follows on from the Agera. Only 125 are being built, with prices around the £2.85 million mark. It's a thing of considerable value and beauty. So should it really be ripping around Dunsfold like a racing car? Which it isn't, is it? I mean, it's barely even a car at all. It's more like a multi-million pound mobile artwork. No wonder no one drives them hard. But anyway, what's better than one carbon-bodied, 1,600 horsepower slice of exotic hypercar? How about two? Yes, look, we've got a pair of Koenigsegg Jeskos. A standard attack standard, and the Absolute, the current 0-400kmh-0 record holder. And I thought, why we have them here? I just used the opportunity to show you round them both. So let's start with the Aero. For the Absolute, all you get are these two little fins and 150 kilos of maximum downforce. The Attack develops almost 10 times more, with a maximum of 1,400 kilos. With 700 kilos already pressing down on it at 155mph. Regular carbon wheels not enough? The Absolute comes with spats for the rear wheels that alone give it a 5kmh speed boost. But the Aero's not just around the back, is it? You can stick a whacking great wing on the back, but you need to balance it at the front. So look here, the Attack has this big old front splitter, much bigger than the one on the Absolute. And then you come back over the front wings and look, conventional vents on this one. Whereas over here, you've got this gorgeous carbon work all drilled out. It looks amazing, in fact the whole bodies on these cars are just sensational. Including the wheels, €120,000 for a set, pocket change. I thought these things looked amazing with the bodywork down, so you could admire all the silvery carbon fibre. But how amazing do they look underneath? And actually there is quite a lot in common between the two. Both have the same 5.1 litre twin turbo V8, developing 1600hp if you can get the expensive E85 fuel. If you can't, they're still like 1260hp, so you haven't got much to complain about. They also have the same Koenigsegg's in-house 9-speed gearbox. I mean, there's a lot in common there, but then you get to the differences. Look at this, see this bar here? Look, that's just a simple damper for the rear axle to support, like a heave damper for the back. Look at it over here, look how complicated this is. It's got a whole spring system because it's developing so much more downforce, it needs more support. Different, completely different anti-roll bar design as well. But I could just sit and paw over this for hours, or I could go and drive it. Look at this. Add a bit more action to that. Oh yeah, here comes the theatre. Love it. Shall we? Now, the Absolute recently set some world record acceleration times, but I thought you'd like to see how fast the slow Jesko is. So recently, Jethro and I did a twin test between a McLaren 750S and a Ferrari 296. And in that, we said that there was nothing really faster on a public road than one of those cars. But this isn't a public road, this is Dunsfold. And I want to show you just how fast a Jesko Attack is. And this is the slower one, remember? Right, here we go then. So, double tap that, staging for launch, into full throttle, and go! 100 miles an hour, 120, 130, 150, 170. Wow, Dunsfold has never felt that lively before. Yeah, apologies there for the switch between miles and kilometres an hour. I was a bit preoccupied to convert the numbers. But let's pick a bit at the figures. The Jesko struggled for traction all the way to 100 miles an hour at dusty Dunsfold, getting there in 5.3 seconds, not much ahead of the McLaren and Ferrari. But where they need another five and a half seconds to get to 150 miles an hour, the Jesko is there in three. From 100 to 200 miles an hour, the Jesko is as fast as a Lamborghini Urus or Audi RS6 is to 100 miles an hour. Along the way, it went through the standing quarter in bang on 10 seconds at 170 miles an hour. We can just tootle around in comfort mode, can't we? Please? Can we? Please? Oh, YouTube, what are you doing to me? I know what you want. You want it all ramped up. And I'm thinking, holy hell, 1600 horsepower. Right, OK, we'll build up, shall we? So, comfort mode at the moment, gearbox in automatic, traction control firmly on. The gearbox, the whistling, that five litre V8 twin turbo. The fireworks coming out the back. Ride feels good. Actually, stability, all of that sort of thing, feels really, really impressive. Straight away, I wonder how that ride comfort is going to stay there as we knock it up through the modes a bit. God, it just, the force, I mean, this is full on, this is what 911 turbos do. And I'm in comfort mode. Jesus, it's just straight up to like 120 miles an hour. Just on the approach to the first corner, easy. OK, then, come on, I'll give you what you want. Right, sport. Oh, stuff it, let's go straight beyond sport to track. And I've got to confirm things. When I go to track mode, I've got to confirm things. Not for use on public roads. Brilliant. Now I've got access to my traction control settings. And the stability control, which is currently on and staying on. Jesus, right, OK. Right, down to hammerhead then. I mean, steering, precision of that front axle. Right, Jesus, Jesus Christ! Mother of, what's it? What's it doing to me? I've gone on the record of saying, oh, there's not much beyond 750S and 296 GTB in terms of performance and things. Oh, something has opened up a new world here. God, it's got a long travel throttle and I'm very glad of that. Listen to it, I mean, just hold on to it, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm going to have to put the gearbox back in auto, it's just too much to take on board at the moment. That's doing over 150 miles an hour on the approach to hammerhead. I've never had anything touch that before. But it's predictable, it's... I've just got to get it straight and my God! And I've got this orange dash thing on the dash that's doing all my G-forces and rotating around and it feels like an extremely luxurious Le Mans racer in here with this wraparound windscreen and hurriedly off we go. I'm just really struggling to process this at the same time as talking to you and trying to keep an eye on what the car's doing. I sort of want it in auto mode but I sort of want to pull the paddles too. Oh, the brakes are exceptional too and the pedal feel. You can hear it all, it's not a refined car, is it? Right, just back off a little bit, back off a little bit because... Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Right, this is quite something, this is really, really quite something. Look, if you're driving around in a Golf R or a Lancer or something and going yeah mate, I can totally be there, I can totally do that, what's he playing at? Honestly, this thing scrambles your brain, I've driven a lot of fast stuff. This thing, as far as road cars go, and race cars actually, is in a different league. 1600 horsepower, I mean, the force generating and I'm watching, I haven't got any say over what the rear wing does, that's just down there mucking around by itself going to low drag modes and everything. Okay, really brave, Bills. What am I doing? Going to off. Disable, yeah, I want to disable that. Electronic stability, come on then, let's have it off, so to speak. Right, manual gears, do I want manual gears? No, I'm going to go auto, I think. Wow! Oh, it can slide round Hammerhead. Hey, there we go. I sort of want it on for the rest of the lap though, the speeds are a bit dizzying. My word, just turn, hold. This is a proper experience because it's got a realm beyond anything else that I've driven. I mean, a Pagani Utopia is fantastic, but it's like not much more than half the horsepower that this has got. You just can't keep up with the gearbox, those nine ratios, the first five are basically all on top of each other because of the power of this thing. I just can't tell you how this thing accelerates the wheel spin up to 100 miles an hour. What happens beyond that? Oh my God, this now feels like I'm putting myself through ritual punishment for your benefit. I mean, I'm loving it, but my glasses are slipping off, my face is dripping in sweat. I just don't feel I'm scratching the surface of this thing. Getting your head around it, getting comfortable with what it's capable of, how friendly and accurate it is to drive. It's absolutely wild. And how much grip it's got and how composed it is. But it's mainly about, it does all that and other supercars do that, the realm beyond is when you're up above 120 miles an hour. Because what it does beyond there is just unbloody believable. How to sum up this most hyper of hypercars? The biggest revelation is that it's not just a power monster, but a great communicator. The brakes are mighty, it's best to let the gearbox sort things out itself, but the long travel accelerator is an absolute winner, giving you plenty of movement to realise exactly what you're letting yourself in for. 1600 horsepower. It's mad. Acceleration only really starts at 100 miles an hour, yet it's not snappy and volatile. Instead it's accurate and controllable enough to skid about, vaporising rubber. And yes, in case you're wondering, Stig did have a go. You'll be seeing the results of that soon.