First Drive: 2022 Pagani Huayra R (for print)

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Why here? Why Vallelunga? More specifically, why test the mother of all Paganis at what is seemingly the most obscure race track in Italy?

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Oh, Autodromo Vallelunga — but 32 kilometres from downtown Rome — is a nice little track, its tarmac pristine and its tightly banked switchbacks punctuated by a long, con-rod-stretching front straight. But as the venue to test the latest and greatest of Pagani Huayras when storied Monza and the incomparable Misano are just around the corner doesn’t seem to make sense. So why Vallelunga?

According to Christopher Pagani, marketing director of the eponymous company and son of founder Horacio, it’s because Pagani has been testing its latest, and supposedly last, Huayra here.

Maybe, but the real reason we are testing the latest Huayra here is because, well, Vallelunga is one of the few race tracks in Italy without noise restrictions. The residents of Vallelunga are either the most understanding of suburbanites or the most hard-of-hearing.

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This last Huayra is an ‘R’ version which means, in the finest tradition of Pagani’s own Zonda R, Ferrari’s FXX, and the recently-reviewed Lamborghini Essenza, it’s a track-only supercar. In other words, mufflers are optional. In fact, when you buy a Huayra R — 2.6 million euros, or ’round about CDN$4 million when you include HST — you get two different versions of the company’s iconic 12-into-four Inconel 625/718 “bundle of snakes” exhaust system, one with some semblance of muffling, and one without. One guess as to which one we were running.

How loud was it? Loud enough that it hurt despite the fact that I was wearing the same sound-suppressing 32-dB earplugs I use when I am racing motorcycles.  Officially, a muffler-less Huayra R pumps out something close to 140 decibels. Imagine a shrieking Ferrari 458, only with four more pistons and the decibel output of an NHRA Top Fuel rail car.

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Thankfully, there’s more to Pagani than just sound and fury. Indeed, the source of said fury is an 850-horsepower V12 and is blindingly fast, at least in part because, blessed by not having to have a radio, air conditioning, and, well, mufflers that go part and parcel with road legalities, the Huayra R weighs but 1,050 kilograms.

Unfettered by noise legislation, licensing legalities, and emission regulations, the Huayra R’s engine is a clean-sheet design, completely unrelated to the twin-turbocharged Mercedes AMG “M158” V12 that powers road versions. In fact, the R’s V12, of which only 30 iterations will ever be built, doesn’t come from Mercedes-Benz at all. Rather, it’s built by a little-known racing firm called HWA. The “A” in “HWA” represents Hans-Werner Aufrecht, who is also the “A” in AMG, and whose new office is just down the road from AMG headquarters in Affalterbach.

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And rather than be laden with turbochargers — which real racers hate for their non-linear power delivery — the HWA 6.0-litre V12 achieves those 838 horses the old-fashioned way, through high revs. The result is a big bore — 87 millimetres — rev monster, bolstered with titanium connecting rods and an ultra-light forged crankshaft. And proving that dumping turbochargers really is the way to produce linear — that should be read controllable — power, the HWA beast pumps out its maximum 553 pound-feet spread of torque all the way from 5,500 to a seemingly impossible 8,300 rpm, this last the highest engine speed I have ever seen peak torque maintained in an automotive engine. The throttle response at high rpm, as you might have guessed, inspires respect. If you need more power than this to light your fire, you really need to strap yourself to a Saturn rocket.

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Good, then, that the Huayra R’s handling is up to it. It shouldn’t come as any surprise. After all, it, again, weighs virtually nothing, it’s shod with the very gummiest of Pirelli PZeros – slicks, no less – and, as a coup de grace, boasts no less than 1,000 kilograms of downforce at speed. Somewhere north of 250 kilometres an hour, the Huayra’s tires are being pushed into the tarmac with a force equal to twice its body weight. Yes, F1 racers boast more, but I haven’t driven anything this fast with downforce equal to its static weight.

Throw in a tub that, thanks to Pagani’s blending of carbon fibre and titanium threads in a single weave, is a formidable 51 per cent stronger in torsional rigidity, not to mention a suspension system being developed for the company’s next-generation C10 supercar, and you have one of the most advanced track cars on the planet.

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Now, here’s the weird thing. Despite its aggressive stance, that truly outrageous motor, and downforce befitting a GTP racer, the Huayra R is, by track-focused supercar standards, a complete pussycat to drive. The over-riding impression I had when chasing Pagani’s official test drive Andrea Palma — the lap record-holder at Vallelunga — was the seeming nonchalance with which the R generates its speed. While Palma’s Roadster BC was slithering hither and yon, my Huayra was a model of neutral-handling decorum. No matter how hard I chased — and I was braking as deep as I dared — I could not get the carbon-fibre Huayra to under- or over-steer.

Francesco Perini, Pagani’s head of technical office said benign behaviour is exactly what they were after. That’s because the R’s target audience will be, thanks to that 2.6-million-euro price tag, “gentlemen” racers, some with little experience on race tracks. Indeed, everything about the Huayra R’s chassis is meant to balance front and rear traction. Even those 1,000 kilos of downforce are almost perfectly balanced with a 46-54 front-to-rear distribution. The “active” part of the aerodynamic package, meanwhile — essentially the inside aero flaps are raised dramatically more than their outside counterparts during hard cornering — keeps more weight on the inside Pirellis, again providing more of that balance when the R is cornering at multiple g’s. Add in the least intrusive traction control system I have yet tested on a supercar and not only can the Huayra R generate massive amounts of speed, but it makes doing so a doddle.

Hopefully, the lucky 30 who’ve ponied up the requisite 2.6 million euros — one here in Canada, a Quebecker if rumour serves — will abuse its good manners as much as I did. A garage kitten, the Huayra R does not deserve to be. If you don’t believe me, just start it up. I dare you.

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