The Abu Dhabi circuit is also famed for having a 1.2 kilometre straight,
one of the longest anywhere.
Seems like a good place to start. Let's make some noise.
Oh, that is breath-taking!
Nine thousand rpm. Boom!
Big speed!
Two hundred and eighty!
Braking...
Oh, that is... That is acceleration unlike anything else.
I know Jeremy's head was blown off by the speed of that P1,
but I absolutely cannot believe it felt any faster than this.
It can't have done.
Like the McLaren, the 918 has a joint strike force of petrol engine
and electric motors working together.
It's that electric power that gives it so much punch off the line.
I have 500 foot-pound of torque at 800 rpm... 800!
The 458 doesn't have 500 torques at any rpm.
It just wakes up. It's like a sprinter falling out of bed
and going straight into a world record
while the others are eating cornflakes and thinking about having a poo.
The petrol engine, which sounds ungodly through those top-mounted exhausts...
is a 612 horsepower 4.6 litre V8.
On the topic of power and performance,
the 918 and the P1 can trade punches all day long.
The 918 can't match the P1's top speed, 218 compared to 211.
But I get to 60 quicker, 2.6 seconds to his sluggish 2.8.
I've got 875 brake horsepower. The P1 has 903, but I've got more torque.
And on and on and on it goes. It's King Kong versus Godzilla.
There are some areas, though, where the 918 definitely has the P1 on the ropes.
It can retrieve energy generated by braking
and feed it back into the batteries.
The roof lifts out so you can enjoy some open-top cruising.
And inside, you get some actual creature comforts,
like electric seats and an 11-speaker sound system.
You don't get either of those on a P1.
I'm not one to gloat, but hello, glove box, yeah?
And then this centre console, from where I can control the top screen.
That does many things up there.
And then over 800 functions can be controlled
from the touch-sensitive screen down here.
Maybe I can go online
and order Jeremy a set of spanners to adjust the seat on his P1.
Look up old-fashioned for me.
In addition to the wealth of on-board amusements,
the 918 also has many driving modes.
Right now I am in fully electric mode.
And I can whisper around like this for 18 miles,
compared to the P1's seven.
But if I go down here, I can select hybrid.
And that allows it to alternate between petrol and electric
in the most efficient way.
Or we've got sport mode, where we have petrol power all the time.
But I'm here on this racetrack, so, let's go one further.
Put it in race mode.
Now the petrol engine is top dog.
The electric motors are acting as its wingmen.
It's time to attack some corners.
Hell's bells!
That grip!
God, this thing corners and I mean it... flat! Totally flat.
And there is none of that bottom-clenching terror
Jeremy talked about in the P1.
Partly, that is because where the P1 is rear drive only,
the 918 has four-wheel-drive and four-wheel steering.
I think in essence, yes, the P1 is more a proper fighter pilot,
seat-of-the-pants staff. This is altogether more civilised.
But that does not mean it's boring, because it just isn't.
The back end crates away like a rear-wheel-drive car.
What a thing!
But even though the 918 is more grown-up than the P1,
it can still boast some pretty exciting achievements.
The fact is, this car has lapped the Nurburgring in six minutes 57 seconds.
That is faster than any other road-legal production car.
To put it into context,
a hard-core Lexus LFA did it in seven minutes 14 seconds.
The mighty Nissan GTR was almost half a minute slower.
As for the P1, well, McLaren are saying it has gone round in under seven minutes,
but they're not saying an actual time.
I don't know, maybe they lost the piece of paper it was written on.
Or something.
With daylight coming, I locked up,
left the keys to the circuit under the mat and went in search of breakfast.
Full of awe for this incredible machine.
Here I am with 875bhp, a 4.6 litre V8 that sounds...
like that.
And yet the CO2 emissions are lower than a Toyota Prius.
And certainly, much lower than a P1.
I don't know, this is just all round a more impressive achievement.
It's more of its time. To put it another way,
McLaren have used hybrid technology to liven up a supercar today.
Porsche have used hybrid technology to save the supercar for tomorrow.
This is an important car.