300th issue special: Cracking 300kph, 3 times

We’ve hit 300. Not just on the newsstands but on the road, too. In fact, we are the only publication to officially (and legally) hit 300kph on Indian roads, not just once but several times. Hitting 300kph is like strapping yourself to a low-flying missile. At that speed, you’re devouring 80 metres of tarmac every second. The world around you shrinks and narrows into a tunnel. The minutest of steering inputs prompts a big change of direction; a slight crosswind can nudge you into the next lane. The wind shredding by the A-pillar sounds like a tornado. And after you’ve finally swallowed your fear glands, you can’t help but break into a big, fat grin when the speedo crosses the 300kph mark.

300kph is not just a number; it’s a badge of honour that gives you some serious bragging rights. It’s the point where cars go from seriously fast to something insane and has been experienced by just a handful of drivers.  

So, for our 300th issue, we are celebrating this milestone of speed by reliving our special moments of triple-digit sorties. Buckle up!

300kph in an Audi R8 V10

The idea was to set a new top-speed record in India. But did such a record exist? Unwittingly, it did. When Jaime Alguersuari, in his Toro Rosso Formula 1 car, hit 324.2kph on the back straight of the BIC during the inaugural Indian Grand Prix in 2011, he became the fastest man on Indian soil. That was the target, a record waiting to be broken so that we could unequivocally claim that no man or machine has gone faster. But where and how? A just-completed section of the Outer Ring Road in Hyderabad was the venue we homed in on after an intensive search across the country – a seven-kilometre super-smooth section of road not yet opened to the public. The car? The 610hp Audi V10 Plus, which was more than capable of hitting 300kph and doing it easily.

Aiming the R8 V10 at the horizon, selecting Sport to ensure the DSG ’box obediently shifted up at the 8,500rpm redline, and mashing the throttle rocketed me forward. And all I had to do was focus on the road. Easier said than done. Near-Vmax crosswinds meant constant corrections at the wheel; a pimple on the road felt like a bump and a gentle bend felt like a tight corner. But I kept my foot in there and crossed the 300kph barrier and then some. When the V10 engine hit the rev limiter in 7th gear, I knew the R8 was maxed out. The speedo read an incredible 338kph, though the true speed on the satellite-based VBox timing gear was 331kph. And with that run, I also became a member of the 200mph (321kph) club. For the record, Aditya Patel hit a true speed of 332.2kph in a previous run, a record that would stand for seven years until we ourselves broke it!

First timed 0-300kph run in a Mercedes-AMG GT R 

Who would have thought there would be a place in India where hitting 300kph would seem like a walk in the park? Such a place now exists, and it’s called NATRAX. This state-of-the-art test facility just outside Indore, with its 11.3km high-speed track, is India’s new temple of speed. It is here you can max out any car. It is here that records are meant to be broken and re-broken. And it is here that you can hit 300kph with impunity and ease. The AMG E 63 we brought along soon after the track’s opening set the tone for that special day, elevating Renuka and Shapur to the 300kph club.  

But it was the AMG GT R that had a special mission: to be the first car to set an instrumented and official 0-300kph time. Yes, 0-100kph is our most important metric, and we occasionally manage to record a 0-200kph time, too. But 0-300kph? It had never been done in India before. 

Staring down one of the long NATRAX straights, I engaged launch control, took my foot off the brake and simultaneously flattened the throttle pedal. With a chirp of wheelspin, the 585hp twin-turbo V8 GT R catapulted forward, and I was pushed back in my seat. 100kph came in 3.69 seconds, 200kph flew past in a smidgen under 11 seconds, and 300kph took the entire 2km straight and a wee bit of the banking to be despatched in 33.03 seconds. No car in India had ever been tested from a standstill to 300kph – until then.

And yet, this achievement would pale into insignificance by what we were to do next.

358.03kph in the ballistic Battista

The future of speed. That’s what the Mahindra-owned 1,900hp Pininfarina Battista represents. And it’s a different kind of speed with mind-bending acceleration no ICE car can match. Activating launch control feels like you’ve been shot out of a cannon, and the Battista is scary in a straight line, pulling in the horizon like the Millennium Falcon in hyperdrive. On that memorable day of unadulterated power and speed, we set seven speed records, with three of them being world records! The crowning glory (for me) was to set a top-speed record of 358.03kph and effectively become the fastest man on Indian soil. Renuka had a go in the Battista, too, and was a whisker slower at 357.10kph to become the fastest Indian woman in the world. And through the quarter mile, the definitive acceleration benchmark, the Battista clocked 8.5 seconds. And to put those numbers in perspective, it eclipsed the earlier quarter-mile record of 9.1 seconds clocked by Gautam Singhania in a heavily modified 1,000hp R33 Nissan Skyline GTR.

The astonishing part is how easily these records were set. No drama, no fuss, no hysterics of a vibrating engine screaming away at max revs or lurchy shifts of a high-strung gearbox. In fact, the nonchalance and ease with which the Battista scythed past 350kph felt like a non-event. It was completely the opposite of the white-knuckled, heart-pounding ride I experienced in the Audi R8 V10. The utterly linear and matter-of-fact way in which the Battista delivers the goods is something that’s hard to comprehend. Think of it as a ballistic missile wrapped in velvet. That’s what hypercars of the future will be when the world finally goes all-electric.

Also see: 

Autocar sets new top speed record in India

Autocar records first 0-300kph time in a Mercedes-AMG GT R 

358.03kph: Autocar India sets new Indian top speed record with Pininfarina Battista