Andy Wallace & Pierre-Henri Raphanel, Bugatti test drivers
Photo Bugatti
Andy Wallace and Pierre-Henri Raphanel have driven thousands of miles around the world as Bugatti’s test pilots. But where do these seriously speedy men find their favourite drive?
The former Formula Three rivals and Le Mans teammates have both held insane speed records, with Raphanel reaching 267.8mph in a Veyron Super Sport in 2010 and Wallace taking the Chiron to 304.8mph in 2019, but their most memorable road drives take quite different turns.
“If you like cars and you like driving a wonderful trip can can pop out of nowhere.”
Pierre-Henri Raphanel: “Most of my time recently has been spent driving cars for Bugatti and my homework was always to try to find roads for customer drive events. We were searching for roads in Dubai and Dubai has thousands of speed cameras which was clearly not what I was looking for. But then I found a road close to the Oman border – the Jebel Hafeet road. You could drive super fast because it was a combination of straight lines, long curves and double-width going up and down, so you could really use the performance. Nobody was there, there were no speed cameras. It was perfect.”
Photo Kent Tupas / Unsplash
Andy Wallace: “I remember doing a trip, probably about five or six years ago, through the Alps. It was Switzerland, Italy and down. And for once there was there were no roadworks anywhere and not much traffic. It probably took about four to five hours, I was pretty much on it the whole time, and I'll never forget that trip. I didn't have a very fast car, probably with just 200 horsepower but it was brilliant, going through tunnels, nice curves, and then every now and again, something really fast would go past and then you try and hang on to the back of it knowing that he's got three or four times the power you've got and it was just a wonderful trip. Some amazing road trips pop up that aren’t organised. You’ll just be on a drive somewhere and you get to the other end and think, well, that was a brilliant couple of hours, and it would be difficult to recreate that. I think if you like cars and you like driving a wonderful trip can can pop out of nowhere.”
Photo Yves Moret / Unsplash