As YouTube comments go an accusation of not having big enough guns to drive a
Lamborghini Huracan
has to be one of the more amusing. "Bro u even lift? #chickenarms" asked an apparently outraged 'Crispy Surf' in one of the few comments not to pour scorn on the repeated headbutting of the rev limiter in our
onboard video lap
'Chickenarms' Trent about to hit the limiter
Quite reasonably the general gist was 'just how rubbish a driver are you to not be able to upshift an automated gearbox before the limiter?' Only expressed in rather more forthright terms, as is the typical YouTube commentator's forte.
Now if I was particularly worried about what YouTube made of my driving I'd have not put the lap up but the rev limiter issue on the Huracan is an interesting one. On my first few laps I left the Anima switch that controls everything from throttle to dampers and gearbox to stability control in Strada and then Sport modes. In the manual setting I was surprised to find it upshifting automatically some fractions of a second before I was even reaching for the right-hand paddle. Which seemed unnecessarily cautious. So into Corsa mode and the promise of the full range of the rev counter.
Now, your full complement of 610hp - it's written on the side of the car - doesn't actually canter in until the engine's turning at a rowdy 8,250rpm. According to the rev counter the red line is at 8,500rpm. But it's proper peaky normally aspirated motor so no complaints there. Thing is, when you're chasing a man in an Aventador you need all the horsepower you can get but on several occasions I hit the rev limiter just before I was about to upshift. Wary of this I got more cautious about when I pulled the + paddle, to the point where when the 'needle' on the simulated analogue rev counter in the Huracan's fancy new TFT screen reached '8' I'd pull the paddle. Even that wasn't always quick enough to make the shift before the limiter.
610hp - but can you actually access it?
Either there's lag in the response to the paddle, the dual-clutch transmission wasn't shifting fast enough (unlikely, given that it's the same unit
as the R8
and should be near instantaneous) or there's a delay between the crank's actual revolutions and what the 'rev counter' displays on the screen. Or I'm just a rubbish driver.
I was considering the latter when I read Travis Okulski's review on Jalopnik, in which he said "There is a software issue with the tach right now, in that it doesn't accurately read redline, so you hit the limiter a lot. They are working on fixing the software."
So I asked Lamborghini's PR to confirm or deny. We're still waiting on a reply and will update as soon as we have one.
All of which might come across as an overly defensive reaction to a bit of a bashing on YouTube. But given this dash display will be coming to the new TT and, no doubt, many other 'group' products if there's a glitch you'd have to hope it gets sorted quickly. OK, so a small lag in the rev counter probably won't be an issue for most TT owners. But if it denies Huracan drivers the full 610hp they've been promised - and makes them look like hamfisted idiots if they go hunting for it - Lamborghini may have cause to feel aggrieved that Audi didn't test this before 'gifting' the tech to its supercar subsidiary.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I clearly need to get down the gym.
'#Chickenarms' at work
