Sebastian Vettel’s 2012 World Championship F1 car beaten by two electric hypercars in carwow’s latest drag race

07 August, 2023: carwow, the online car marketplace, has this weekend, released a drag race video pitting the Rimac Nevera against the McMurtry Spéirling and Sebastian Vettel’s 2012 World Championship-winning Red Bull RB8 Formula 1 car for carwow’s 8.3million YouTube subscribers. The Rimac Nevera won the day, and now stands as the quickest car ever filmed during a carwow drag race. The video, which has been live for just two days, already has over 2.3m views.

The vehicles were tested over three drag races, all stretching for 1/4 of a mile (402m), filmed at one of longest runways in the UK. Both cars were timed at 8.4 seconds over the quarter mile, but in the final race the Rimac crossed the line a few cm ahead, making it the overall winner.

About the Rimac Nevera

The Nevera is an electric hypercar with almost 2,000 horsepower, making it one of the most powerful production cars of all time. Retailing at £2 million, it’s also one of the most expensive EVs money can buy! It recently set more than 23 world acceleration and braking records in a single day and holds the current production-car hillclimb record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Despite that, it’s not a purpose-built track car. For starters, it has all the creature comforts you’d expect in a luxurious GT car. It was also the only vehicle in the race with two seats, driven by carwow’s Chief Content Officer, Mat Watson.

About the McMurtry Spéirling

The Spéirling is a 1,000 horsepower electric car, powered by a 60kWh battery pack and two motors driving the rear wheels. It became famous when it broke the outright hillclimb record at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2022. It can cover over 300 miles between charges on the road, or run for 25 minutes on the track at a race-car pace. carwow presenter Mat Watson was the world’s first journalist to drive the McMurtry Spéirling on video in December 2022, where it achieved the quickest acceleration times the channel has ever recorded. The McMurtry was driven by Alex Summers, a competitor in the British Hillclimb Championship.

About the Red Bull RB8 – Formula 1 car

The Red Bull Formula 1 car, previously driven by Sebastian Vettel when he won the World Championship 20212, was driven by Liam Lawson, part of the Red Bull Junior team and reserve driver for the F1 team. It is equipped with a 2.4-litre V8 that can produce 800hp. It’s easily the lightest car in the drag race, at around 700kg, and all power is sent to the rear wheels only.

Back in December, carwow presenter Mat Watson logged his fastest-ever 0-60mph time of just 1.40 seconds in the McMurtry Spéirling, covering the standing quarter mile in 7.9 seconds. For context, the 1,600hp Bugatti Chiron Super Sport took 2.3 seconds to hit 62mph from a standstill when carwow reviewed it.

Commenting on his drag race experience, carwow presenter Mat Watson said: “I’ve been waiting so long to compare these two record-breaking cars, and pitching them against an F1 car takes this race to the next level. This is the most exciting drag race I’ve ever done.”

Commenting on the race win, Mate Rimac, Founder and CEO of the Rimac Group said: “It’s an honour to line-up against two genius pieces of automotive performance engineering and even more overwhelming to come out on top. This result is thanks to years of dedicated work to ensure that not only is the Nevera extremely powerful, but that it’s also eminently usable; any one of our owners could go out tomorrow and do a quarter-mile run faster than a Formula One car. And with our advanced control systems and vehicle dynamics, we’ve finely tuned the Nevera into a car that’s confidence-inspiring on twisting roads, as well as extremely quick and exciting.”

You can watch the Drag Race here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCzCqqVGQYE

ENDS –

About carwow

Founded in 2010, carwow exists to give everyone car-confidence. With 3.5 million monthly users, we are the go-to destination for buying or selling a car. carwow sits uniquely in between customers, automotive brands and car dealers. Because we don’t hold any stock, we don’t mind which car consumers buy or sell, we’re here to help them make the right choice for them.

Since its launch, carwow has:-

• Raised $157m from some of the most prestigious technology, marketplace and automotive investors, including Balderton Capital, Accel, Vitruvian Partners, Episode and Samos
• ‘Sell My Car’ service where consumers can easily list their cars at a great price, while letting dealers buy used-car stock directly from the platform
• Become one of the most influential names in consumer car media with the biggest automotive channel on YouTube with +8million subscribers fronted by Mat Watson, reaching 1 billion+ Youtube view in 2022
• Created an award-winning service that customers love, with a 4.7* rating on Trustpilot from over 40,000 reviews
• Opened offices in the UK, Germany, Spain and Portugal with a combined team of 320 people

For the latest reviews and videos, carwow Youtube, carwow Instagram, carwow LinkedIn, carwow Twitter or see carwow blog for the latest news on all things cars.