Watch Atom 4RR set new Anglesey lap record
Ariel promised the 4RR was the culmination of 25 years - now it has the Manthey-beating lap time to prove it
Do we like the new Ariel Atom 4RR? A simple ‘yes’ rather undersells it. When Matt Bird drove it back in April, he genuinely had to have a lie down. In the middle of the day. On some grass. Even allowing for his snowflake-ish youth, that speaks to the sensory overload that occurs in a car which produces 525hp while weighing only 657kg. And sure, it costs an extraordinary amount of money - but the flagship is meant to be about excess. This is about Ariel taking things to the edge of the envelope.
How close to the edge? Well, sufficiently close for it to have broken the production car lap record at Anglesey. This is no mean feat, not when you consider that the holder of the previous 1:29.35 record was a Manthey Porsche 911 GT2 RS, a car that you hardly need to be told is banzai fast in the right hands. Or even the wrong ones. But the 4RR - the same one we drove, in fact, on road tyres - clocked a 1:27.77, in what looks like ideal conditions.
The man doing the driving was Phil Keen, Ariel’s official test driver, and you’ll get a sense of the gravitational forces at play courtesy of the accompanying lap video, where not even a healthy dollop of Vaseline on the lens dulls the all-action vibe. Ariel notes that Anglesey ‘rewards precision, agility and driver confidence’, which is true of pretty much any circuit, though we’d argue the nation’s most scenic track requires extra lashings of that final quality.
“The 4RR represents the most focused expression of that philosophy to date,” noted Ariel MD, Henry Siebert-Saunders. “Seeing it perform at this level, in the hands of Phil Keen, reflects not only the capability of the car but also the skill and dedication of the entire Ariel team.” At £208k plus VAT, the 4RR requires no small amount of dedication from loyal customers either - but the lap time is obviously a testament to what exactly that sum buys you, which is nothing less than one of the fastest cars in the world. If you're attending Festival of Speed next weekend, we heartily recommend you go see it for yourself...
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