Koenigsegg: Aston Martin Valkyrie should be faster

But Swedish brand not worried by hypercar rivals.

Stephen Ottley

07:1407 September 2018

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Koenigsegg: Aston Martin Valkyrie should be faster

The Koenigsegg Agera RS is the fastest car in the world, but Christian von Koenigsegg admits the new Aston Martin Valkyrie should beat it around a racetrack.

The Agera RS claimed the title of world’s fastest car with a top speed of 457km/h on a public road in the US in November 2017 but now faces new challengers - the Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG Project One.

Aston Martin has set the goal of making the Valkyrie as fast as a Formula One car around a racetrack, using assistance from F1 team Red Bull Racing and its legendary designer Adrian Newey. While Mercedes’ performance division has created its first bespoke supercar using a development of its F1 turbocharged V6 engine as its powerplant.

Koenigsegg can’t match the resources of its new rivals but in an exclusive interview with Drive, the 46-year-old isn’t worried about either the Aston Martin or AMG.

“As far as I know they are all sold out with a lot of people not getting them,” Koenigsegg told Drive.

“So if they were a threat, I think the threat is over. See what I mean? Everyone who wanted one got one, and a lot of people missed out and we’re still selling cars. I don’t know how to look at it, it might have been a threat, but now it’s over.”

While Koenigsegg acknowledges the Valkyrie is likely to be faster than either the Agera RS and Regera around a racetrack he believes anything less would be a failure for Aston Martin considering the resources and partners involved in the project.

“Let’s put it like this... if we take Valkyrie being designed by Adrian Newey, V12 by Cosworth, light hybridisation,” he said. “The aero, looking at it, looks totally extreme, of course, and it looks like at a great sacrifice to interior space and this and that.

"My guess is that we would have a hard time being faster around a racetrack than that car, because if we don’t have a hard time then they really screwed up because they sacrificed so many other things. From the other aspects of comfort, driveability, useability, cruising at high speed on the autobahn and this sort of thing, they will have a hard time competing with us. Pure track driving - they would have done something very, very wrong if they’re not faster than us by the look of it.”

He also questioned the road legality of the Valkyrie given its extreme bodywork which, as far as he believes, won’t be legal to drive on the road in the US unless there are significant changes to the show car’s bodywork.

“In my mind there are two options,” he said. “Either it will look quite different when it comes out, or it will not be homologated for the US - one or the other… There are so many peculiarities that shape a car to homologation and when I look at it I think ‘Wow, it doesn’t seem to correlate to any of that’, as far as I can see unless they have some super-trickery.”

As far as the AMG goes, Koenigsegg believes it looks less radical in its design than the Aston Martin, but its unique F1-inspired powertrain makes it unpredictable.

“If you look at the AMG Project One it doesn’t look anywhere as extreme aero-wise, it doesn’t even look as extreme as our car aero-wise, but looks can deceive,” he said. “If you look at the venturi, the side it looks very simple aerodynamically, but looks can deceive. I'm guessing they have good aero, it just doesn’t look so radical. When it comes to the drivetrain who knows?... I don’t really know what that drivetrain can do, apart from watching Formula One. It’s difficult to say.”

Koenigsegg has begun taking Australian orders for its next hypercar, due to be revealed at the 2019 Geneva motor show.